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| Hong Kong from the top of Victoria peak |
I stayed in Hong Kong for 10 days in Dec 2013 for a conference. But the actual conference was only three days and the other seven days was my holiday. I'm writing this post in Hong Kong as my flight to Paris is tomorrow morning. I'm staying up don't want to fall asleep. I hope to get a good sleep on the plane to Paris. Anyway, y first impression of Hong Kong is it's an amazing city full of dollars and luxuries. I remember when I was on the coach going to my hotel from the airport I saw high raised multimillion dollars apartments decorated with beautiful neon lights. At that time I am thinking this city is another New York. As soon as i checked into my hotel room brain said let's explore and see what this city can give. I am an explorer and a traveler of course. I like to compare to different things to get the best of them. But I thought it was too late and didn't proceed my plan but managed to go out for a couple of hours for my dinner. My first dinner in Hong Kong cost me about 100HKD. I didn't realise it was expensive that time until the next day when I was walking on one of the popular streets. I saw there were so many restaurants and stalls with much cheaper prices less than 50 HKD.
Anyway it was an experience. That's always happen especially when we are new in that place. I continued my exploration. As I'm walking on a street with multimillion dollars building on both sides I noticed they use lots of bamboos scaffolding. It is very strange because they don't look safe at all but according to the local people I've asked. Bamboos scaffolding is very cheap hence maximise the contractors' profits. This is indeed very dirty way/trick of minimising the cost. However, in terms of infrastructure development, HK is probably having one of the best in the world. I don't think UK, France or Germany has the facilities what HK can offer. For example the trains services is every minute and the latest is every 3 minutes where in those countries could take up to 5 to 8 minutes in their capital cities. On the other hand, night life in HK is alive every single night. It seems like the city never sleep especially eating places, markets , bars and pubs make most streets never get dark.
So how about the society or the people? I'm not sure how do you measure politeness but they never hold the door for you and they certainly never say thank you if your gave a way to them. Saying thank you or showing a sign of courtesy is almost null in their life. These sort of acts is probably something very strange for them. Cutting or jumping a queue is something normal. I dare to say this because I have experienced it several time when I was in HK, It happened in fast food restaurants and counter tickets.
Finally I never been to a city where I caught bugs so quickly. Only in HK because the air is actually polluted badly. I had a few bad days in HK but I must say I had an amazing experience as well. HK is a beautiful and very nice place to visit but I don't think it's the best place to live in the world.
