jules.com.au

7 months, 25 countries, 25 flights, and 93 beer varieties later we arrived in Hong Kong. Coming from Jordan (and hence omitting India) it was a longer haul flight than we’d had for quite sometime, and we experienced proper jet-lag for the first time, really, since beginning in Hawaii.

We spent a fantastic week marveling at the transport efficiency, cleanliness, indescribably fantastic (cheap!) food, delightful weather and general excellentness that Hong Kong has to offer. As in Berlin we found an apartment to sublet for most of our stay right in the SoHo area after spending a couple of nights in the frenetic Mongkok district on the other side of the harbor.

Hong Kong demonstrates the advantages of a high density city, something Australian cities really lack – and will probably never be able to emulate. In our personal survey of metro transport Hong Kong has dethroned Vienna as the king of metro systems. And to think the brilliant Octopus card system (deployed in 1997, now helping me buy both metro trips and beers from 7-Eleven) was actually designed by an Australian company…

From a tourism perspective, there is stacks to do in Hong Kong, it’s all easy to do, and it’s almost all very cheap. Eating out is also ridiculously well priced. The only expensive thing is the accommodation. Although that’s not as pricey as an average European city, or Melbourne.

We felt a strange sense of home-coming being back in Asia after traipsing around the globe – as Jules C. pointed out the other day we’re almost done in longitudinal terms. The timezone, the cuisine and of course Asian people reminded us continually of home. And, well, the VB on sale at the supermarket also. If they’d had Coopers I probably would have caved and bought some. Actually I must admit I did buy a decent sausage roll from Starbucks on Lantau island.

There are many attributes which help make Hong Kong an excellent city to visit – and perhaps to live also. Not least its excellent location sort of in the middle of the world. I highly recommend you stop over the next time you’re passing through.

Tags: hong kong, rtw

This entry was posted on Monday, December 7th, 2009 at 23:13 and is filed under RTW2009. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.