Ding dong, Hong Kong
Greetings from Hong Kong. I live on one of the main drags of Hong Kong Island, Queen’s Road West. I’m about 5 blocks from Hong Kong bay, where all the ferry boats and cruise ships dock. To the east is the financial district, which looks like any financial district with glass skyscrapers, wide boulevards, and expensive restaurants catering to office workers. To the south is a wealthy residential area called Soho, whose modern loft buildings have names like The Butterfly and The Manhattan. At night, Soho is full of whites: trendy young couples and old, eccentrically dressed Brits. As you get further into Soho, higher up towards the peak at the center of Hong Kong Island (called, appropriately, The Peak), the heat is tempered by a mountain breeze and real estate becomes more exclusive. The Peak was exclusively for Europeans until the 1950’s and today the condos sell for tens of millions of dollars. My area is a bit more grimy but there’s a great variety of shops – a supermarket with an ai...