Hong Kong - I haven’t been to many places on Earth, but I would have to say I think Hong Kong is one of the leaders in the race to a cashless society. Introducing the octopus card. This thing is absolutely magical. Basically, you get this card and you put cash into it. Then using it you can pay for

- transit
- parking
- food at 7-11
- other stuff at random stores

It sounds simple enough, but you use it a few times and you will realize how wonderful it is. You never have to worry about the correct change again for boarding a bus or something. You can even hook it up to your bank account so that if you do run low, it’ll automatically add to the card. That is crazy. So simple in practice. It doesn’t even have to be a card, you can pay a bit more and it can be a key chain. All you do is shove the thing up against the other thing and bam. Its done. You don’t even need to take it out of the wallet or purse (or man purse). You just need to press it up against the reader thingy. Its pretty much the greatest thing Hong Kong has for making life easy for the people.

The transit system here is awesommmmmme. Its so damn efficient. Theres buses. Theres vans. Theres trains. Theres subway. Theres ferries. Theres trams. Aside from rickshaws and taxis, theres pretty much very little that isnt encapsulated by the system. The thing that’s great and killer about this system is that you pay for every trip. So if you go one stop, it might be 30 cents Canadian, but if you go cross harbor, its usually over a dollar or so. Its cheap if you dont go many places during the day, but when you are a tourist going from place to place, this can get costly.

Also, I don’t fit on the trams. As in, I can’t stand up straight. Even on some buses. That kinda sucks. But with the double decker buses and frequent lines running every 3 or 4 minutes, theres never really many times where you are standing on a bus anyway. All the buses are also air conditioned and most are equipped with televisions. Pretty damn good.