Lunikon

As you might have figured this is the first post on this blog penned
in English. Since everyone and everything is done in English over here
and I want my new friends to be able to read my babbling, English will
be the language of the Hong Kong category on this site. But enough of
this, let’s get to my first report.

We (Nils, Mark and I) arrived
yesterday after a quite pleasent flight on Finnair. I’d call their
service "scandinavian"…meaning cold but efficient . But hey, I had
the oppertunity to fly both on an almost brand new Embraer 170 and a
virtually historic MD-11. The first had an impressive level of space
for a plane of this size category, the latter was "nice" for nostalgic reasons
but we actually had less seat space then on the regional plane.

The
first thing that strikes you on leaving the plane and that gives you a
hard time every day after as well is the, for my taste, extreme
climate. Temperatures around 30 degrees are not that special, but
combined with a humidity of around 80% or more you start sweating
seconds after leaving air-conditioned rooms. Walking over longer
distances is somewhat exhausting and the constant changes between icy
chilled rooms and tropical outside don’t really improve the experience.
Anyways, I have to and will get used to it at some point in time I
guess.

Enough about the weather tough. The city by itself is
plain awesome. Something that I haven’t experienced like this
before…ever. First of all there is the scale: On the one hour
bus-ride we left the impressive Hong Kong Airport, we came by parts of
the huge harbour of Hong Kong (Emma Maersk or one of her sisters was
sitting at the quay) and had a nice view over the bay filled with ships
of all sizes. As a European you’d probably call this sight "chaos" but
everything seemed to work just fine. On crossing the city limit of
Kowloon one has to be stunned by social differences that are both
extreme and obvious: Right next to modern office buildings with
mirrored windows and dozens of stories you find run-down houses in
horrable conditions. All mixed up without clearly seperated districts
or slums. Also quite unfamiliar is the "3-dimensionality" of the city.
Neither Walkways, roads or train tracks are limited to a single level.
Everything crosses from underground to plain level to elevated. You
might enter a mall over a door in the second level and leave it to the
underground. Besides that you can walk across the whole city without
ever leaving covered walkways…which is a really good thing since
walking in the sun is unbearably hot and strong rain showers can occur
at any time.

Well, I’m writing too much again. I will continue
writing at some other point in time. Just that everybody knows: I
arrived just fine, the city is great, we made new friends fast and
easily and we’re having a lot of fun and a great time. Next time I got
to tell you about Hong Kong high tech and our first experiences with
Hong Kong nightlife.