The Bad: Traffic

To go the 2 miles from our place to Wan Chai can take thirty minutes. Not awesome, but I'm assuming Shanghai will be worse.

The Good: Wan Chai

Wan Chai has it all; the life of Suzy Wong, The Old China Hand (and other bars), some restaurants, and a whole lot of trouble. Great place.

The Bad: Sweet Pollution, bro

Everyone in Hong Kong will tell you that all the pollution in the city comes from the mainland. Whatever, if you buy the shit that comes from those factories, you too are responsible.

The Good: Star Ferry

Plugging back and forth across the ever dwindling Hong Kong harbor for a cool 100+ years, the Star Ferry has been a favorite of mine (and every tourist to visit) for some time. Great cheap date: buy a couple beers at 7-11 on the Kowloon side, board the ferry right around 8pm and watch the buildings get their flair on for the Symphony of Lights. Total cost of about 25HKD, depending on your beer purchase.

The Good, The Bad, The Hong Kong

I'm going to post pretty relentlessly this weekend with my thoughts on the past two years or so I've spent in Hong Kong. With the move on Sunday, it's time to take the leap, turning notions into what I hope can pass as insights. There will be pictures, links, and a whole lot of pontificating.

Five Potential Hong Kong New Year's Resolutions

A quick rundown of 5 ideas for any Hong Kongers (expat and local alike) yet to settle on a New Year's Resolution:

1. Start dressing for the temperature rather than the date. Yes, it is officially Winter, but it is also about 68 degrees outside. Yesterday at least 85% of the people I saw were wearing some combination of boots, parkas, scarves, and hats.
   
2. Walk with some sense of purpose at rush hours. Hong Kong has a glorious 350 kilometers of hiking trails (just in the big 4 trails) within easy reach of where ever you are in the fine territory. When the urge comes upon you to stroll at a leisurely pace, go for it, but maybe doing so on the sliver of sidewalk beside Queen's Road at 7 pm on Wednesday is not the right choice of venue/moment.
3. Never go to Lan Kwai Fong again, unless you have visitors in town and want to show them a spectacle. Really, its the only acceptable reason to go and that you are just hearing this from me is almost incredible.
4. Spend at least 1/3 as much time with your children as your maid does. Seriously, if you find that you absolutely need to have your maid with you and your family at all times (including, but not limited to beach trips, back to school shopping, LouHu tailor visits, and holiday dinners) this might be an area of life worthy of a quick re-evaluation. Just send the kids to boarding school if you don't want to be bothered with caring for them during your free time.
   
5. Support local artists, musicians, charities, and brands. Hong Kong is what it is culturally partially because the only acts that can garner any support are Oasis and Lady Gaga. Go to Clockenflap, check out Schoeni, Exit, and Osage galleries, listen to A Roller Control and Chochukmo. If the event you go to ends up sucking, at least you can be ironic and make fun of it.
   

Kraftwerk

I once spent two hours watching four Germans in tight fitting black clothing stand behind synthesizers and in front of a huge screen of flying pills. However, the screen certainly changed with every song, and at one point there were four robots in place of the Germans.

Given the opportunity, I would most certainly repeat the experience.

First Post (hopefully also not Last Post)

Summer in Hong Kong is no joke. Humid, hot, generally horrid weather mixed with the scents of wet markets, decomposing trash, and the guy standing next to you. Gruesome usually, uncomfortable constantly, tolerable only indoors. A long slog, but we didn't move here because it would be the easy life. No, we are here for the action, adventure; sweaty summers be damned.

This afternoon I get my new China visa, and Saturday we storm the mainland to celebrate the 4th of July. The celebration will include a pool, a tailor, Japanese food and beverage, topped off with a KTV dessert. After we recover, I will push further up the Pearl River where hotel meals and Corporate-ese awaits. Deadlines to meet, deals to discuss, margins to analyze. Later in the week I'll pull a quick 18 hour tour of duty in Shanghai, avoiding the glitz and glam, and embracing an early morning car ride to the middle of nowhere.

After the trips to Malaysia and Idaho over the past 6 weeks there's little hope of any kind of quick vacation in July or August. Worse yet, we have now entered into the Hong Kong Public Holiday Draught (aka, Bring on the Level 8 Typhoons, Please). From July 2nd until September 30th there will be no random long weekends, sneaky Tuesdays off, or even the previously unknown Buddhist holiday to keep us out of work. Here's hoping for a strong gust of wind, black rain, and level 8's.