Yes, I went to Hong Kong! It was part of the field trip experience with University of Queensland. I stayed with the team in Hong Kong for a week including couple of days trip to Shenzhen in China and Macau.
I was so excited to gain experience in an amazing population density and urbanisation environment. China in general, have largest population in the world. It have one of the best public transport systems in the world. Hong Kong MTR is the world's most developed public transport network. On my first day arriving Hong Kong, it was so colder than I expected. Had to put a jumper on, even for first time in several months despite coming from Australian summer. First day was clear skies with some odd haze about. I enjoyed the first view of skyscrapers on the first night seeing beautiful lights across the Victoria Harbour. It is one of the largest skyline I ever witnessed since Sydney, New York City, Chicago and Miami. Hong Kong city have the most highrises in the world.
The city and country is the most developed than I expected. Public transport systems, housing, capital investment, businesses and globalisation amongst the factors to become the most developed country. My first subway experience was using the airport express line before getting the hotel was incredible. The trains moved so extremely fast. Familiarly, took the trains in following day to the first visiting sites as part of the field trip was something caught my attention of how integrated the subway stations are! The subway stations are incredibly enormous in size, just like size of large shopping centres, underground!
Navigating around Hong Kong was just tad easy, may be the city's size in terms of geography is small but the public transport system is very convenient. The public transport wasn't the only benefit I witnessed, the public housing operations is advanced and professional compared to dismounting issues in Australia. There are some restrictions to apply for the public housing only when you are under the maximum income level, and you must have a job for the financial support. It is very different policy in Australia that the majority of renters are on welfare. Though the housing estates are so enormous compared to the master planned communities that I have seen in the US. These skyscrapers, consisting of 40 floors or higher are typically residental apartments! And they are clustering up with other skyscrapers which make the sky view dense.
Hong Kong inspires me to understand the planning issues and made recommendations to improve Australian and other western nations' development initiatives such as housing and public transport operations. One day I crossed the border with the team to China. The destination we visited is Shenzhen, a city of 15million people. Shenzhen is another typical place of increasing public transport and housing demand due to growing population capacity. Shenzhen's planning system is quite different to Hong Kong. It is such a large city with thousands of cranes up in the sky, building lots of new skyscrapers! I learned that the city's population was at 300,000 in 1980s, compared to 15million 36 years later, and it still growing! Thus why there are so many cranes.
Shenzhen, and China in general is something I find unique in terms of publicity, laws and standard of living. They drive on the right, no public freedom or democracy and security guards are everywhere, even at a hairdresser! The food is lovely, as expected because we have Chinese restaurants all over Australia and the US. Though it not healthy.
Later in the week I visited to another country, Macau for another single day trip. Macau is another autonomous city and country like Hong Kong. It is a small island south of China besides the South China Sea. Macau is famous for massive casino developments and gambling culture. I witnessed another 'Las Vegas strip', which that reminded me of my experience at the real Las Vegas in the US. Macau have high GDP thanks to wealthy Chinese business people! The other side of Macau is the former Portuguese colonisation, which is the part of culture and history. I enjoyed these European culture because I feel so belong to the place. Lovely heritage buildings, architecture and landscapes.
The old Macau is my favourite part of the trip because it have strong sense of belonging and it is place making. I felt lack of this in Hong Kong and Shenzhen where capital investments dominating the urban landscape where new environments take over the cultural and historical significance. The field trip made me to think more about how we design a city, plan effective transport systems and housing operations. This reflects to my political beliefs in Australia that why it very much needed to build on.
