A city of contradictions

Well the last few days have been a bit of a struggle. I can't sleep at all at night but seem to crash about 8 in the morning and sleep through till 2 in the afternoon. Once I get this jet lag cracked everything should be a little easier. At the moment we are still waiting for our visas to arrive, so for the next two or three weeks we're effectively on holiday. They have agreed that my year doesn't start till I get my visa though so looks like I'm getting an extra month for free :-).

As mentioned, "The Spirit of Outward Bound". The skipper Nigel could be recieving a few beers as a bribe to take us out me thinks. 

Anyhoo, your probably wondering what the title of this post was all about.... 

Over the last however many days it's been I've begun to notice and understand a little more about this city, and the way it works. Hongkongers pride themselves on running the most efficient city in the world, and to a certain extent they should be proud. The transport system here is amazing, it runs like clockwork, they polish it every night so it's squeaky clean and shining every morning and it's mega cheap! To get into the city costs me $15 (about 1pound 30) And this crazy attitude to public service continues throughout everything, landline phone calls in the whole of Hong Kong are free for everyone, and mobile calls are very cheap, like 2p a minute! And on the sailing front, all the watersports centres here are government run, they're open 7 days a week and run courses in everything, it's based on the RYA scheme so you can do pretty much whatever you want, the best bit is membership is only $100 a year (7 pounds 90) and that covers everything! It's hard to believe that in a country with on average 5% income tax and no VAT that they can do all this.

Well, whats the catch? If you actually want to buy a house here you have to be loaded! But from my point of view there are still a few issues. They seem to have completely ruined the whole amazingness of this sailing centre by forcing everyone through  pages and pages of paperwork every time they want to do anything. So if I wanted to go down to the centre and hire a boat, (which FYI i'm not allowed to do as supposedly an RYA dinghy instructor isn't good enough to hire a boat there!) I would have to book 3 months in advance and tell them what my mum's first pet was called and any other irrelevant bit of information they want. What A Fiasco! 

This is just one example of Hong Kong's crippling bureaucracy. Everything needs to be approved by someone,  you must be qualified to do anything (even to jump off the pier!) and if you want to change a lightbulb..... "No no no no, you'll need planning permission for that". So when Hongkongers claim that they are efficient, i'm afraid i'd have to disagree. This is for sure the least efficient place i've ever seen.Ok at home things get done badly, but at least they get done. Hong Kong might have a shiny fast MTR but if you want to get anything done here you better be patient. 

I've only been here a week or something so I don't want to draw too many conclusions from what I've seen, these are just my observations and later in the year I might begin to understand a little more about why it's like this. 

And well as a final comment: For the most health and safety obsessed culture I've ever seen (yes I thought the UK was bad) how come they allow this?

Ok, well plans for the next few days: We're going to try and go see the horse racing at Happy Valley tomorrow night, and theres maybe a trip to ocean park as well. I'll let you know how it goes.

If anyone fancies writing me a letter heres my new address:

Kenneth Laing,

Outward Bound Hong Kong,

Tai Mong Tsai Road,

Sai Kung,

New Territories,

Hong Kong,

Night night everyone.

Kenneth

xxx