ok, it’s day three and here are some more random observations:
- There is an IKEA (with big blue and yellow sign) in the basement of a building in Causeway Bay retail area (i.e. downtown in expensive real estate, something unheard of in North America). And twice now I’ve seen someone carrying a large IKEA item – once downtown, and once off the ferry on Cheung Chau island
- Octopus card – can use for contactless payments at some stores (e.g. 7-11, Circle K, St@rbucks)
- Octopus card – can go negative HK$35 (comes off next top up or card deposit refund). A very handy feature as yesterday my HK$2.30/US$0.30 tram fare was more than I had on my card. Oops. No problem – it just debited the fare and I had negative one HK dollar on my card…
- Octopus card – the card checking machine (which shows balance) also shows last 10 transactions (amount and date), although you’d have to have a good memory if using that to double-check usage
- The tram runs on dedicated right of way, and very frequently – often two or three trams back to back. Reasonably quick, with stops pretty much every major block or two.
- Traffic lights go red-yellow before green, like in Europe
- Cantonese/English Look Left and Look Right messages are painted on pedestrian crosswalks (both are needed because of one-way roads, and of course it depends which way you are crossing
- My St@rbucks card worked: similar price $3 for grande soy misto (we’ll see if it counts towards my rewards program, although it’s probably a bad exchange rate
- $150 for a pair of not-so-fancy name-brand pants (Tommy Hilfiger?) in Sogo department store. Really?
- One morning I saw 29 wi-fi signals at breakfast. Crikey!
- Steps tend to be rather steep and narrow here – I don’t think I’ve ever used handrails so much!
- Some eateries use stainless steel plates instead of styrofoam – I applaud them.
- Quite a few pedestrian flyovers, as well as long pedestrian bridges (sometimes next to a raised road, sometimes freestanding)
- Lots of A/C everywhere; annoyingly you get blasted by it while walking on sidewalks due to open doors. How is that excessive power usage environmentally friendly? (for that matter, how is making everything electric/automatic, like faucets and advertising signs on subway escalators, green or helping reduce dependency on oil?)
