I am absolutely in love with the Hong Kong public transport system. I had heard good things about it before we came and was really looking forward to living without a car. However, this has exceeded my wildest expectations. Hong Kong is famous for the Star Ferries. They ply back and forth between various points on Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, also part of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, but attached to the Chinese mainland. The fares vary a little bit, depending where you are going to/from, but they are all less than a dollar (US). There were riots a couple of decades back when the Star Ferry company increased the fares. It makes the Staten Island ferry seem expensive. They run like clockwork very frequently and they get people on and off them with enormous efficiency. Plus, it is very pleasant to ride them.

Then we have the MTR subway system. It is not enormous by NYC standards, but it is so much cleaner, quieter, cheaper and more pleasant, there is really no comparison. It is more like London's except enormously less expensive. Waiting for more than 5 minutes for a train seems unusual. And then they have interchange platforms, where two different lines come together, They have the timing down so well that they synchronize arrivals so that people can change from one train to the other without waiting. The exits are labeled, so that when people are giving you directions, they tell you which exit to use.

Taxis are also cheap and very plentiful, although my non-existent Cantonese means that it can sometimes be difficult to communicate the destination.

But my first love is the buses. There are literally hundreds of different routes. When I first came I asked for a bus route map, but there really isn't one - it would be too complex. So for a while, the buses were an impenetrable mystery. Then I discovered that my Hong Kong street atlas marks bus routes and since that discovery, I feel like I own the city. The double deckers are best, riding on the top deck, with so much to see. They are, of course, cheap and they go everywhere.

There are also trams, lots of them, but mostly restricted to a single line going east/west across the island. Also double deckers, but very narrow. Yesterday, we just got on them and rode from one end of the line to the other. They are very slow, but cheapest of all. It will set you back HK$2 - just over 25 cents US, to ride.

Having said all that, I walk to work every day.