Whoa That's Weird: World's Longest Escalator System

Hong Kong is unlike any other city I’ve been to. Much of it is built on an extremely steep mountain slope with the buildings holding on for dear life. If San Francisco’s topography is a green circle than Hong Kong’s would be a double black diamond.

It’s nightlife district, Lan Kwai Fong, is one of the steepest which makes drunken stumbling a potentially life threatening activity. Didn’t PFT break his foot falling off a curb in New York City? If that’s the case the dude would in a full fledged body cast after a Saturday night in Hong Kong.

With such weird terrain, normal roads and subway systems don’t always cut it when it comes to connecting the different districts of the city. Cue the Mid-Levels escalator and walkway system, the longest outdoor escalator system in the world.

This system was built in 1993 to provide a better commute by linking areas within the Central and Western District on Hong Kong Island and according to Wikipedia was pretty much a huge failure.

 “In November 1996, the Director of Audit issued a report which criticised the project as being a “white elephant”, saying that it failed to achieve the primary objective of reducing traffic between the Mid-Levels and Central, as well as over-running its budget by 153%.”(wikipedia)

OUCH.  Anyways, I still found the fact that tens of thousands of Hong Kong residents can now commute to work via an escalator worthy of a “Whoa That’s Weird” Episode.  As for the video itself, it’s mainly just a time-lapse of me riding an esclator plus some bonus footage of me breathing heavily/having a minor heart attack as I try to make it up to the peak. Not the most the electric stuff but the background track, Warriorz by Too Many Zooz, which I found on Caleb’s Soundcloud playlist, is St. Elmo’s Fire Flames so hopefully that helps.

Speaking of which, I try to stay literally as far removed from office drama as physically possible but Caleb’s Soundcloud >>>>> KMarko’s Spotify. Sorry KMarko, you’ve been a very supportive editor-in-chief and I’m sure you’d make a great Middle School Dance/Sweet 16/Bar Mitzvah DJ, but that shit’s just not for me.

P.S. Kmarko is one that hits publish on my blogs so let’s see if this blog even sees the light of day.