- Vibrant, colorful, electric, fast paced, densely populated, city.
- Both traditional and modern elements.
- People drive and walk on the left side.
- Smoking is more common than I'm accustomed to.
- There is a 7-Eleven or Circle K on every corner.
- Lots of French tourists.
- A Lot of stair climbing. Lots up uphill walking. I walked more than 20 steps and climbed more than 20 flights daily.
- In subway cars, 90% of riders are staring at cell phones, the other 10% are talking on them. (just like everywhere else).
- Lots of cosmetics and herbs stores.
- Lots of queuing up esp. for public buses.
- Beware: water drips on you from air conditioning units from above.
- Dying hair blonde is popular here too.
- The young people are hip and happy and like to hang out in malls. Sound familiar?
- Tapwater in the hotel is considered non-drinkable. They provide two free bottles of water daily. I was extremely good about this for the first 2 1/2 days. The last morning, As I contemplated checking out of my hotel, and taking a taxi to the cruise port, I got distracted, and accidentally used the tap water to brush my teeth. We will see what happens…… alert: I just realize I have been doing my sinus rinse every day. I've been using tap water for that. So I have been injecting not drinkable water into my system anyway.
- They charge 50 cents per bag (many places) to encourage shoppers to bring their own reusable bags.
- There are more banks per square foot than anywhere I have been!! Also, there are foreign currency exchanges galore!
- I have seen no dogs.
