Ordinary Gweilo

It’s always interesting to get a different perspective on life in Hong Kong, and I found one this week in Simon World. Simon is recently arrived in Hong Kong from Australia, and his blog is mainly intended for family and friends back in Australia, to let them know about life in the modern city of Hong Kong and what Simon and his family are doing. 

Simon works a 12 hour day for a large international bank and home is a luxury apartment complex overlooking the sea.  He travels between work by shuttle bus, and so has no need to use the city’s public transport.  However, he had to visit the Ngau Tau Kok industrial area in Kowloon, a world away from the Central Business District and his home in the nearby countryside.  He was impressed by most aspects of Hong Kong’s MTR (Mass Transit Railway):

I got onto the internet, looked up the MTR (train) network to find the best way to get there. I walked into the station – clean, spacious, well lit. I used my Octopus card to walk through the turnstile. These are stored value cards which work on all modes of transport plus in many shops and vending machines to boot. The display on the turnstile tells me exactly how much value is left stored on the card. Otherwise I could quickly pump some more money onto the card using a recharging machine in the station

After living in Hong Kong for several years, I suppose I have become accustomed to the excellent public transport system.  London has only recently introduced the ‘Oyster’ smartcard, but fares are higher and the network is much older and only the newest stations on the Jubilee Line Extension come close to the standard in Hong Kong.