Travel China - Tips on Using Public Transportation in Hong Kong

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• published: 11 May 2010
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Get familiar with public transportation of Hong Kong for your trip. There are close to 7 million people in this city. Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated cities in the world. If you own a car or are riding a taxi, you will run into traffic jams like in any large city. However, Hong Kong has various transportation options such as trams, buses, mini-buses, ferries and trains which make it really easy to get around. In fact, Hong Kong has one of the most efficient transportation systems in the world with 80% of its residents using it. Let's see what it is like to ride on the local train here called the MTR. When using the MTR, you can buy a single journey ticket or a one day pass. Although there are many ticket attendants at all the stations, using the automatic ticket machine is really easy. Here we are at Sheung Wan MTR station and need to go to the Mong Kok station. On this machine, I simply select my destination, it tells me the price, 11 dollars, I put in the money here and I have my ticket. If I do not have change, there is another ticketing option here. This is one of the greatest conveniences of Hong Kong for a local or a tourist, and that is the Octopus card. It is an electronically stored money card which is accepted on trains, trams, buses, ferries and even convenience stores such as 7-Eleven and Circle K. You can buy them at any MTR station or you can also buy them at convenience stores such as 7-Eleven and Circle K. If you have a ticket, you enter it here, but since I have my Octopus card, you simply swipe it. To find out the platform, I have to know which line I am taking, as the platform will be marked by the last stop on that line. In this case, Chai Wan. Looking at the map, the last stop on the blue line is Chai Wan. Inside the train, we can always tell how far a stop is. That was our quick and painless journey in Hong Kong's MTR system. This is Rosanna Wilcox, showing you Hong Kong.