In retrospect, scheduling a holiday to Hong Kong at this time was probably not the smartest decision possible. Between the H1N1 fears and the bad weather, our experience left much to be desired, but we still managed to have an enjoyable time overall and got to know Hong Kong more. Part of this was because it was a last minute arrangement and we were originally supposed to go with a tour group including older family members to Taiwan, but it was cancelled and my wife and I had to decide where to go on our own during our scheduled holiday time. And so to Hong Kong it was, including a day trip to Macau as pictured above.
What I mostly learned about Hong Kong is that it’s one huge contiguous crowd of people! Having never been to HK or even any part of China before, the sheer number of people was staggering to me. And all of them constantly walking briskly and purposefully from one place to another too. Indeed, one evening spent in Causeway Way on the day before the Rice Dumpling Festival was nearly standing room only on the streets. We met up with a couple of friends from high school who showed us the ins and outs of living in HK. To get a restaurant table, we had to get waiting tickets from four or five different restaurants and see which queue was the shortest. At the longest queue, the number currently being served was 61 while the ticket we had was 161. Between this sort of thing and the need to constantly walk between bus and MTR stations since hardly anyone actually drives in HK, I see that Hong Kongers get much more exercise than Malaysians.