What I like so far in Hong Kong is the transportation. It’s a city of 10 times less territory and twice more people as Lithuania. But I have been only in two traffic jams since I have arrived here [In Lithuania I was getting into traffic jam every morning]. Maybe I was lucky going at some good times, when there is no traffic jams in the city, maybe I got good place to live [according transportation]. I live near the “transportation spot” – just on the next street there is entrance to MTR [underground], Tram stop [tram goes along Hong Kong Island], minibus and bus stops.
To my work I usually take minibus No. 69. Minibus is a bus with 16 seats and when they are full no one is allowed to enter – there are no standing places available. The reason for that is very simple, because they o fast :) and it’s really fast because sometimes they reach 70-80 km/h in the city. And when you go on a narrow bridge – road it doesn’t feel too slow, believe me. There are two types of minibus: green and red, so my main experience is with green ones, but they say that the red ones are going even faster. The verdict: minibus drivers are the same, a bit crazy in every country.
Thus I am satisfied with the transportation as it takes approximately the same time to go to work as it was taking in Lithuania: around 25-30 minutes. And I am sitting and resting, not standing in overcrowded trolley-bus :)
It seems that Hong Kong is the country where you need to say everything, otherwise people will not think of that. I mean they have many signs telling people what to do, what not to do, what to be aware of. Some examples: “Please, mind the gap between the train and the platform”, “please, mind your head”. They have signs “look left” or “look right” on the places where people are crossing the streets – this one actually was very helpful in the beginning, because the traffic is organized in the opposite way than in Lithuania, so I was mixing which side to look for a cars first. Buts it’s not only the signs that they have, but also additionally they play those notices in the public transportation on the speakers. And they always say “please”, which quite often doesn’t sound like to be natural and honest, but it’s better than just to say “do this” or at least much more fun to listen to:)
I have tried one interesting for me thing cucumber flavour potato chips. The taste is quite nice:) though very weird. Some info on potato chips market: they have got many types of Pringles chips (pizza taste, barbecue, extra spicy, normal etc.) much more than we have in Lithuania [I guess we have something around 3]. Also we have only Pringles chips that are made nice and are in the box. Here they have Lays producing this type of chips as well. The competition for Pringles is even bigger because there are some local brands of chips. They also have many chips made of shrimps and other seafood. I don’t know how they make it, but is it interesting. Just Estrella, being very popular in LT, is not that easy to get here – only in IKEA shops. I don’t eat chips acctually, just I somehow found this cucumber thing interesting so I tried it.
When I got to know that I will have TV in the room I thought that I will never use it, but now its quite good to have it. They have two free channels “TVB Pearl” and “ATV”. I do not watch TV often, but sometimes I watch late news [at 23 pm] – it is very good to know the current things happening in Hong Kong and in the world. Also they have David Letterman show on TV and some good movies. They like detectives I would say, because almost every day in the evening they have CSI Miami, CSI Las Vegas or some other series of this kind. So sometimes if I don’t go out with interns or if I am just tired and a bit lazy, I watch some episode of CSI. The movies they show are also a bit newer than the one we have in Lithuania, but it was very funny when they were announcing movies for Chinese New Year – and I saw some movies like “Darling, I shank up the children”, “Darling I grew up the children” (“Brangioji, as sumazinau/padidinau vaikus”) – its exactly the movies than in Lithuania we have on TV every Easter and Christmas. Every time the same. The other thing that surprises me about their TV is how much of social advertising they have. Starting from recycling, reducing pollution, promotion against ecstasy to advertisements such as “we are family and family means that every member helps each other”, and even the advertisements that it is illegal to pay the salary later than on the day agreed and that if manager does that, they can go to prison up to three years. They also have some soap operas at day time, but mostly Japanese – I saw some advertisements of that.
The place where I am working now in is the most beautiful place I have worked sofar and probably will be the most amazing place that I will work in the future as well. Just check the pictures and you will realize what I mean. We have the sea view with the ships passing by, the sunset view on the bright days. The place is called Cyberport and it is the governmental project to gather IT companies to one place. Cyberport is a complex of office buildings, restaurants, shops, and hotel. There is cinema, post office supermarket as well. To put in the nutshell – it is very interesting solution. Though the project has some criticism from public on the money spend and on the effectiveness of this project, the place is nice to work and convenient because we do not have problems in arranging our lunch. One funny thing – the elevators in cyberport do not have buttons inside. We press the button of floor we want to go and the system tells which elevator - A, B, C or D will take us to the floor needed. It’s sometimes pretty annoying when there are three elevators open and free to use, but the systems selects you the 4th one and you have to wait for that elevator to come. There is big contrast between the place I live in and I work in: I have very little space at home and everything is very tiny (as you see from the pictures earlier there is space only as much as the size of bed) and the workplace is very huge and spacious.
If you want to check more about Cyberport, the place where I work here are few links:
The most important thing and most popular way of spending leisure time is shopping. They can go shopping anytime, even just usual Monday, just after the work. It is really huge consuming culture. And Hong Kong people are crazy about brands. The most popular brand is “Hello Kitty”, which is Japanese brand if I understand it right. Even the older people buy things with this small kitty. You can get anything with this animal. But one thing is buying new clothes of famous brands, and looking good is totally another thing. Sometimes I really cannot understand how people [especially girls] can go on the streets looking like this. Some of them just put whatever they have in the wardrobe and go on the street – like really do not have the taste or some sense of style or at least understanding what matches with what. But some of them look really ok and nice. So this is very interesting for me sometimes.
Eating is the most popular habit. After shopping of course :) They eat almost everything here. The food is delicious, though I am still not brave enough to try few things – for example some mushrooms they eat. Sometimes it’s just better not to know what is the dish made of. Some dishes looks nice, some does not look that nice, but when you try it – the taste is ok. I can say that sweet and sour chicken is not that different from the one served in Lithuania. The variety of Chinese food is huge, as well as food of other countries. In Hong Kong you can find almost any kitchen of the world. Well they don’t have Lithuanian food for sure, and I don’t think they have some food of smaller countries- but all the others like Thai food, Indian food, McDonalds:) they have. I just wonder now if they have some Russian or Ukrainian one. I will try to find out. It am looking forward to trying lots of different food – I hope my stomach thinks in the same way... I am attaching the picture what i have sometimes for dinner
This is the place I live in - what you see is what i get :) - these three pictures cover all the flat. It is one room with a small personal bathroom. No kitchen and all the things to prepare the food. Usually the way they make the studio rooms is that the landlord gets several rooms flat and then rebuilds it and divides it in these small studio rooms. In my case, the flat was turned into 5 studio rooms. I am attaching some pictures to see the way studio room is organized and what kind of facilities are included in the basic “package” :) – usually TV, small fridge and air-conditioner of course.
Hong Kong. Are You sure you know what Hong Kong is? If you think that Hong Kong is a country or city – think again:)This time I want to introduce you the Hong Kong Phooey. It’s a name of the dog in some old western animation. Here you can check some videos of Hong Kong Phooey. Local people do not know about this one, I found this on You tube when I was searching some videos on Hong Kong, and also after I arrived here – my colleague Sefanja (intern from Netherlands) sent me the link. Please, enjoy yourselves!
