Day: July 1, 2007

Went to Kowloon again to watch the fireworks celebrating the 10 years of the handover to China. It was absolutely packed… so many people. Went with Thomas and his kid Alexis – very cute and smart kid 🙂
Rode the subway for the first time – ultra high tech. There are no dividers between the cars – the entire train is a continuum making it very cool to look down the train and see it bend on the turns. You use the Octopus card – you simply hold it close to a reader and your fare is paid – the amount you pay depends on how far you go – just like the highway tolls in Europe. You can also use this card to pay for food, ride the tram, ferry and so on – basically a debit card. It is already being embedded into cell phones, watches and even jewelry. Very high tech.
We then went to his house on the eastern side of the island to drop his kid off and to eat something. Went to a delicious Chinese restaurant inside the Cyber Port – an office hub for media and technology companies… another amazing building.

The taxi doors open by themselves – the drives controls them.
Every building has plastic bags to wrap your umbrellas in not to wet the floors inside.
It’s clean – very clean – I did not see one single cigarette but on the floor. Trash cans with ash trays are everywhere.
The Ferrys cost about 10 USD cents – the ones that go farther away like to Lama Island costs about 1.25 USD.
Bamboo is used as scaffolding.
Taxes here are only 16%. The only things that are taxed here are alcohol, cigarettes, cars, and gas. I might be missing one.
Local restaurants do not have napkins… if you want one, they will actually sell you a little package of Kleenex 🙂