Yey! I’m back in Tokyo and loving the cool weather (1) My two week tour of duty in Hong Kong ended with a great Peking Duck dinner at the Peking Garden in Harbour Ocean Centre. Peking Duck is really oily but they serve it with that kind of Chinese tea which shuttles all that oil right through your system. In a proper Peking Duck restaurant they show you the whole duck and cut it up right in front of you. The first plate is the best one with slices of crispy skin. The pieces of the second plate are usually alot fattier but just as tasty. Then they take the rest of the duck and make some other dish or soup and serve it to you (2) For dessert, deep fried bananas and apples. The fruit was fried in flour like subuta along with a caramel coating and then cooled in soda water. It’s just about the most unhealthy way to eat fruit that I can imagine. This will be the last post about food for a while cause I have to go on a diet.

Below are some comparisons between Tokyo and Hong Kong and other silly observations to conclude this series.

The air in Tokyo is A LOT cleaner compared to Hong Kong. People kept making comments about the air pollution in HK which I didn’t really notice until I came back to Japan and breathed the cooler clean air.

Tokyo is also quieter, if you can believe that. Maybe I just stayed in the noisy parts of HK but it felt like there was a constant barrage of noise, both human and mechanical, everywhere I went. The rattling sound at every stop light is probably the first thing one notices upon arriving in the city. It sounds like someone tapping on a tin can at everywhere intersection. Fast tapping is to tell you to cross and slow tapping to wait. Where there are several intersections at close proximity, the sounds gets completely mixed up. But the volume does get turned down in the evening. There’s also that pinging in all the MTR stations. I guess it’s supposed to be like a heartbeat and calm people down but to me it felt like being inside a submarine although I’ve never been in a submarine and can only guess.

Keitai culture. In Hong Kong, you have to set your ring tone to the most obnoxious one and make sure the volume is turned way up. And you have to talk really loud especially when you’re on the MTR. There’s no manner mode button on phones and no one uses the vibe. This makes perfect sense in HK because there’s so much other peripheral noise you have to raise your level to be heard. I usually use manner mode on my phone but in HK I turned the sound on after missing some calls. I didn’t scream when I talked on my mobile though.

More people wear glasses, especially women. I didn’t see any contact lens shop during my 2 weeks. Perhaps it’s the air pollution and dust in the city which would make wearing contacts irritating for the eyes.

7-Eleven is the only convenience store chain. They’re smaller and just about everywhere, and they don’t sell stuff like cosmetics or toys or ipods like in Tokyo 7-Elevens.

Fewer people smoked while walking although the ones that did were equally as bad as in Japan. They are banning smoking indoors (restaurants,bars) completely at the end of the year. This is a bold move for the better and we can only pray that one day Japan will be equally as progressive. When it comes to laws about smoking Japan is in the stone age.

Mango pudding is the most popular dessert. I went to that chain dessert franchise a few times (sorry forgot the name) and tried to order mango pudding but they were sold out everytime except once. It seems like you have to get there earlier in the day. I don’t understand why they don’t just make more.

Food portions are bigger. Not as big as in North America but not as small as in Japan.

Hong Kong people love Xmas decorations. I thought it was bad in Tokyo but it’s like ten times that in HK. Even in market places like Sham Shui Po and Mongkok I saw several shops selling ONLY Xmas decorations. I’m kind of curious as to what Xmas day will be like in the city.

I didn’t feel any tension or pushing or nudging like you do in Tokyo trains. The trains never got to the point of being jammed packed either although the MTR felt more claustrophic.

I had an image of Cantonese people being generally pretty rude due to past experiences in Canada but for the most part everyone I interacted with in shops and on the street were quite friendly.