August 20, 2005
Hong Kong and Taiwan
I'm back from Taiwan and Honk Kong and had an excellent time. I'll try to post a full itinerary with comments soon but for now let me start off with a few general impressions.
Food in each city can be cheap. Most of our meals were 5 US dollars or less. We made an effort to eat only Chinese food, and in some cases this caused us a bit of discomfort as places that seemed to be poular with the locals occasionally had food that was not so great for us. I had a couple of stomach aches actually.
The subway systems (MTR in Hong Kong and MRT in Taiwan) are easy to navigate, easier than those in Seoul and New York for example. Buses are more complicated. In Hong Kong there are several bus stations around Central/ Star Ferry Pier and we wasted a couple of hours walking between them on a few occasions trying to figure out which was the one we needed. But riding ona doubledecker bus can be pretty neat if you've never done it before.
There's more English spoken in Hong Kong than in Taiwan, but not as much as in Malaysia. Outside of hotels and large restaurants we did a lot of pointing and I don't know if I ahve crooked fingers or what but several times I got the wrong meal or drink. Normally I would point to waht I wanted and read the English. That's not always enough in either Hong Kong or Taiwan.
As I said earlier, I'll have more for you soon. I'm still organizing my thoughts...
Posted by James Trotta at August 20, 2005 2:33 PM
I miss Hong Kong too.
Posted by: Kenji Tsukahra at August 21, 2005 2:32 AMI was fortunate enough to have had a local business family that was our tour guide for 3 days....I would have been lost without them, however I found the food and beauty of both Hong Kong and Kowloon incredible, and was fascinated that all the cabs were clean and the same look. I got a great deal on a TAG watch and I had a chance to visit local apartments where the locals live and couldn't believe the cost to buy as well as rent. I thought getting up early to go to the parks and watch Tai Chi (I know I spelled this wrong) was terrific and we actually hiked up the mountain to the top and then after a few beers took the tram down...I would go back again
Posted by: Gary Thompson at August 23, 2005 11:58 AM