hey, how's about a little on Hong Kong - vol. 1

One of the greatest things about moving to a new city is the opportunity to explore it. My calendar, as previously discussed, appears to be fairly wide-open, and with that, I expect that I should be able to give tours of this town by the 4-month mark.

For anyone that hasn't been to Hong Kong, I offer a few high-level tidbits:

1) Hong Kong is one of China's special adminstrative regions (or SARs for short)....hmm....

2) the currency here is Hong Kong Dollars, and a Canadian dollar is worth about 8 HKD's.

3) feel free to check out wikipedia for the rest - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong

Hong Kong is an amazingly dense city, with skyscrapers sprawling out of the ground similar to Manhatten. The cool thing that I've noticed though is that when you get down to the street level, most of the time you forget about the 'big city' around you, and in its place is a local market type of atmosphere.

Before arriving, I really had a sense that I would stand out and was told on a number of occassions that I would be a giant. Thus far, I can report that people could pretty much care less about me....so my hopes of becoming a pseudo celebrity have so far proven errouneous. I will keep trying though.

In my first weeks here, I've been trying to play a game I like to call 'get lost', where I randomly set out on a route without a map or GPS device.

It's fun for hours, I recommend to anyone without a day job, or a night job for that matter.

Anyway, I've learned quickly that HK isn't set up so much in a grid (like TO or NYC), and more often then not, the best way to get from A to B isn't by traveling at the street level, it's all about getting above the city by the elevated connecting walkways, with plenty of escalators to help on the ups and downs. So far, I'm happy to say that I've been able to make my way back to the flat in one piece every time.

Finally, I must admit I have yet to pick up any Cantonese, I haven't sampled any yuanyang and haven't taken in the nightly light show...figure I have another 720 nights to see it. I promise though, I will do my best to continue to provide you all with a digital take on a city that never sleeps.

Me on the other hand, I'm getting a solid 10 hours currently....oh retirement....

Here's a view from my new sofa office.