FlyingUnderTheRadar

After being an ex-pat and returning to the US and smelling grease from fast food restaurants. Then a day later a murder.

Boturham

After three months in SE-Asia, the difference in customer service. I bought a coffee at the departure airport and was served with a smile and we had a pleasant 15 second conversation while ordering and paying, smiles all around. Back in Amsterdam, ordered a coffee at the Starbucks, zero interaction. No impoliteness or rudeness, just no effort.

Oh, and re-adjusting that the escalator on the right side goes up instead of down, that one took me a few weeks.

GUWonder

invisible

Bay Area is the only place where I lived in US, spending fifteen years there from late 90x till early 2010s, living in Campbell, Pleasanton, Fremont, Mountain View, Los Altos, Cupertino and Sunnyvale.

Totally I lived in six different countries, including the current one, but only two I called 'home'.

Where I live there is no minimum wage, loaf of bread can go in price from app USD $1.5 to USD $10 and more, depending where you buy. Gallon of gas costs close to USD $6.3, but at the same time cheapest new car you can buy will cost of USD $100k or more - that's for Toyota Corolla or equivalent.

The percent of gas prices and loaf of bread I don't think is a reliable indicator because majority of the population does not own cars and do not eat bread on daily bases. But if you believe statistics, median monthly salary is close to USD $5K.

Annalisa12

After I hear different accents and I hear an Australian one I think... omg we sound like bogans (rednecks!)

GUWonder

akl_traveller

Food prices. I remember standing in a supermarket in freaking Edinburgh, which is about as far as you can get from Auckland, and being able to buy NZ lamb cheaper than I could back home. And NZ wine. And cheese! Considering how much milk we produce you'd think cheese would be cheap here, but nope, I can buy it cheaper in a bloody Tesco Express with a view of Edinburgh Castle.

And real estate... Auckland is ridiculously overpriced for apartments (I think our standalone prices are OK in global scale) but boy when you see some waterfront apartment somewhere nice in the Med for a quarter of the price of a mouldy Ponsonby villa...

tentseller

1 agree
2 agree
4 agree (no G&T, just cousins from Islay)

3 - where are you hanging out at? LKF every night? A full-size 750/600ml bottle of beer is 15-20 HKD at food hall of markets. Classified has full-size glasses of wine at 30 HKD after work. I would not complaint about no duty on beverages less than 30% alcoholic content.
Your estimate for the value of a 500sf flat on HK Island is low unless you are at the extreme east or west end of the Island.

Summary: One doesn't know how good or bad they are having it until they travel and compare.

1P

People who condemn US airports should try using the European ones. Most of the time, you will debark the plane at a remote stand and be bussed to the terminal. The same thing when departing: most of the time a bus will take you to the plane. The great thing about US airports is that nearly all the time you enter and leave the plane via a jetbridge, except for the small commuter planes. At London Heathrow's brand new Terminal 2, anyone leaving on a longhaul flight has over a mile to walk to get to the gate. ...?!

I agree about the exorbitant Calufornia wine prices and tasting prices. The way to get round the tasting fee is to pay for one and have your spouse share the same glass. Since they always pour too much for a single taste, it's easy to share. And don't swallow the wine, swirl it in the mouth and spit it out. On the other hand, I see most American wine tasters swallow, which is not advisable if you are tasting, as I do, 40-50 wines a day. I buy direct from wineries in France as well as S. Cal. I would estimate that on average what I can buy for $45-50 in the Napa Valley will only cost me 18 Euros in France.

The thing that strikes me most about California is that no one walks anywhere,.People jog or run on the sidewalks, but you seldom see someone out walking. The whole state is set up for driving. Same thing in Texas.

Anyone who thinks that 3 bedrooms + 1 bath is normal outside the US should visit the UK, where an ensuite bathroom in the master bedroom and a family bathroom for everyone else is now becoming the norm.

Lufthomie

I live in Round Valley AZ and we have the Apache Sitgreaves National forest 30 minutes away. $200if you stay in Round Valley would be 2-3 nights of lodging and if you AirBnB you can get great deals. We have multiple lakes and alpine settings. The Petrified Forest is only an hour north.

andersonCooper

European and APAC airports, in general, have different design principles from US airports. EU/APAC tends to consolidate into a big terminal, so instead of separating by trains or buses (JFK, LAX), you get a huge airport and thus require a lot of walking (HKG, AMS for example). It's easier for connecting flights, consolidated shopping and dinning experiences. As for jet bridge, it really depends. CX LAX-HKG is by no means a small jet but also requires bus to connect to aircraft at LAX. See discussion here: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/cath...t-chaotic.html

I do agree with the above that US airports, and to be boarder extend, infrastructure in general, are falling behind. As a cyclist myself I always hope the roads in the U.S. (except Colorado) could be as good as those I enjoyed in Swiss, France or Australia. And train/bus/public transit are well explained by above posts - where can I check in downtown and just ride to an airport with my carry on, outside of HKG?

There are exceptions for sure, such as SIN and LHR.

BearX220

The Costco retail model is enabled by comparatively large US homes. In homes in most of the rest of the world there is no room to store 25 rolls of toilet paper.

Really? Look at the state of discourse eight now in the UK and Australia. I think both have grown more extreme and rage-motivated recently, on parallel course with the US. When we visit Oz we have to tread just as gingerly around political topics with our hair-trigger relations, who hold fierce and uncompromising views, as we would visiting certain pockets of the US south.

Because of overlapping, slow-moving, splintered authorities and port commisions, etc. in the US, even when we do infrastructure upgrades, the results are usually frustrating. When the Seattle region finally laid light-rail track to SEA after an eon of fretful discussion, the station was positioned hundreds of yards from the terminals, with a weather-exposed walk through the parking garage to reach your flight. Install the platforms underneath the terminal, in the manner of LHR, HKG, KUL, SYD, AMS, etc? Oh, no: "Too hard." It's almost impossible in the US to do sweeping, holistic infrastructure in the Asian manner. Even when we amass the money and will, we end up doing ill-fitting layers and increments as expensively as possible.

beachmouse

tmiw

I think the issue is more that it's very inconsistent in the US and dependent on when an area's decided that updates are no longer possible to defer. For instance, Terminal 2 at SAN is actually pretty nice and modern (though definitely nowhere near the likes of, say, SIN)--while T1 is the same overcrowded building that's existed since the 1960s.

In general, though, the feeling I always get when I return to the US is that people in general seem more okay with the concept of "society" elsewhere. That is, people are more accepting of the idea that we're all in it together, whereas Americans are more individually focused. Some are even hostile (though that may be the wrong word to use here) to the idea of pooling our shared resources to help the less fortunate.

BTW, speaking of no longer possible to defer, our banking system's also a mess that is now just starting to be rectified to some extent (e.g. the adoption of chip-based cards a decade+ after everyone else and the adoption of things like Venmo to enable instant bank transfers).

Fraser

This seems like a gross exaggeration. I can't think of any major airport in Europe where you routinely board through a remote stand.

Ha! I had this exact conversation with my mother yesterday. My mother lives a few miles from the Bombay Sapphire distillery in the UK where the typical price is about £30-£35 per litre. My local liquor store here in NYC is selling it for $38 for 1.75 litres. (yes, tax etc. but still, it's amusing)