Visiting Hong Kong

It's a great city. I just got back and it's pretty cool. It's in the mid-70's and warm, but humid. An easy city to deal with because of the British influence. Everyone speaks English and all the signs are in English. The British driving throws you for a loop as do the electrical converters you need.

Weird that you have to go through customs when you go back and forth between Shanghai, since it's all Chinese now. It's a combination of Hawaii (tropical but more mountainous here) and NYC with all the hi-rises but built on the sides of mountains too. It's quite refreshing actually. It would be a much easier city to live in than Shanghai and much much easier than Beijing or Goungzhou.

You get off the plane and immediately see a Starbucks (there are four total) and then a McDonald's (actually a McCafe) in the terminal after customs with a 7-11, a Disney store for HK Disneyland and bookstores that have U.S. newspapers and magazines. in fact, if you had to be Tom Hanks in Terminal, this is the airport where you'd want to be stuck. The high end shopping is pretty incredible with Bally's, etc. It's definitely tailored to the wealthy, but they do have a Popeye's Chicken and a Burger King

The electricity is a slight pain, as is the money. HK is a different plug than China and it's HKdollars US$1=7.75HK=8RMB Each bank prints their own money so the money all looks different and has different bank names. It's actually very cool in that respect.

I flew Dragon Air (www.dragonair.com) which is like flying in the 80's but the food is better. Guess that's why they're the highest rated airline in China. They serve full meals in courses. You get Hagen-Daaz for desert. You watch Friends on the tvs in English.

Rugby, the sport of titans, is huge. The Rugby Sevens tournament will be starting at the end of March and it's HK's big sporting event. Twenty-four rugby teams of seven from around the world take part in this weekend tournatment in front of 40,000 very rowdy fans. the tournament "was born over pre-luncheon drinks at the venerable old Hong Kong Club on a misty spring day in 1975."

The matches last 7 minutes each way with 2-minute intervals for pool, knock-out matches, Bowl & Plate finals 7 minutes each way with 2-minute intervals; 10 minutes each way for the Cup Final.

Prior to the tournament, the 24 teams are drawn into 6 pools of 4 teams each
Day 1 (12 games) :	Each team plays 1 game in their pool
Day 2 (24 games) :	Each team plays another 2 games to complete the round-robin pool competition. The group winners and the 2 second placed teams with the best records, progress to the Cup Competition . The 4 remaining second placed teams and the 4 third placed teams with the best records, progress to the Plate Competition . The remaining 8 teams progress to the Bowl Competition.
Day 3 (21 games) :	Quarter-finals, semi-finals and finals of each of the Bowl, Plate & Cup Competitions.

Ads for tailor abound in magazines and they're pretty inexpensive. A little pricier than the $82 cashmere and wool four season suits I had made in Shanghai but still a good deal. A wool suit, three matching shirts and 3 matching silk ties will run US$189. A women's suit, three matching blouses and three scarves is also US$189.

Photos 1 (clicking on each photo takes you to more)
Photos 2