Leaving Hong Kong

So much to do, so little time...  here is another mega-post of miscellaneous pictures from HK as I am on my way to Tokyo via Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon).   There are many food related pictures in the mix because I love to eat out.  There are amazing restaurants in Hong Kong by any cosmopolitan standards.  I've eaten Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese, Italian and Spanish during my week here and now I wish I had taken more pictures in those restaurants.

Stay tuned for pictures from Japan!

A busy metro station.  The Hong Kong subway is called the MTR (short for the Mass Transit Railway).

Waiting for the train to arrive.  The outer glass doors were added to several stations a few years ago after a number of people threw themselves under the train.

I bought my adult single journey ticket from this machine with a touch screen.  iLove :)

 

Getting on the Hong Kong MTR (video, 29 seconds)

The 32GB version of iPhone 4 costs HK$ 5,888 (US$ 760), which is exactly how much it costs in the States (with tax).  In Hong Kong, it is sold unlocked (not carrier specific) and without a contract.

An Armani store in a shopping mall.

The rooftop swimming pool at my hotel.  A wall of the pool is made of glass so watching someone swimming is like watching a fish in a aquarium.

How do you write NIKOLIĆ in Chinese?

A Pizza Hut stand in a shopping mall.

Perhaps the most visible British colonial influence in the streets - double-deck buses.

A Chinese dessert - green tea flavored bean paste in a clear jello.  The jello itself had no taste, just texture.

A very good Chinese restaurant.

A market on Nathan Road, the main thoroughfare in Kowloon.

Another winner for the company I work for.

And another, right on Nathan Road.

I'm supposed to be the first on the left.

If I stayed longer, I'd definitely go to this retrospective.

Tickets are around US$10.

Apple juice and grape juice in twist tubes (from a Muji department store).

This friendly taxi driver has a flowering plant in his "office".

Spitting is a big offense in Hong Kong.  This is a decal on the inside of a window in a taxi.  The hotel pool had a prominent sign that said "No spitting in the pool" in English and Chinese.  Is that the worst thing they could think of that one could do in a pool?

The same taxi ride with Mr. Flowering Plant.

Most days were hazy, very hot and humid.  I thought New York was bad in the summer, but the steamy heat in Hong Kong was too much.

Passing the port of Hong Kong on the way to the airport.  Express departures to Long Beach, CA around the clock.

That clarifies it.

Not as sweet as the Heinz ketchup in the USA.  Which is good.

I wish I had picked up this magazine before my last day in HK.  In NYC, one could live by it.  Clooney was not on the actual cover but on a half-page advertising flap.

United seems to have picked the worst and the oldest airplane in its fleet for my flight from Hong Kong to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon).  The experience was almost as bad as flying JAT.  In this picture, I am holding the Vietnamese immigration form which had a very communist look and feel.

The Vietnamese coat of arms on the left reminds me a lot of emblems from Socialist Yugoslavia that were everywhere when I was growing up.

Next up - Tokyo!