With John Mayer blasting in my ears I thought I'd take some time to write... I want to use this opportunity to blab about something I've grown to love in Hong Kong.
Kowloon Tong, Tsim Sha Tsui, Mong Kok, Central, Shatin and University are many of the MTR stops that I have become quite familiar with during travelling in HK. Living in LA I don't use the subway, and the times I have used public transportation I was left disappointed. Hong Kong is pretty small, but big at the same time. There are a lot of places I haven't been, but I've been to just about every "main" neighborhood. But there are somehow about 200 outlying islands that are HK territory, or so I think.. so of course I haven't dropped by ALL of them :) Here is what the train map looks like in the HK MTR(which is what the train system is called here). Looks pretty standard right? The difference is, instead of these trains coming every 10 or even 5 minutes they come about every 2 minutes. Funny thing is, the MTR is one of the best places to see that overpopulation that everyone talks about.. One minute the train will look like this
Then..........
BAM!!!
It feels like all these people just appear out of no where. I mean it when I say that, so let me say it again, they appear out of NO WHERE! It's moments like these that you just gotta love Hong Kong, otherwise you will not last. I've had to get used to holding my breathe to avoid smelling the frequently awful breathe of the men (and women) standing half an inch away from.. oh and of course rubbing butts with the creepy Chinese men, cause that's always the highlight of my day ;) lol. It may come as a surprise, but this is actually one of the many things I love about HK, good ol' reliable public transportation.
Oh yea.. I wanted to mention a little about how most people pay for the MTR, including myself. Hong Kong has this awesome card or system, not sure how to describe it, but it's similar to most city metro cards that are reusable. The difference is this card is accepted in majority of stores, vending machines, 7-Eleven and sometimes restaurants. This infamous card is called an Octopus Card. Its basically like a credit card, or prepaid one, that I can use just about everywhere in Hong Kong. Just recently I got my permanent one! Another picture :)
As seen in the picture below:
1: Tap
2: Push
3: Go!
This picture was not planned :) Just luck!
Now, for my next post, I want to introduce you to Macau. It's an island near HK and quite frankly the only place to legally gamble, it like another version of Las Vegas! Oh and I fell in love with this Portuguese Chinese mix of awesomeness! A sneak peak....
Good night XOXO
Courtney
