Getting Around
Because Hong Kong’s main city is very compact, you’ll find getting around is quick and easy. There’s plenty of public transport, including trams, buses, taxis, ferries, and the local subway or underground rail system, the MTR. In just minutes, you can zip between Central, Wanchai, Causeway Bay and Tsim Sha Tsui.
Distances are so short, you can even walk between several places – though at times you have to negotiate rather convoluted routes forced on you by pedestrian unfriendly planners.
Getting to and from even further flung areas is also swift and straightforward. In Hong Kong, we’re relatively spoiled when it comes to commuting times – an hour to get to work is a long time here; for many people the office is less than half an hour away. And wherever you live, you can readily reach beaches, hiking
trails through country parks and other destinations where you can unwind from city stresses.
Weather
Hong Kong’s weather is dominated by the long, hot, humid summer. On some days, it buckets with rain (stays warm, so an umbrella’s a virtual necessity). Other days are sauna hot, with tropical blue skies. Especially in autumn, there may be tropical storms or even typhoons; major direct hits are rare.
Autumn sees warm days, with lower humidity; pleasant, but nowadays tainted by smog. Winters are mostly pleasantly warm, but with occasional cool spells, which local apartments aren’t suited to.
Click here for information about Hong Kong Weather.
Safety
Compared to many cities and even towns in the world, Hong Kong’s streets are remarkably safe. You should find that even late at night, you can roam around without problems. That’s not to say you should be utterly carefree – there are occasional muggings, and pick pocketing cases – but the climate of caution, even fear, that might pervade life in some urban areas is not a feature of Hong Kong, especially in the areas expats most frequent.
Health
Health wise, too, Hong Kong is relatively safe. Today, that is: diseases were prominent during the early years of colonial Hong Kong, with a mix including plague, cholera, malaria… Recently, the SARS epidemic looked potentially threatening, yet subsided, leaving no communicable disease of particular concern, especially given Hong Kong (just) lies in the tropics.
There is, however, serious air pollution, which causes respiratory illnesses, and is blamed for perhaps 15,000 or more premature deaths per year. Avoiding this is difficult, but with much of the pollution originating in the nearby mainland, you should find slightly better air if you avoid living in north and especially northwest Hong Kong.
People
For all their energy when it comes to trading with the world, Hong Kong people are pretty insular overall. This, coupled with Cantonese being a tough language for outsiders, means that most expats find they best make friends here with other expats, even if they live in Hong Kong long-term.
As GeoExpat’s forums indicate, expats can find Hongkongers frustrating, especially for some having a tendency to walk straight into railway carriages, no matter whether anyone is trying to alight first.
To a large extent, such irritations are surely part of living in a frenetic, stressful, crowded city – something Hong Kong people cope with far better than many an individual back in expats’ home countries.
