Hong Kong Island is small, but it houses many people. For some reason, the government has actually taken control of the public transportation system here, and they in themselves make sure that everyone can get to work! (Totally unheard of in the U.S.!). There are subways, buses, trams (cable-cars), and taxis galore, but the most interesting public transportation in my mind is...the escalators!
This is my favorite engineering feat...The Mid-Levels Escalators. This is just so much fun! It is a public escalator that goes down in the morning, until about 10:00 AM or such, so that all the people who live in the mid-levels (half way up the giant rock that is Hong Kong Island) can get to work. But, after 10 or 10:30 ish, it reverses direction around (it is really steep!!! - although there is a stair-case that runs along side the escalator - I promise you this, you will only want to go DOWN those stairs!).
One very interesting thing to me is that, given the terrain, if they decided to run a bus or other transport in that area, the people would have had to zig-zag down the mountain for ages.
It is a very interesting concept - - public escalators! I hope you can see from the 2nd shot - every covered area is covering sections of the escalator line. We didn't start at the bottom, but one time going up, we counted 14 escalators! I wonder how many there are total. Some are really long!
Love,
E.J.
2 comments:
These are great pics! I can totally picture it from that second shot. Amazing! Interesting that so many signs are in English as well. Thanks for keeping us all posted on your adventures!!! Love, Janet
Hi Mark, EJ!
Thanks for the great blogging! Sounds like you all are having a blast. All this talk of experiencing new adventures has whetted our appetite for another Asian visit. If plans work out, maybe we can connect in HK. Eat more noodles (long noodles mean long life).
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