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Hong Kong


 Practical Life


Transport


Public transportation in Hong Kong is very good, clean, reliable and on time. Careful though, you usually need exact change! It is recommended to take an Octopus card where you pay in advance a certain amount and you can take all the means of transportation with it. It is an electronic fare used for transport but also in some fast food chain restaurants and some shops. It is very convenient as you do not need change anywhere and you can fill it up whenever you want. If you don't spend it all, you get reimbursed and you get your HK$50 deposit back as well (count HK$7 fee for cards returned within three months).
Here is a link. In general, you have different types of transportation: bus, tramway, ferry, taxi or metro (MTR). Hong Kong has the highest rate in the world of daily journeys done by public transportation with more than 90%.

Car

In Hong Kong, you drive on the left side of the road like most Commonwealth countries and the roads are pretty good. Nevertheless like any big cities, it is not recommended to get your own car but rather use public transportation. Taxes for car owning are quite expensive but it is expected for a small island.

If you really have to buy a car (used or new) then go to the weekly free papers you can find in the Accommodation section. Here are a couple of places you may find interesting:

For renting a car, here are some car renting companies:

Underground

In Hong Kong the underground or metro is called MTR for Massive Transit Railway and there are 10 MTR lines which are:

You can find the map of the MTR network here. The main stations with the most connections are Central, Kowloon, Prince Edward, Lai King and North Point.

On top of the Octopus card you can also get day passes or month passes. For more info call (852) 2881 8888.

Bus

Hong Kong is one of the few cities in the world with no publicly-run bus service and therefore has five franchised bus companies operating more than 700 routes:

Taxi

For taxis, usually the drivers speak English but just in case, get your destination address written in Chinese. Be aware, taxis are colour-coded:

Coach

There is a big coach services between Hong Kong and many destinations to Mainland China from Hong Kong Airport.

It is easier to use the through trains but if you really fancy a long bus journey then go to the Tourism Office and they would direct you towards the best connection to wherever you would like to go in China.

Train

There are trains going from Hong Kong to mainland China and there are known as through trains. The lines are operated by MTR Corporation and the Ministry of Railways of the People's Republic of China and Hung Hom Station is the sole station in Hong Kong where you can go to China from.
There are 3 trains leaving Hong Kong for China:

Ferry

Being an island and with outlying islands, Hong Kong operates regular ferry routes connecting Hong Kong Island, Kowloon and the Outlying Islands, as well as Macau and cities in Mainland China.
See this link here.

Here is a list of regular ferry routes run by different companies:

Tram

The trams are very nice and quite historic. It’s 2$ flat fare for a trip and there are 6 lines which are round trips:

Here is more info with the maps as well:
www.hktramways.com/en/service/index.html.

Airport

Hong Kong International Airport is the airport of Hong Kong (IATA code: HKG) also known as Chek Lap Kok which is the name of the island where the airport was built on.

As seen previously, you can access the airport by MTR or taxi or buses pretty much at any time during the day, as long as you have flights at that time!

The main airlines are Cathay Pacific and Dragonair but of course you can reach Hong Kong from the main cities around the world (New York, London, Tokyo, Paris, etc...).


8/04/2010

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