Hong KongMapAugust A mountain with an observation deck towers above the city. I hadn’t been there before, so I decided to see if I was missing out on anything. There’s a cable car which goes to the top, but it involves two hours of waiting in line.  So it makes more sense to just take a taxi. By the way, taxi drivers in Hong Kong have a special lever to open the back door. So that the passenger needn’t trouble himself.  A view of the bay and skyscrapers opens up from the top. The only impression I walked away with is once again being surprised at how relatively small the city is.  The vast majority of the population lives in regular dingy shanties of the type common in Asia. The same thing can be seen in Japan, in South Korea or in China. I wouldn’t want my reader to fall under the impression that everyone lives in orderly glass skyscrapers with gilded lobbies.  Every slope of the mountain is reinforced with cement and has an inventory number.  There shouldn’t be any landslides.  End of pedestrian zone.  A fire hydrant.  A street trash can.  The city’s residents put empty water jugs into crates with their numbers on them. Then a truck comes by, collects the empty containers and replaces them with full ones. There’s no running around delivering water to apartments.  A line for the bus.  The double-decker trams are still the nicest thing there is in Hong Kong.  |
