Shopping Hong Kong

I had a pretty intense go at things today. I woke up this morning at about 9 am, looked out my window and was surprised to find that considering I'm in one of the most densely populated cities in the world at rush hour, there were like 5 cars on the road. I wondered about this. I wondered about this until we went to Kowloon, which is the shopping district. You see it turns out that all 8 million people were there, trying to walk up and down the roads, or alternately run the walkers over in their car. The pictures at the end sort of capture the insanity of being there.

Essentially the idea is this: There are thousands of shops, all selling the same thing: one of electronics, food, or clothing. As far as I could tell, all of the stores of a given type were exactly the same. For example, every electronics store had an iPhone surrounded by other smart phones, surrounded by other types of phones. These were always on the left side of the doorway. Furthermore, no store had any prices anywhere, you had to ask someone to tell you the price. This strikes me as exceptionally inefficient, but I'm sure there must be a good reason for doing so. Anyways, it turns out that electronics are about the same here as they are in PG.

UNTIL we went to Chungking Mansions, that is. The first two floors of this building are devoted to shops and such. (Mansions is a complete misnomer. It is actually a 60 year old death trap of a building with cheap rates). These shops are run almost exclusively by East Indian people, and they sell electronics on the CHEAP. Indeed, I held in my hands an "iPhone". An iPhone without a touch screen and with 256 megs of flash memory. Yes, that well known model of iPhone. Anyways, I laughed at the people trying to sell it to me, and then left.

Once I decided not to give my money to someone who is outright lying to me, we took the subway to the actual Island of Hong Kong. (I am not on the island of Hong Kong, I am on the peninsula, in the district of Hung Hom) This island is pretty intense. It has incredibly urban zones, with skyscrapers larger than I've ever seen, and then a park, or a big old hill, with nothing but trees on it.


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After wandering around the Island for a bit, we decided to take the tram up to the top of one of these hills to a place cleverly named "The Peak". This place was some kind of tourist heaven. It is 8 stories high, with glass walls, and escalators, and every floor is covered in glorious tourist-y shops.

You know how in Canada, when you go into a tourist shop, they have all sorts of lame stuff like moose and maple syrup? While these shops have basically the Chinese equivalent, except instead of being lame, it is 100% awesome. Or at least I think so. And so too better the people whose presents I bought today. These two shops right beside each other had about the most concentrated amount of coolness I have encountered in a long time. I did about half my Christmas shopping in a range of 5 m.

It also has a Madame Tussaud's, which was awesome. Dr. Chen and I went in, and we took some quite excellent pictures. They are basically comic gold:



Then we got to the top of the tower, and we had some pretty damn epic views. I've tried to capture them, but it just doesn't do it all justice. The misty city in the background, with skyscrapers rivaling forested hills, and the ocean stretching off into the horizon is about the greatest thing ever.

The major thing I have noticed about Hong Kong is that it is very easy to get around, and very very cheap. A bus ticket (anywhere in the city) is about 50 cents Canadian, and a subway ticket is not much more. Plus, they make it very convenient, with this card you just wave at the machine to pay. You don't even need to take it out of your wallet. I am still not really sure how this works, and it largely doesn't for me, though no one else has a problem. The other major difference is that their light switches work opposite to how I'm used to. Oh, and there is the whole "In China" issue. But by and large, Hong Kong is just a more intense version of Richmond. Waaaaaaaaaaay more intense.