Monday/Tuesday, May 12/13

Monday/Tuesday, May 12/13



Monday was a public holiday in Hong Kong - Buddha's Birthday!



Some random HK thoughts:

Cleanliness – Hong Kong is a clean city. Yes, some of the markets (like the one on my street) emit some strong smells. But every night, there’s someone there picking up the trash/chicken remnants from the day. There's a woman who comes into the office weekly just to sanitize the phones. How nice is that?! And it's not a quick swipe. She thoroughly cleans it for at least 45 seconds with several different cloths. The woman who empties the trash each night wears a breathing mask. In the bathroom, there’s a little dispenser of sanitizer that you spray on toilet paper to wipe the seat. There are Purel-like gel at stations in odd places like Starbucks. And several of the elevators have signs saying “disinfecting every 4 hours”. Should I be impressed or scared? I really don’t see that many surgical masks around here. Maybe 1/300 people wear one. But they are available at every grocery store.

Pharmacies – like most places outside of the US, you can get almost anything at the local pharmacy without a prescription. Bad news is that you can’t anonymously walk down the pharmacy aisle and pick up over the counter stuff. You have to announce your symptoms to the pharmacist in front of everyone. But you get the goods. I won’t go into the details of the symptoms Mary and I were experiencing last week to need such medical attention.

Queue – when you walk to the elevator banks at the office each day, everyone patiently waits at the edge of the banks. There’s an attendant at each bank who presses the elevator button and then guides you to the available elevator. Seems all nice and orderly. No one crowding around the doors. But as soon as an available elevator arrives, it’s every man for himself. The attendant will even stand in front of the doors with his arms out once the elevators are full, so that no one else can get on. Why the orderly line just to push/shove/crowd onto an elevator? The street is the same way. Nice queues for the buses, but stampede once the doors open. You really need sharp elbows for the crowded streets.