Thinking inside the grid

1) Today I made the mistake of trying to cab it Wan Chai to buy a computer bag before work. Normally, it would be a 10 minute ride there but not today; the Hong Kong marathon was earlier this morning. Part of the route was on the main highway running along the harbor, so every car was taking the local routes underneath it. After about 45 minutes in the cab, the driver knew I was not happy and wisely suggested to drop me off at the closest subway stop.
It wasn't his fault that traffic was backed up, but for all the joys of Hong Kong cabbies - they're cheap, clean, knowledgeable, plentiful and dutifully honest 99 percent of the time - the one thing they sometimes fail on is improvising. Maybe it's the whole zen mentality of driving here, where there is minimal road aggravation, let along rage, and where if someone signals to change lanes, you let them in instead of cursing at them. Maybe it's the whole Hong Kong notion that money is money, and cabbies will try to find the cheapest route somewhere, even if it only saves you 50 cents US but costs you an extra 15 minutes.
No matter the reason, cabbies aren't good at improvising on the fly in crowded situations and immediately coming up with a shortcut that gets you there faster.
Why? I think it's all about the grid system, or lack of one here. Here, there is no grid, just a lot of one-way streets on hills and lots of curves and cutbacks. There may be three ways to get to a place, but they are three totally separate ways, and none intersect with each other. To drive in this city, you have to know every street to know how to get somewhere. You can't just drive in the direction and cut back quickly, because if you miss the turn you may have drive an extra 10 minutes before you hit the right combination of streets to cut back.
Compare that with Chicago. It's the ultimate grid system; major streets every 4 blocks, arterials every 8, with diagonals every 8 blocks on average too. It's a bicyclist's dream; there are a million ways to get somewhere. Very quickly, you can learn what are the fast streets, and which are backed up. You learn what streets cut to where and what ones to avoid on Saturday afternoons. It forces quick thinking, and the ability to make a decision instantly. Do I cut down to Chicago to Wood, then down to Grand to Michigan Ave? Or do I cut up to Division with the bike lane, then cut down Milwaukee to Chicago?
Either way, grids force you to learn to recognize shortcuts immediately and think on your feet, which cabbies are not used to here. Where does that leave me? Stewing in the cab today, as the cabbie stayed in his lane, which wasn't even moving, instead of pulling a quick lane switch, cutting down by the ferry pier and then swinging around the IFC before driving through to Queen's Road, which didn't have traffic. I could see that route instantly; he just sat politely in his lane.
I'm sure there's a term paper here on why cities with grid systems have the best entrepreneurs.
2) I wrote previously about the band DP, which I saw in Cyberport the other week. They played Saturday on the Lamma ferry pier. One of the bands playing before them was El Destroyo, a local rockabilly band that would have fit right in at my old watering hole, Delilah's, on Wednesday night, rockabilly night; they do a mean cover of "Sam Hall." Things may be looking up musically in this town, after all.
That said, I was looking at the ads by the escalator coming out of the MTR. Three big international acts in the next month: Bjork (much like salmon, I can appreciate that she is quite good, but just not good for me), Santana (I'm not desperate enough to see this dinosaur act) and Backstreet Boys (this just makes me cry, that bands like this can sell a concert here but Wilco can't.)