Anybody have any insights on HK? What to do? What to buy? Where to eat?

In my annual effort to avoid Xmas and use up questionable United miles, I *was* going to go to beautiful 33 degree F Copenhagen, but then, at the very last minute, a seat to 75 degree F Hong Kong came free. I even get to fly back on Singapore. Will I get to meet her ?

Zooooo, any insights appreciated. Oh, and I got a ticket to Aukland in April for the Rally New Zealand. Anyone here from NZ who might want to give drive-on-he-left lessons??

My friend recently went to Singapore and Hong Kong and had a great time. See the pics here. Unfortunately, he has not had time to caption the pics yet.

If I were to go to HK, I would stop at the bootleg software shop seen on page 5. While my friend was in there, it was raided and he had to run out as the steel doors were closing.

Holy [censored]! I recognize Boat Quay (think thats how its spelled) - AUT_8212 - 8232, but I never saw it in the daytime. I had no idea thats what it looks like sober either.

I was supposed to leave for Singapore Tuesday night, but my boss sent another guy I work with instead. He said that without adult supervision I'd get in too much trouble there

I haven't been to Hong Kong, so I have no clue about seeing/eating/buying. I do know that SingAir rocks. If you are in Business Class, the beds are all sleepers now.

. If you are in Business Class, the beds are all sleepers now.

First. Wouldn't want any of those United miles to go to waste, would we???

Yeah, those bunks really help spread out the bruising in cases of serious turbulence!

While my friend was in there, it was raided and he had to run out as the steel doors were closing.

They were probably doing that for show...maybe a visiting dignitary from the SPA!

In reply to:

---

Oh, and I got a ticket to Aukland in April for the Rally New Zealand. Anyone here from NZ who might want to give drive-on-he-left lessons??

---

Jim, Its spelt Auckland
[Spoken like Oakland (CA)].

Theres a few of us here who can offer to give you lessons on driving on the left.
Might even be someone here who is also a rally freak willing to act as driver for the 5 days or so to save you the bother -
- unless you want to have a go yourself on shingle roads after/between the stages.

[which if true then your car insurance provider won't be providing coverage to you if you do and manage to hit something].

Ahh. The infamous raids on these dodgy software places. Golden Shopping Arcade is really famous but it's more of a tourist place now.

You'll need to know a local if you want to actually find the decent places. They get raided and move, sometimes it's just to the shop next door! It's just a continual cycle and to be honest, the chances of the police being able to make a dent is minimal.

Sometimes they don't actually have any of the discs at the place, just the covers. When you pay for what you want, a guy disappears for a few minutes and returns with your CDs...

- Trevor

Greetings from Hong Kong! Place is just about littered with Pacific Coffe outlets with free (for the price of a latte) Internet terminals, so I couldn't resist....

Jim, Its spelt Auckland

Rats! I knew that. Must be my recent obsession with Auks.

[Spoken like Oakland (CA)].

Now this I didn't know, and funny you should mention. Whilst getting an AM dose of AOL/T-W/CNN, I noticed the CNN weather babe say "Oakland" with a map of Aus/New Zealand behind her and thought "hmmm, what a funny pronunciation." Lucky that One World looks like a no-hoper for the America's Cup, or I might have had to call all the Seattle TV stations and tell 'em to stop saying "AWK" (like me, until 2 minutes ago)!

Theres a few of us here who can offer to give you lessons on driving on the left.
Might even be someone here who is also a rally freak willing to act as driver for the 5 days or so to save you the bother -
- unless you want to have a go yourself on shingle roads after/between the stages.

I'm going to be forced to deal with this issue when I go to a wedding in Ireland in July, but, yeah, the thought of taking it on in combination of a mad rush of "kill all others to get to the next stage" rally folks is tough to contemplate. My RHD-friendly co-driver backed out of the trip after a financial conference with his spouse....
...I have more tickets than I have vacation time, so will probably wait a few months to make a final decision on this trip, but I appreciate the offer/s

[which if true then your car insurance provider won't be providing coverage to you if you do and manage to hit something].

