Octopus

No, I am not talking about the creepy animal living deep down in the sea. Octopus is THE system in Hong Kong to easily pay (many things) by a magnet card.




Super shabbby, my octopus card, because I always keep it in my pocket. It's the one for students. Which might let you think students get a big discount here, but no people, wrong thought. The only advantage is a reduction for MTR rides (so subway). Unfortunately I use buses most of the time. So I can't really benefit from the discount.

Anyway. In order to pay with this card, you can load amount onto it at those places where you can pay with them as well. So you load it up and then when you want to pay something, you put it on a reader like this:


It's in use for every kind of public transportation (bus, mini bus, tram, mtr, kcr, ferries, peak tram), many shops, supermarkets, beverage automats, copy machines, cinemas, etc etc.....almost as common as using money.

Da könnte sich Wien ruhig mal ein Stückchen von abschneiden.