These are some of the observations I have when I was in Hong Kong.

Housing

Hong Kong island [香港岛], parts of the Kowloon Peninsula [九龙半岛] and the Tung Chung [东涌] area of Lantau Island [大屿山] looks quite mountainous, and you can see that in most of the photos I have taken. I am given the impression that on while on paper Hong Kong may have a large surface area, but a lot of it is mountainous which makes it very expensive for construction. In fact, even Lan Kwai Fong [兰桂坊] itself is built on a slope as I remember making my way up after coming out of the Central [中环] MTT station.

After a few days in HK, I have become quite reluctant to make my way down slope for fear of going the wrong way and then having to make my way back up again. The only place that reminds me of this is probably that stretch of road behind Lido. Perhaps that’s the reason why the land and housing in Hong Kong is very expensive and yet very small. My colleague joked that had Lao Lee been Chief Executive of Hong Kong he would have emptied out those mountains and use the soil for land reclamation.

Transportation – MTR and Bus

I like the fact that I was able to get to most of the places I have visited by the main mode of public transport – bus and MTR (the equivalent of our MRT). Being able to read both Chinese and English, and understanding the Cantonese announcements over the PA system is a real plus in Hong Kong. Of course, the announcements are also repeated in Mandarin and English for the benefit of the Chinese mainlanders and foreigners there..

By the way, I didn’t really use the buses there, and never once the cab, since I managed to find my way to where I wanted to go by MTR using… well… Google.

While using the MTR, I also observed that while some of the stations always appear to be crowded, the trains come often enough to clear much of the crowd. Other than in some of the farther out areas like Tung Chung, I rarely have to wait more than 2mins for a train in the city area even during off-peak hours. That’s very very unlike the experience I have when traveling with our MRT. Is it a wonder why I keep whining about Singapore’s MRT?

Anyway, it may be true that going by the key performance indicators, Singapore’s MRT is really nothing to complain about but I doubt it would have passed at all if they take a commuter satisfaction survey not by sampling, but at places like Boon Lay, Pasir Ris, or Yishun MRT. One of the key reason is the long standing periods one has to suffer unlike the Hong Kong MTR where there is a large turnover every few stations to make seats available. There is really not much we can do about that, since the satellite town design of our city makes this an inherent problem with all modes of our transports – be it bus, taxi, MRT or even by car.

Before I forget, I must also point out also that the HK MTR website recommends to you the best path of travel to minimise travel time and get to your destination when you are changing between lines. I rarely spend more than 30mins moving from one point to another using the MTR and the trains are almost always synchronised at the interchanges – i.e. by the time you moved across, the other train would have just arrived. If you think I am making this up you really need to go to Hong Kong and see it for yourself.

Transportation – Ferry and Tram

Curiously, there are also other modes of transports like the Star Ferry [天星渡轮] which transits between Tsim Sha Tsui [尖沙咀] in the Kowloon Peninsula and Central or Wan Chai [湾仔] of Hong Kong Island. I am not sure if they are still useful as the MTR also links these 3 places together conveniently. I took it once just for the fun of it though and I think it was like just 10 – 15 minutes from Central to Tsim Sha Tsui.

On Hong Kong Island there’s also an electric tram [电车] system running more or less from Central to Causeway Bay [铜锣湾]. I am not sure why this is kept there as the MTR is more convenient and way more efficient. But it’s really cheap… just HK$2 and you can use it for sight-seeing Hong Kong at leisure just by hopping on one that would transit the whole length of the route.

Customer Service

This is exceptional and I have to give them a very, very high mark. Once I asked one of the shopkeepers at the night market why the other shop was selling stuff at HK$140 for 3 pieces and he was selling me 2 for HK$158. The guy actually told me his shop also has stuff going at that price but the reason is that the ones I bought are 2-sided while the 3-for-HK$140 ones are only single sided. I thought he was bullshitting me and after walking some way down I actually asked another shop if the 2-sided ones are same price and the guy told me the exact same thing. And here we are arguing on our newspaper forum about service. * sigh *

Either way, I must have been really lucky because the sales people in Hong Kong are generally polite and courteous. In one of the them, they greet me as I entered the shop, approached me to offer assistance without being asked and stood by respectfully without hindering even when I waved them away. They may not be fluent but they generally try to reply in English or Mandarin when I use those languages, and they become even friendlier when I speak Cantonese. When I leave – even when I didn’t buy anything – they say thank you and good bye without giving you a dirty look and always with a smile on their faces. (I don’t care if they say bad things after I am gone.)

I am not saying all Hong Kongers are polite people, as I have also run into some rude and grouchy ones, but generally the service people do make an effort to offer assistance and genuinely tried to help you complete a purchase when you are in the shop. That appears to be quite lacking in Singapore, as you can at times stand around looking as stupid / lost as you can and no one would give you a flying damn.

Food

There is much variety of food and I didn’t have time to try them all out. Either way I won’t go into the details. I did try out some of the eateries though, and in Hong Kong you can forget about finding a table all to yourself or your friends. The people generally just check that there are no items on the seats, sit down and then go on to order what they want to eat since eateries are generally crowded during the meal hours.

As for tastiness, the food I ate is pretty alright and there’s definitely more variety than in Singapore. Service is quite fast most of the time and you only need pay after eating at the counter.

I also tried the McDonald’s once, and I think that they have some burgers we don’t have here. And maybe it’s just me, the one I tried seems different and was way better than what I ate here in Singapore.

In short, I think I like Hong Kong as the sales & service people (even those at the restaurants) attempt to make me feel welcomed. I may go back to Hong Kong again in the future because it’s really easy for me to move around and I have not visited some of the tourist attractions yet.