Category: Uncategorized

Hong Kong’s official languages are Chinese (Cantonese) and English.
And that’s a good news for tourists, however not everyone in Hong Kong can really speak English; well, it’s still better than in mainland China.

After a few days in Hong Kong, I had the impression that it’s a “civilized jungle”. 😉
You walk along the street, see all modern buildings, and trees roots getting out everywhere like showing “we’re still here, we’re still powerful”…

Hong Kong is a very important destination for business people.

Hong Kong has its own rules concerning entering its territory, what is in many cases much easier than for entering mainland China.

Visitors from many countries can enter Hong Kong for a given period without a visa.

Hong Kong has it’s own official currency; it’s called Hong Kong dollar (HKD); so Hong Kong doesn’t use Chinese Yuan.

Like in other countries that used to be British colonies, in Hong Kong you’ll find many “British”-things, e.g., left-hand traffic or three-pin electrical sockets.

For many years (1841-1997), Hong Kong was a British colony.
This long period made Hong Kong a very special place, and I think in a positive way.

Hong Kong is kind of autonomous region, however it’s rather treated internationally like a small country with it’s own rules on many aspects;
almost having more common with the UK than with China; kind of…

I have to finally mention what’s the status of Hong Kong.
Is it a separate country? – No.
Is it part of China? – Kind of, it’s an autonomous territory.

It is officially called the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China.

In the next days, I’ll tell you more, what it means.

Hong Kong has a humid subtropical climate.
It’s actually possible to distinguish 4 seasons in Hong Kong.
I visited Hong Kong in winter (February) and the weather was lovely!

Hong Kong, unfortunately, suffers a lot from pollution.
What’s interesting, the air pollution doesn’t come really from Hong Kong but mostly from mainland China…

Before I went to Hong Kong, I was reading a bit and watching some movies about Hong Kong.
I remember well the cover from the guidebook, it was a very similar picture to the one I’m showing you today. I thought, the picture was old, not so well done… But when I finally had this view in the front of my eyes, it was exactly like on this “old” picture.
Hong Kong is like that, kind of foggy, polluted; it’s like it is.
Now, I like this view a lot. 🙂

Welcome to Asia!
This month is going to all about one special place in Asia – Hong Kong.

Have you been to Hong Kong?

Brazil, is a country of football, samba, carnival, sandy beaches, colorful birds, Açaí, etc. The list is much longer.
The conclusions are simple – go to Brazil, stay safe, and enjoy your time. 🙂

p.s. Tomorrow, we’re moving to totally different place.
Stay tuned. 🙂

Brazil is definitely too big for the majority of single trips. I spent lovely time there (twice), but didn’t have enough time to explore as much as I’d like to.
I hope to have a chance to go to Brazil once more, then a few national parks are going to be on my list (e.g., Lençóis Maranhenses, Aparados da Serra, Serra da Bodoquena, Pantanal Matogrossense, Chapada dos Veadeiro, and Fernando de Noronha).

The Brazilian real (R$, BRL) is the official currency of Brazil.

Is it possible to describe climate in Brazil in 1 word?
-I would say it’s “warm”. However, it’s not completely true. Brazil is a huge country, you can find there variety of climate zones, i.e., tropics and desert, but also colder places.

Spanish is an official language in almost all countries in Latin and South America.
But not in Brazil.
Portuguese is the official language in Brazil.
While knowing Spanish, you can still manage a lot; and Spanish is rather more useful in Brazil than English.

Brazil has an extremely rich wildlife. It’s definitely a country for nature lovers!

Favela is kind of Brazilian slum; suburb of the big city, where poor citizens live.
The term may be not completely right, because there are poorer and reacher favelas; relatively safe of extremely dangerous, etc.
Anyway, a good advice – don’t go to favelas on your own, and probably taking a tour to favela is also controversial, at the end, favela is not a zoo!