Hong Kong subway trips

Bead shopping in Hong Kong.  I was not looking forward to this, but it turned out a bit of a touristy type of exercise.  First find out where to go via the Internet.  It appears to be an area about 6 km north of our hotel, conveniently close to the subway line.  We bought two Octopus cards, similar to 

London's Oyster Card. The subway is clean, fast, and very efficient.  

As usual, all the streets look the same: shops forever with six story apartment buildings above.  A small amount of beads, and lunch was required.  Ever tried to place an order with a counter lady (who wore an air hostess type hat), who does not understand English? Rose did not want to eat, but we ended up with two meals anyway. Once the order was placed, we sat down to wait for our meal to arrive.  The people at our table were amused by this and pointed to the other end of the restaurant, where there was a counter, at which you queued up with your ticket.  Talk about fast food, it was a bit like Macdonalds.

Home for a well earned rest, the out again to look at Hong Kong across the water from the waterfront.  

Before coming to Kowloon I was not looking forward to crowds of people all pushing and shoving and being generally rude to each other. I was surprised and pleased to find none of this, given there are lots of people here, that almost without exception, people are relaxed and behave very well.  If you ask for directions, they usually have a language problem, but are friendly anyway.  We felt safe on the streets, even at night.

The will be my last post,  except for a piece on the Italian Railway System.

We return to New Zealand next Monday.