Friday, March 20, 2009

Beer Here! Get Your Free Beer Here! (that is meant to sound like Wally-the-beer-man at a Twins' game)

Well...ok, not free but pretty damn cheap. Meredith was telling me that shortly after she arrived here she met an Australian expat who described Hong Kong as a city of 7 million alcoholics clinging to a rock and after finding out what they charge for beer, who can blame them for the alcoholic part? It's hot and humid, and beer is cheaper than water...it's enough to drive a man (woman) to drink.
As an example, I went to the grocery store and I bought this 4-pack of pint-size cans (that's bigger than our standard size cans) for about $1.80 US. That's $0.45 for a pint of beer.

The pricing of things is odd--beer is almost free but coffee is about $4US for a medium Starbucks drip coffee--almost $10US if you want a latte. Food from street vendors is also very inexpensive, and even restaurants seem reasonable. It appears that most other clothing and goods are about what one would expect. Rent/property is ridiculously high.

The entire place seems to be under construction--it's pretty impressive. The I&S Group should open a branch office out here--Chad, you should get working on that. One weird (at least weird to me) thing was that all of their scaffolding is bamboo just lashed together.
It's not just used to get up one or two stories either, I saw a building that was probably about 20 stories with bamboo scaffolding all the way to the top. I wouldn't relish being on the 20th floor of metal scaffolding but I think I would be terrified of being on the 20th floor of bamboo which was merely tied together with plastic strapping.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

At the Chatterbox, where Margaret was telling us that you had discovered how cheap the beer was, Ian nodded in approval and simply said, "Good for her."

True story, though you probably had to be there to get the full effect of his obvious admiration for your bargain-beer acumen.

Carolyn said...

Bamboo is actually very strong! Bring some beer back for us!

Anonymous said...

I had heard the same, Carolyn; but decided to get some additional information to support what I heard.

From Wikipedia:

"When treated, bamboo forms a very hard wood which is both lightweight and exceptionally durable. In tropical climates it is used in elements of house construction, construction scaffolding, as a substitute for steel reinforcing rods in concrete construction, and so on. Modern companies are also attempting to popularize bamboo flooring made of bamboo pieces steamed, flattened, glued together, finished, and cut. However, bamboo wood is easily infested by wood-boring insects unless treated with wood preservatives or kept very dry. A lot of institutes and universities are working on the bamboo as an ecological construction material. It is possible to get in the United States and France houses 100% made with bamboo, earthquake and cyclone-resistant, with international certification. Three ISO standards are for bamboo as construction material."

Anonymous said...

I trust you are all correct on the strength of bamboo, but it doesn't look or sound that strong. Remember the balsa bridges you all built in high school. They didn't look that strong either.

Glad that you found the cheap beer. It sounds like you may have needed it. I forwarded your blog information on to Colleen, Mike, and Kathleen. You may hear from them.

Margaret said...

And TsingTao beer is really quite good! I only had 5 drinks my whole week in Hong Kong though... I certainly didn't go and buy 4 or 6-packs to take back to my hotel room to drink alone. Hmmm?

Unknown said...

Tess,

Glad to hear your trip is going better. Probably a good idea to lose all your personal items on the first day as your trip can only get better now.
Greg's note on bamboo has inspired me and i am currently building a bamboo hut for myself in your backyard. We can attach houses with an underground tunnel. You guys can keep schnuffy though.
Keep the photos going, they are very cool.

Anonymous said...

Oh my, what have I done? But you know, with all of the birds Tess and Ian are trying to lure into their backyard, why not a kiwi?

Tess/Theresa said...

Kiwi, I would love that and you know how much I want tunnels in the backyard!

Tess/Theresa said...

And Margaret, easy on the comments about drinking beer in my hotel room. A woman who drinks boxed wine from a plastic cup...alone, shouldn't be tossing too many stones about!