January 26-28 - Hong Kong

Unfortunately, I have little to say about Hong Kong, this time around. It was a wonderously massive and crowded city with a British infrastructure and Chinese culture on the surface. The neighborhood I stayed in, Tsim Sha Tsui, felt a lot like Chinatown in NYC, some streets with extended neon signs covering every inch of open sky, others lined with designer name outlets, all streets with a foreign/Western face every tenth person or so. Historically it was and still is an international port city. It's also ten times as expensive as SW China, on par with Seoul prices. I tried to explain this to a navy duo I bumped into in a touristy marketplace:

Me: "Hey are you guys traveling to the mainland after Hong Kong? If so, you should hold off on that silk shirt and buy it there. I bought this same one for a tenth of the cost here, maybe $3.

Crew cut: "So, what you're saying is, it's cheaper there...?"

Me: (faltering) "Um, yes, that's what I'm getting at.."

Crew cut 2: "We can't go there. We're in the navy."

Me: (to myself) "yeah, I picked up on that..."


The photos from Hong Kong speak for themselves


Also interesting - a pro photographer's China series - click on Hong Kong architecture inside