First Impressions of Hong Kong

First impression - Hong Kong is similar to New York. It's crowded with people and tall buildings. It's a little claustrophobic, but it's still a hip, cosmopolitan city. It is considerably more expensive than Beijing and Shanghai. Given the long history of British influence, English is more more common here and they even drive from the right side of the car and on the opposite sides of the road. My gut was still telling me I wouldn't really care for this city. I do like New York, but I prefer a city with some warmth and friendliness. This is just tons of people, moving fast and not a lot of greenery. Shanghai and Beijing were both big cites as well, but they were spread out and had lots of parks. They were so well planned, they didn't feel claustrophobic at all.

We happened upon a little area called Lan Kwai Fong. It's a well known area, of cobble stone streets lined with cool bars and restaurants. As we were walking along we noticed a little place called the Keg. The Keg was a very small open air bar but it was full of folks. As we came in we noticed everyone was watching a hockey game (via sling box).

Given that it was such a small place, everyone started introducing themselves and talking. Turns out everyone in the bar was pretty much from Canada and was there to watch Vancouver play Dallas (Dallas won). We wound up talking to guys from Canada who are now living in Hong Kong.

After living in Los Angeles for so long, where people just can't take the time to be friendly, I'm always amazed by how easy it is to meet people when traveling. Our Canadian friends, RM & CH were just so friendly and great to talk to. After living here for over a year, they were more than willing to take some time out from watching the game to give us some great "must dos" while in Hong Kong. That is one of the things I love most about traveling. All it takes is sitting next to someone at a bar, restaurant or tourist attraction and hearing English spoken. The next thing you know you are having great and entertaining conversations with perfect strangers.
Thanks to RM & CH for making a great first impression for Hong Kong.