From here we ventured all over this crazed island and its peninsula.
I was amazed over how few traffic there is! After reading up on it I also understood why there were so many expensive cars around. Because there are heavy taxes nobody owns a car. Except the super rich which then don’t drive the next best Toyota but a German brand or some super sports car (yes we saw McLaren, Lamborghini & more for hundreds of thousand dollar worth parked in front of rundown Chinese restaurants…).
Anyway, nobody drives themselves around but takes either the superb metro, the super cheap tramway (okay, not the fastest way but you get there), one of the many busses or one of the abundant and fair priced taxis.
So we headed over to the mainland into Kowloon and Mong Kong to visit the flower market street (street full of flower and plant shops) and the gold fish street (you guessed it, a street full of aquarium fish stores). Especially the fish stores were a crazy sight: the outsides lined with little plastic bags with tiny fishes or huge aquariums bursting with fish...
A thing you shouldn't miss is the horse races on Wednesday evening. Huge crowds gather to drink, chat and maybe have a look at the race ;). Because every other kind of gambling is illegal the locals go crazy about it. The betting shops all over the city are always full...
To relax from all the city troubles we spent an afternoon on the southeastern side of the island. A tiny bay and beach to relax and forget your just around the corner of a giant city.
Speaking of giant, the shopping malls...! Every luxury brand in the world seems to be here. With shops big as grocery stores at home. And even more so the Apple Store: two huge floors and still long lines at the entrance. Everybody wants an iPhone... On the street we saw vendors selling them by the dozen like they were candy. And not fake or cheap ones, the prices were more or less the same as in Switzerland. All because the mainland Chinese come for shopping to Hong Kong to avoid the huge luxury tax they have at home.
Generally, the money we saw people throwing around was crazy o_O.
Luckily (for us ^^) we found stores for "normal" people as well and could indulge in a bit of shopping without going bankrupt!
The time passed way too fast and it was time to leave... :(
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| Bamboo scaffolding all the way! |