onetenchelsea

So, as I said, Hong Kong was freaking awesome. I can kind of tell looking at a map how much I'm going to like a place. If it's geographically constrained, you know that they probably had to put more thought into the city (Boston, SF, NY, ect). Well, Hong Kong is about as constrained as you can get. The shortest buildings are about 15-20 stories and 30+ is pretty normal. However, it still has a great street life as opposed to some of the other tall Corbusian cities. The modern architecture is fantastic (I especially like the new Cesar Pelli building) and the transit is amazing. I don't think I've ever been anywhere where it is so easy to figure out how to get around. Also, two story streetcars.

We are in Saigon now. Another amazing city. Imagine 3 million vespas driven by female bandits. It's absolute chaos, yet somehow we've only seen one bloody chalk outline on the ground. I'm really enjoying it more than I thought I would. It's better than the other developing cities I've been too. The residential architecture is really interesting and the homes are well taking care of and brightly painted. It's got the wide Parisian boulevards and lots of trees. The colonial architecture is in good repair and also very pretty. I can see the "Paris of the East" comparisions. And the food is incredible. I was a little worried about starving to death, but I'm managing to eat with chopsticks. It still takes awhile, but I'm doing OK (in HK, I was drawing a fork in my notebook).

I'll try to write more later. Tomorrow we will be visiting J's "family" in the Mekong Delta.