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kottke.org posts about Hong Kong

Dateline: Hong Kong

We’ve arrived in Hong Kong, over-stuffed on airplane food and our bodies have no idea what time it is. Apparently there’s a time change of some sort. (Why was I not told about this?!??!) On the way over, in between naps, stuffing my face, and shooting withering looks (in my imagination) at the jerk business man seated to my right, I observed on the TV screen that we were passing directly over the north pole (geo, not magnetic). This seems a bit crazy, but the earth isn’t flat and it spins, so you’ve got to go north to go south.

Even though we seem to have lost a few days to travel and international date lines, we set out undeterred this morning to explore the area around our hotel in Kowloon. The city didn’t seem to be awake as early as we were, but we saw plenty of places to head back to later in the day and week. And people are doing tai chi in parks all over the place, wherever the mood strikes them. Our hotel and the promenade nearby both have free tai chi classes some mornings; we’re definitely going to do that one of these mornings. We also saw an impromptu musical performance and fan dancing in Kowloon Park near the Chinese Garden.

After walking for a bit in the market areas around Shanghai & Temple Streets, we purchased Octopus cards and hopped on the subway, which we’ve been told is one of the best in the world. Fast, clean, and the signage is great. I’ll try to remember to take a photo of the on-train maps with the direction arrows…very handy.


Bound for Asia

When I first conceived of doing kottke.org on a full-time basis, one of the things I wanted to do was to go to Asia and document the experience for the site. Several micropatrons asked me to use their contributions to, quote, “get out of the house, for the love of God, and go somewhere nice and take pictures and tell us all about it”. Unquote.

So, that’s what I’m a’gonna do. In a couple days time, we (Meg and I) will be traveling around Asia for about 3 weeks. We’ll be heading to Hong Kong, Bangkok (where we’re meeting up with my dad, who has traveling and living cheaply in Asia down to a fine science), and Saigon (or more properly, Ho Chi Minh City). We’re planning on having internet access for most of the time, but we may be without it for short periods, so updates might be sporadic at times, but they will happen as often as I can manage.

What will probably not be happening is the usual updates to the site, i.e. non-trip related stuff. Few remaindered links for 3 weeks…I don’t even think I’m gonna open my newsreader. No movie reviews, no book reviews (with one possible exception). No posts on sandwiches, Web 2.0, or popcorn (ok, everyone stop cheering). Bottom line, the usually scheduled kottke.org programming will be interrupted by a 3-week Asian travelogue.

I’m leaving the comments open, so if anyone has any suggestions on stuff we should see, things we should do, food we should eat, we’d appreciate it.


Subway maps that you can put on

Subway maps that you can put on your iPod. Currently available: DC, NYC, Boston, and Hong Kong. Good one for the 50 Fun Things To Do With Your iPod list. (via coolhunting)