While it’s more less SOP these days to complain incessantly about travel, I have to say, all things considered the trip here wasn’t all that bad. My baggage was overweight, so I had to pay extra at the counter for that. But I can’t hardly blame them, and it was cheaper to do that than ship the stuff. Even though I’m a pissant Asiana Gold member they shuffled me into the elite status check-in as well. Security was its quotidian pain, but that’s to be expected now. Luckily for me I scored a fistful of Ambien on my way out of town, so even though I was in the middle seat of the middle row it was survivable. I think, maybe, having done a fair bit of long haul international travel in the past few years I’m just kind of used to it. It’s like going to the DMV, you know it’s going to suck, and it does suck, but you bring a bunch of books to pass the time and then it’s over.
Since I arrived just this past Sunday, I haven’t had a lot of time to explore and investigate. Spent a lot of time in the offices of the people who are my customers. The first impressions of Hong Kong are really about the scale and crowdedness. It’s really hard to explain, but it makes Manhattan seem a bit spacious and open and New Haven seem like prairie. For example, in the mornings the subway cars are more numerous and more spacious than NYC cars and they have no seats during rush hour. Even with that crush of humanity being transported I think the trains on the Island line (the one I take) have to come by every two minutes or less.
Nearly every office building of any size has skyways or flyovers to the train stations. Again, it’s hard to explain the scale, I should take some pictures but even doing that it will be hard to understand. Put another way, on Monday I was with a client in a fairly standard, nice office building. At about 12.30 it was announced we should maybe get lunch and we should hit the food court. I was expecting the usual mall food court in the US, some frozen pizzas tossed in on oven and maybe a noodle shop. Instead the basement of the building held what was essentially a small supermaket, 8-10 pretty decent places to get takeout, a butcher/seafood cooler, a fresh juice bar, and a tapas bar.
I’ve been thinking about what it’s like to be an expat again, but I’ll leave that discussion to another day. So far, so good.
Fun facts
Buses in HK have signs on the sides, public service announcements of sorts, stating that ‘Illegal sub-dividing of flats can lead to death!’ I assume this means if you sleep six in your 400 sq ft apartment, for heaven’s sake don’t push you luck with eight. The whole city in many ways looks like an elaborately crafted fire trap. I hope the fire department is well paid and well trained.
Zhang Ziyi, the actress who played jailbait super babe Jen in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, is advertising for Oil of Olay on Chinese TV. At a spinsterish 32 who looks like she’s maybe 20, a fine time to be pimping anti-aging creme, I guess. BTW, I looked her up on wikipedia and this picture (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ziyi_at_Sogo.jpg) is of an intersection that’s about a five minute walk from my temporary apartment. I get on the subway under the sneaker billboard.
My first week in HK is BY FAR the longest time nobody has told me I look like Penn Jillette, the fat guy from Lost, Jack Osborne, or various other unsavory characters. Thanks Hong Kong! I won’t call you ugly either!