Show n' Tellin' It: Hong Kong

Playing along again, below's my latest installment of Show n' Tellin' It. You can find my other installments here, and more lovely Show n' Tellers there.

As for the installment, and the accompanying photos, it's all about Hong Kong - somewhere I wasn't even sure I cared to go, yet now is somewhere I'd go back in a second. Cuz the THING with Hong Kong is it's FASCINATING.

Cuz while the food was amazing, and the clothes were cheap, the thing that got me was the EXPERIENCES and the EFFICIENCY - this city, is CRAZY well-organized for a simple-minded tourist like me.

Like when we went for lunch at a little Vietnamese place, and the restaurant was packed? They got people in a booth to GET UP, let us in the corner of their booth, and then shove back in around us while we all ate separately but just shared a table.

Or when we went from one subway line to the other, we NEVER had to go up and down any stairs or through other gates like you do in London - you just go straight across the SAME platform?!

Or when you look up, EVERYTHING is up. Buildings are up, apartments are up, air conditioners are up (and everywhere), EVERYTHING is up. And it's not that there's not groundfloor businesses, it's that there's another 30-60 floors stacked on TOP of those businesses, and not just in one corner of the city, EVERYWHERE in the city.

And then there's the whole lit-up-street-signage thing that is just not something you can explain or understand until you walk for MILES and MILES through it, and then oddly, it just ENDS, and everything returns to normal again. It's like there's these little POCKETS of craziness, but WELL-ORGANIZED craziness, the kind of craziness that makes for EXCITING craziness... completely the opposite of the Bangkok craziness (which is a whole 'nother craziness category in itself).

But mostly, it's the people. The people were INSANELY speedy and there was SO damn many of them, we just couldn't ever get over how it always felt like there was an EVENT on, and the train had just stopped, and let them all OUT, yet there was NO event and there was NO train - JUST people. Endless people. Nice people. Helpful people. But very very BUSY people.

And last but not least is something we didn't capture very well on camera - the cleaning staff who all sat in outdoor hallways and underneath awnings on their DAY OFF (we researched to check it wasn't just lunch break) - even on the rainy days. They'd just sit, and have lunch, and play games, and hang out - OUTSIDE, in the rain, but just OUT of the rain.