It's been a while since Mr Blog put finger to keyboard, but following a public outpouring (i.e. a suggestion from one nephew blog) it returns for a limited period.
The suggestion was made because Mr and Mrs Blog took a trip to Hong Kong and Japan. (It was a slightly delayed honeymoon which should have happened 36 years earlier). Nephew-blog thought such a trip might be full of classic "blog material". He was correct.
The plan is for a series of posts to cover the Blog-Adventure. Here goes...
Hong Kong has taxis in three colours - Red for urban, Green for New Territories and Blue for Lantau (although there aren't many of them because there isnt much in Lanrau that isn't an airport).
Usually when you think of taking a taxi in a foreign country you have three main concerns,
- Will the taxi driver take cards or just cash?
- Will the taxi driver speak English?
- Will I be able to use Google translate if the driver doesn't speak English?
4. Will the taxi driver want to have me in his taxi?
In fact, this should be your primary concern because the other three are largely irrevelant if you don't resolve it. Mr and Mrs Blog, on one occasion, standing at a recognised taxi stand, took six goes to convince a taxi driver to take us. The first five were pretty grumpy, and it seems that asking them to take you on a journey to where you want to go is quite offensive.
On another occasion we flagged a taxi down and got in. After a few minutes of asking to be taken to a restaurant (for which we showed the address in Cantonese) we discovered that this is truly unacceptable to a taxi driver in Kowloon. So not wanting to cause a diplomatic incident we walked the two miles to the restaurant.
You might think this was a specific problem only faced by the Blogs. After all Mr Blog has a history of victimisation from authorities, random strangers and inanimate objects. Not so. Tripadvisor users regularly post reviews of taxis around the world. Hong Kong taxis score 2 stars!
Thankfully the adventure got better!!
