Trip Diary - drying clothes

Due to limited space and the large population, Hong Kong is full of high rise apartments in which many people are crammed into a small space.

One effect of living in an apartment is the lack of space for people to dry their clothes.

Some people prefer to dry their clothes in their toilets or in their bedroom. Others prefer to use their small balcony. Because there is usually no room in the balcony to put in place any type of washing lines, most people hang their clothes on wooden poles which they put in the ceiling of their balconies.

It is very difficult to use these poles. A special instrument is needed to take a pole down and you have to put the clothes through in a certain way to dry on these poles.

Now some interesting experiences from my attempt at drying clothes in Hong Kong.

The other day as I was trying to take the poles down with the instrument, I somehow was not able to adjust to the weight of the pole and the whole pole fell down onto the streets. Lucky no one was there or someone might be killed by the sheer force of a falling pole. I wonder what I would have done if someone did get killed.

Tonight, as I was trying to dry some clothes at 1.30am for my trip tomorrow, I went out onto the balcony in my briefs only, thinking that it would be fine as I was just out there for 3 minutes. But as soon as I walked out, a lady from the building across my building started staring at me. I quickly ran back inside and put on some shorts, after which she stopped staring and turned off the nights. I hope that noone took a video of me and posted it up on YouTube. Maybe that is the price I pay for being lazy and not putting on clothes before walking out onto the balcony.