Hong Kong

Chinese, not really sure!

 

After traveling on the road from Shanghai to Beijing, I found the cost of a flight from Beijing to Hong Kong to be much lesser than a train journey would, so I flew across the border and managed to save time on this route.

 

The flight did a stopover in Zhengzhou – which was nothing unusual until I realized I had to switch terminals during the stopover as flights to Hong Kong departed from the international terminal! When I almost missed the connection, I discovered that flights to and from Hong Kong were considered international routes – as if Hong Kong was a different country. Even the Chinese were experiencing restrictions on traveling into Hong Kong.

I spent two nights in the city of skyscrapers and between sidewalks filled with Eastern and Western goods. Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated cities on the planet with most of its population living in skyscraping, concrete tower blocks. This is certainly a city with neither ground nor sky!

October 2011

Moments

Did you know...

- That HK has the most skyscrapers in the world, with 8,000 buildings having more than 14 floors, almost double that of New York.

- It boasts one of the world's highest per-capita concentrations of cafes and restaurants at one restaurant for every 600 people.

- It has the world's most affordable Michelin star rates dishes at less than USD2 per dish.

- Approximately 3/4 of Hong Kong is rural, comprising of 24 country parks, scenic hills, woodlands, reservoirs and coastline easily accessible from the city.

- It was one of the stops in French writer Jules Verne's "Around the World in 80 Days" published in 1873.