Taoist monks
So, I almost got “took” on the streets. The only place where
we ran into any characters you might consider shady was after the light show
while we were on Kowloon in an area Kinsey referred to as the Vegas strip. Pat
and Kinsey were ahead of me, and two men wearing the garb of Taoist monks or
priests approached me and one acted like he was blessing me, he hugged me and
blessed me some more. He hung some beads around my neck and another set on my
wrist. When I reached for the neck beads he said “hunnerd dolla” (one hundred
Hong Kong dollars is about $14 US). I handed the beads back against his will
and removed the wrist ones, he said “twenny dolla”. I returned them, threw some
small coins his way and went on with Pat and Kinsey. I didn’t check until
later, but they had every opportunity to take my wallet and phone – they had my
arms up as the guy hugged me so could have stripped me of my valuables so
easily. A lesson learned the easy way, thank goodness!
Narrow sidewalks
You can’t imagine how narrow the sidewalks are in places
here. That in itself isn’t a problem, but when the mass of humanity called rush
hour comes down the street, something has to give. We try avoiding the small
streets during the worst of the human traffic periods, but you have to get used
to it. You always have to be alert while walking down the street – no rhyme or
reason to pedestrian traffic flow. It’s surprising how few collisions there
are.
Selfie sticks
The tourists here are shameless with their use of selfie
sticks. You see it not only at the standard tourist spots (although it’s worse
there) but most everywhere. About 1 in 10 tourists are using them. I was hoping
that was a fad that never caught on.
Similarly, everyone – EVERYONE – is looking at their phone
even as they walk in crowds coming toward them. I mean 80 to 90 % of the people
on the subway or coming/leaving. Again, somehow, they don’t run into people
very often.
Bamboo scaffolding
One of the weirdest things is with all the construction.
They need external scaffolding for whatever they are doing of course. They use
3 inch diameter bamboo of varying lengths, strapped together with reuseable
zip-ties to make whatever scaffolding they need at the moment. We saw them with
this scaffolding as they installed a skyscraper window, about 10 stories up.
Incredible faith in the strength of the materials.
Pat’s comments:
I “get” why I like it here: everything is so efficient and people
follow the rules! I saw a dog lift his leg and the owner immediately leaned
down to spray the urine with a spray water bottle. Kinsey says that’s the
expectation here. No wonder I don’t smell nasty smells from pets or humans.
Yesterday we took a 30-minute ferry ride over to an ex-pat,
high end community to enjoy the beach there. Again, the ferries dance across
the water, all seemingly aware of who’s going where and at what time, avoiding
one another as well as the larger container ships passing by. The ferry seats
were like old-time first class seats on airlines, with pristine head covers
that are likely changed daily. Pure luxury.
Today, we rode up the mid-level escalators. These are
inclining escalators (“travelators”) that are above the street level, hugging
the steep incline of the mountainside. It took about 30 minutes to climb to the
top. Then we climbed some more steps. Hong Kong makes San Francisco seem almost
flat! The fun part turned out to be taking a ‘light’ bus (not a double-decker)
down the roads back to the center of the city. Almost felt like a Disney ride!
This is really a fun city, with plenty to do, see, eat,
enjoy, etc. Too bad it’s such a long flight!
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