CircleK 7Eleven and Octopus

The three things that I liked about Hong Kong are the convenience store chains here and a very effective smart card system Octopus. Even though they are not very unique to Hong Kong but their wide presence in such a small region make a lot of differance.

The two store chains operate nearly 24 hours… and of great help during odd hours when everything else is closed. This was my first encounter with these two international store chains.
One can enter the shops and find the general utility items... food items… drinks…(all sort of drinks ;-)) even umbrella… chocolates... Cakes…gift items….news papers… all in almost of the things that we generally require… not in all varieties etc but surely it can suffice the need of the hour when it arises.

The biggest advantage is that these shops are available around every damn corner …
In fact one can find very few other such shops which are “not 7Eleven or CircleK” and most of them are country specific… like Indian or Philipino etc etc

These shops have been a great help to me since they r the only ones who can cater here food requirements during odd hours…
You can come out of office at any damn hour… it can be 2 or 3 am… you look for something to eat and voila…. Here are the only open shops
Even when my other 24x7 faithful friend…. McDonalds failed me at times…. These two never did.

There were occasions when i came out expecting the Mc D to be open… and only to find that the McDonalds was closed on that day from 0000 till 0600… L I had not taken dinner expecting that I could get food anytime at McD…. But then no problem…just roam around a little and you are sure to find one of these two shops… you can get packaged food… and survive….simple as that….

Another good companion here is the octopus… it is a smart card system here a nice alternative to the general ebit card system we follow for general transactions. The advantage is that this is used everywhere… from trains...bus…tram… ferries…. 7Elevens...CircleK… Mc D...KFC and at every other damn place where you need to make a payment.

You need not have a bank account…. Just pay 150 bucks and get a card. Alter that all you need to do is to keep on recharging and using. Recharging is also simple…on all railway stations there are machines… put your card in it… put cash in it and it will recharge…. Or alternatively any 7Eleven or CircleK shop will do it for you.
The main thing is that you need not be worried about what if it is lost and all…. You will only loose money that Is charged at that time on the card. Anyone and everyone can have a card and it is universal….easy for merchants since they do not have to maintain connections with different banks... networks... and then the logo’s like we accept these card and don’t accept those cards…

I remember a few years ago, BEST has brought similar concept for the bus system. But it failed since people did not respond well… mainly due to difficulty in recharging the cards which could be done only at major bus depot.

I think this is a better form of plastic money for day to day use than the debit cards that we use….