during hong kong’s heavy humid days, even perenially freezing people (yes, yes, the thyroid thing, i will get it checked out soon), break into a sweat just seconds after walking outdoors. when walking in to meet an interviewee for the first time, the sweat circles under the pits, itchy hose, smeared makeup and wet nape of neck is, surprise, not a good look muriel.

in order to prevent their citizens from arriving at the office all sweaty and unattractive (and possibly, horrors! unable to work!), and also to ease congestion of the streets, in 1993, the hong kong government unveiled the central-midlevels escalators, the longest outdoor covered escalator system in the world.

central is one of the main business districts in hong kong, and if you don’t work in central, you can catch the subway, tram, a regular double decker bus or a 16 seater mini bus to take you to your office in a matter of minutes. midlevels is a residential district that sits pretty much right on top of central. people love living in mid-levels for its convenience to the action. hong kong is all about location location locaiton, and midlevels is pretty much as good as it gets. having a covered escalator system ferry you up and down the steep hills was just an added bonus.

the whole escalator system is 800 m long, and the vertical climb is 135 m. if you were to stand still while riding the escalators the entire ride would take 20 minutes, but come on, this is hong kong, people are usually walking while the system moves to shorten the travel time. due to its vertical climb, the same distance is equivalent to several miles of zigzagging roads if travelled by car. the operation  consists of 20 escalators and three moving sidewalks. the daily traffic exceeds 45,000 people and on wednesdays, 45,001 people, as i usually hop on at some point through out the day.

the escalators downhill beginning at 6am to 10am, basically to take residents of the midlevels area to work. why walk or taxi when you can basically sit and be carried down to the main business district in a covered atmosphere?  by 10am, if you’re not at work, tough congee, kittens, because the escalators stop at 10.00am for half an hour, and then start moving uphill (because that’s the really hard work, chugging uphill), from 10am until midnight. needless to say, the pubs and even the truly appalling restaurants along the escalators do a roaring business.

when magnificent and i lived in midlevels (we have lived in that area twice, once in 1996-1997, and again in 1999-2001, moving is very common in hong kong!) the escalators were part of our daily lives. although they start on commercial des voeux road central and end on residential conduit road, the escalators are smushed along side shops, a temple, many restaurants, a fitness centre, and many residential blocks.

in one of those blocks, right near the top, lives a fellow who works from home. i used to see him every day. he had a white cat, who sat on a pillow beside his laptop, or in the next room, on the windowsill.

i looked forward to seeing this cat and man, they were as much a part of my daily encounters as the garbage lady, and the man who walked up and down our street yelling that he was available to sharpen our knives. i would lug bags of fresh fruit from the wet market located underneath the escalators, and would just dump my bags and stand there, think about something else, like not being fertile and how i was going to solve that particular little problem. and i would only look up when we came to his flat, and kitten was there. or not. this was before SUDUKO, whether the cat would be there or not was my daily mental exercise.

when we moved to pokfulam, (pokfulam is closer to a suburb, is much greener, a much more residential area than central. some people find it inconvenient, not having a 7-11/park n’shop within a five minute walk, but for the extra space between blocks and the greenery, we’ll gladly take it), i pretty much stopped seeing the little SAHWorker and his cat. i wondered if he missed magnificent and me, or even if he had noticed us. he was part of our world, were we part of his?

linked lives. the escalators are just another reason of why i love hong kong. it is such an unique, fascinating, exciting city.