Navigating the MTR

November 12, 2009
The MTR is the Mass Transit Railway in Hong Kong. It is fast, clean, cheap, and blissfully air conditioned. The signs are in English and Cantonese. The other night a group of us went to dinner in Sha Tin via the MTR. Today, to get from the University area to the downtown Kowloon shopping area I had to go from the blue line to the green line to the red line. The trip took about 20 minutes. The reason I show the middle photo is that it took me a few trips to figure out that the letters refer to different exits at the street level. In Hong Kong you cannot just go up the staircase and exit the subway like you do in most cities. There is a vast underground network of walkways and shopping malls, which can be very disorienting. I learned that you need to know ahead of time which letter to look for, and that the maps that correlate your destination with the letters are few and far between. But, figure it out I did, and made it back to the tailor, where I picked up my finished suits.