Hong Kong pictures posted!
Monday, September 15th, 2008Took me a while, but the album of Hong Kong pictures is finally posted! I selected about a third of the entire set, so its not as large. I also resized all the pics to a max of 1200 pixels, so they should load pretty fast. Enjoy!
The explanation is that this is the Hong Kong Watch and Clock Show, biggest in the world, been running for 25 years. As part of my side gig with Yes Watches, Bjorn and I were thinking of going to locate some suppliers of, erm, ‘new components’ but he had just returned from Norway and didn’t want the antipodal jetlag. So, at the very last minute, I went by myself and had a marvelous time. It’s a great place and I hope to return someday.
Tips:
- Buy an Octopus card in the airport. It’s 150HK but works many places - subway, tram, vending machines, airport shuttle. If you remember you can get the deposit back by returning the card at the airport before you leave; I was not so clever.
- Buy an PCCW sim card from 7-11; there’s one in the airport. This gets you a local phone and unlimited SMS. I used my unlocked iPhone, which combined with #3 rocked.
- In many many places, there’s WiFi from PCCW, and you can signup for a free 30-day trial if you have a local phone number! Instant WiFi in most places, including subways and many phone booths. Yeah, the phone booths have WiFi; the US has become a second-world nation in many ways.
- Thanks to Locke Lee, I knew to hit Sam’s tailor, on Nathan Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon. Suit, blazer, shirts and more, and they look fantastic and were quite reasonable. Highly recommended!
- I stayed at the Imperial Hotel in Kowloon and recommend it. Cheap, very nice, centrally located, only complaint is that WiFi is 120HK per day.
- If you’re into vintage watches, Berne Horology in Central is magnificent.
Oh yeah, here’s the pedometer view of the week. I forgot to change the time zone, so the day totals are wrong, still amusing. Lotta walking!
It was a great trip, hopefully you can get the flavor of it from the pictures. Enjoy!
Update 9/20/08: Almost forgot, a few more tips:
- I flew Cathay Pacific flight 882, which leaves around 11PM from LAX and arrives 5AM or so. I recommend this flight, as you are likely to have a row to yourself; Tess confirmed this as she and Francis choose this flight whenever they can.
- Check Seatguru or SeatExpert, but both flights had laptop power at every seat. However, one way it was Empower DC jacks, and the other plane had HK-style 3-prong AC plugs. Be prepared, and know that there’s just enough power to run the laptop and not enough to charge it. If your battery is already flat when you board you’re SOL.
