Category: Life in Hong Kong
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From the people who brought you Palazzo in Fo Tan (Sino Land and the MTR) comes another hilariously overblown marketing campaign for Lake Silver in Ma On Shan. The TV adverts have Palazzo-style opera-lite music and computer graphics, and on Wednesday the SCMP came adorned in a glossy full colour advertising wraparound that even referenced…
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Picture the scene: it’s raining and you are looking for a taxi. There’s one with the “Taxi” light on. You get closer and notice that it’s “out of service”. Maybe the driver is waiting to pick up a passenger who has made a telephone booking; or it could be that he is only interested in…
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Someone kindly recommended www.bookdepository.co.uk a few weeks ago. They ship books to Hong Kong and they don’t charge for delivery. Hurrah! Amazon (both UK and US) also ship to Hong Kong, and offer much bigger discounts. The problem is the delivery charge – Amazon UK add £4.99 per shipment plus £2.99 per item (i.e. £7.98…
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Now TV is getting a good kicking in the SCMP from readers who are not at all happy that Australia TV is becoming a subscription channel (after previously being free). PCCW weasels (for it is them) issued a statement saying that this was done after consultation with Australia TV, but it appears to be the…
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Saturday’s SCMP had a short news story quoting Chief Secretary Henry Tang Ying-yen as saying that he would like “to see no more roaming charges when people travel between Hong Kong and Guangdong.” Well, wouldn’t we all? However, it’s probably not going to happen: An industry source reacted strongly to Mr Tang’s suggestion, saying: “Telecom…
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Today’s Sunday Morning Post has a large photograph of a supermarket shelf, to illustrate the fact that all the price labels are yellow. Yes, really. Short history lesson. Until a couple of years ago, ParknShop (for it is them) used to have mainly white labels, reserving yellow for special prices. Except that “special” would include…
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Supermarkets in Hong Kong are constantly trying to trick their customers with bogus discounts. It's not exactly news, but yesterday's Consumer Council report provides confirmation of something that most people in Hong Kong must have noticed. I think we're all used to those ridiculous yellow labels in ParknShop that advertise so-called "discounts" that bear no…
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Well, I visited the computer fair in Mega Box (Unfair competition) and what a horrendous experience that was. They claim to run a shuttle bus from Kowloon Bay MTR station, but it actually leaves from the far-end of the Telford Plaza mall, and of course there was a long queue, so it probably would have…
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Continuing my occasional series on Hong Kong’s least loved companies, now it’s the turn of PCCW, or more specifically Netvigator. Or, to be precise, the complete nonsense that it is their interactive phone menu system. I wanted to find out more about their 30 mb/s fibre broadband. Their website give a phone number and says…
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A few weeks ago I suggested that there aren’t any zebra crossings on public roads in Hong Kong. Apparently I need to get out more, because there are a few scattered around. In fact, last week the sub-Standard reported an accident on one in Shau Kei Wan: The driver of a light goods vehicle was…
Ordinary Gweilo 