Yes, another consideration... something about public roads! Interestingly, there are a number of gravel TSD rallies in the southwest US that people refer to as "rental rallies" -- pick up an Avis/Hertz in Las Vegas, hook up a temporary sensor, and head into various National Forests (public roads, eh?).

Interesting trip here. Warm, shirt-sleeve weather. Good food. Star Ferries still the best ticket in town at ~$0.30 US for a cross-harbor trip (upper deck!).

You'll need to know a local if you want to actually find the decent places.

I remember a guy in Phuket running after me in 1998 with CD in hand yelling "Oracle 8! XXX baht!" (XXX at the time was about $12) then slashing that price in half a block later. Nothing so blatant here.

I've never gotten interested in finding pirated CDs or fake Rolexes, much to the dismay of the many touts here (though much less agressive than in Thailand...)

I may be the only person to visit Hong Kong this year who didn't buy anything. Lots of folks definitely here for the shopping. I'm going to take one more side trip to another spot in Kowloon today that supposedly has interesting shops.....___ ___ Po (name escapes me at the moment), but will probably just window shop). There doesn't appear to be any great price advantage and I have too many gizmos already!.

(Oh, in that vein I have to say that ny attempt at war driving on the Hong Kong tram and a waterfront boat --"Warsailing"?-- with the Zaurus/kismet haven't turned up anything. So here I sit -- wireline! Life is tough. Time for another latte!)

BTW, and forgive me for being nosey, have you met her yet?

In reply to:

---

In reply to:

---

(number6):
[Spoken like Oakland (CA)].

---

Now this I didn't know, and funny you should mention. Whilst getting an AM dose of AOL/T-W/CNN, I noticed the CNN weather babe say "Oakland" with a map of Aus/New Zealand behind her and thought "hmmm, what a funny pronunciation."

---

There was a case about 15 years ago now, when some guy waiting for his plane at LAX (or possibly SFO - can't be sure now) heard an announcement/boarding call for what he thought what his flight "to Oakland (CA)", it wasn't until the plane was about 1 hour out into the Pacific heading on the 13 hour direct flight to *Auckland* as the flight crew handed out immigration visa forms, that the guy realised he'd got on the wrong plane and told the aircrew of his problem.

When he arrived up in Auckland, (with no passport of course, as he was only getting a local flight from LAX to Oakland), he was denied entry to Auckland, "held" in the transit lounge for about 8 hours and then put on the next flight back to LAX.

Don't think its happened since though...
I think the airline had to pay the cost of the flight back to LAX as they hadn';t checked his boarding pass (and lack of visa/passport) properly.

Hate to think of the hassles the guy would have now if it happened again, post 9/11.

BTW, and forgive me for being nosey, have you met her yet?

Well, what I can say is that it was a great trip and that I *did* meet her sister.

I put together a little travelogue with some thumbnails and pics here.

[Spoken like Oakland (CA)].

Now this I didn't know

It seems to depend a bit on the speaker... my kiwi cousins make it sound a bit like "Ockland", but my aunt, despite 30 years living in the city, retains enough Surrey accent to give it the full value of "Orkland".

Mind you, I'm only assuming here that Oakland, CA, is pronounced the way it's spelt.

The BBC famously tied themselves in linguistic knots over the James Bulger case a few years ago: Bulger's parents have profound Liverpool accents, and so pronounce the name with the u sound of "bull". For a while BBC newsreaders religiously repeated this, despite all having southern accents in which it should get the u sound of "bulb". (Liverpudlian cannot easily distinguish those two u sounds -- Bulgur, Bulgaria, bulb and bull all have the longer sound.) Eventually the BBC pronunciation unit realised how daft it sounded, and they fell into line with other news organisations. The point is, sometimes saying a word exactly the way the natives do isn't correct unless the rest of your speech uses the same accent they do -- try asking for directions to "Doodloy" in Birmingham and they'll assume you're taking the mick.

Peter