HONG KONG--A VERY BIG City

7 Million

When you come to the Far East you've got to be prepared for the sheer number of people. It's a bit overwhelming the first time, but then you feel the sheer energy of it. You also begin to realize why it's so difficult to predict America's future with competition of such magnitude. It's that moment you realize your children are more important than you.
But that's a bit to philosophical--better to observe and enjoy. We saved the world, then rebuilt it--Pearl Harbor and the USS Missouri of only a few days ago--and we must enjoy watching freedom flourish in the soil we nurtured.
Here, for example is an old street market in downtown Hong Kong--a few blocks from the hotel.  It's not dissimilar to the street markets in much of the non-Western world. You can buy anything, or seemingly anything. And, what's the difference with our flea markets, farmers market and the effort of every mall now to recreate the chaos of the street with those kiosks? Not much.

I always loved seeing the market in Irkutsk Russia--literally in the same time zone, or close to it, in Hong Kong. I called it Capitalism on Steroids. (www.fromrussiawithlaw.blogspot.com)

The shopping of the street is now being eclipsed by the billions of Chinese who can come to Hong Kong. And, if they can afford to come here, they can afford to spend money. Everywhere in the IFC Plaza adjacent to the street markets people were in the most exclusive stores buying the best they could afford. Gotta love the helmets, the shoes and the flowered horses decorating it all.

Today we traveled to an area above the city, and the perspective it gave was more than just a picture. It was a lifestyle.  Hard to imagine living so much on top of each other when you've grown up in Mendota, and now live in Cross Plains.  ("To each his own, they said as the farmer kissed the cow"... old Troupis proverb)

But no matter where you go--here in the park--there is "love all around you."