Walking in the street today I saw this sign in a park in Hong Kong.
It might seem a bit strange to you, but there is some foundation for this. In China, spitting is normal, extended and generally accepted; at least in all three cities I have been before, and I do know than in many others too.
Hong Kong is really close to mainland China, and in fact, it is part of China, but they still have many english ways of living, and one of them is that spitting is not something socially accepted, as in the rest of the country, so they have set up local penalties to fight against that.
Hong Kong is one of those special places in the world for several reasons. It is a city in chinese territory, and now under the chinese flag (until 1997 this was Great Britain), but still with special agreements regarding passports (you do not need a visa if you come from the EU, for example), currency (HK dollar), driving (on the left)… and, of course, appearance.
It is also peculiar because they are a set of islands with many mountains, so the space is quite scarce. Its situation has been very important in the history, and therefore it is one of the economic poles in the Globe. That justifies being the second city in the world in number of skyscrapers.
I like this so far. It does not have many spots to see, but it is clearly different from the rest of China, which makes it interesting by itself in this trip.
And before I leave, here you are two more pictures from Shanghai.
First, a Buddha statue in the Jade Temple:
And also a nice view of a park. I like this kind of parks in the middle of the city. They are like oasis.
I did not know that Shanghai is going to host the Expo 2010, but it is quite obvious if you walk a little bit in any area of the city. So, please let me introduce you Haibo, the mascot of the Expo. It looks familiar to me…
Yes, I finally got to Hong Kong. This has been the worst day of the trip. First of all, I realized that my flight to Guangzhou was leaving from the wrong airport: the small old airport of Honqiao instead of the new one in Pudong with the fastest train in the world connecting the city and the airport. So, no fast train this time. When I got to the airport, I checked in, and 1 hour before the flight I went to the gate to see this regarding my flight.
Fortunately, it was not this, which I still do not know what they are referring to…
Yes, that was my flight. So, I came back to my airline’s desk to try to get some solution. I got it in another company, and almost at the same time, but of course, the flight was closed when I got to the Check-in Counter. Too bad. Back to the information desk and I got a new flight, one hour later to Guangzhou. So, it was ok, although I realized I would get quite late to HK, but I could not do anything to solve that.
Anyway, a bit late, but I managed to arrive to my friend’s place in HK, and tonight I have rested quite a lot. Now I am going to explore the city a little bit and tonight I will hang out with my friend an others.
