The Ecology of Urban Hong Kong

Hong Kong is to small businesses as the rainforest is to plants. I think that analogy not only captures the idea that economic and regulatory conditions in Hong Kong are favorable to business, but it also captures a very real sense of how and where businesses spring up. They pop up like plants wherever conditions …

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No, Its not Bhutan, Brundi, or Bahrain. It’s BRUNEI

Still in Brunei. The internet here seems…..slow. Perhaps I got spoiled in East Asia. There are two internet cafes I’ve found, both of which take like a minute to pull up Gmail. I don’t foresee uploading photos until I can get a faster connection. I’ve also developed diarrhea and a rash on the bottom of …

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Travelers Love Lists

The question I’ve been surprised I haven’t gotten more often is “why do you list Hawaii as a country on your list of places?” Hawaii clearly is as much a country as Kansas, so it would seem odd to list it separately as a “country”. Moreover, I have Okinawa listed separately, which is also not …

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First Impressions of Brunei

I just arrived in Brunei. No internet at my hotel, but there is an internet cafe in the building. The kids here are like the ones I’ve seen everywhere: playing Warcraft, listening to music and reading celebrity gossip. Here are my first thoughts: The female flight attendants on my flight didn’t wear a normal chadori. …

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Last Day in Hong Kong (for real this time)

I got my tickets and everything is booked. Tomorrow evening I’ll be flying Royal Brunei Airlines to Bandar Darussalam and I’ll finally be out of Hong Kong. I’ve stayed here waaaay longer than I ever anticipated. Granted, I got a lot done and I probably needed to stay put for a few weeks, but I’m …

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Viva Macau!

Here is the 15 second explanation of Macau: Macau lies about 40 miles away from Hong Kong and was a former colony of Portugal. It was handed back to China in 1999 and has a status similar to Hong Kong as a Special Administrative Region. It has its own currency as well as its own …

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The Big Mo

I just got back from Macau. It has been a really long day and I’m exhausted. I took notes on my laptop throughout the day and will be posting them tomorrow with images. When you walk around a city by yourself, you get crazy thoughts sometimes. Last night I watched a really crappy pirate DVD …

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Merry Kiritimati

Well, once again I didn’t get to Macau. Christmas day, however, it is going to happen. I know this because I have tickets booked. Today, by the time I got to the ferry terminal (I slept late. my room has no sunlight) the ferries were booked for several hours. I said screw it and just …

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Everytime I try to get out, they just keep pulling me back in

Not only am I still in Hong Kong, but I’m going to be here over Christmas. Macau is booked solid. At least all the cheap places are. My lack of planning around Christmas is really the proximate problem here. The place I’m staying in HK I had to check out today and I packed up …

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