Very good comparison and introduction to these places! I hope I'll have a chance to visit one day. The food seems amazing though, and I haven't even had breakfast yet so it's making me really hungry.
I found the part about the language to be super interesting because I have had similar experiences in Shanghai and Hong Kong. I'm fluent in Mandarin and a lot of time they just continue speaking to me in English because they just believe I can't speak Chinese. Even the ones who can't speak English, some times they're just completely flustered and don't notice that I'm speaking to them in their language haha.
We've experienced that here in Mexico, except we were the ones on the other end of the exchange. It has happened multiple times when we're expecting them to speak Spanish and we're listening for Spanish words. But then they start speaking English and we don't realize it because we're expecting Spanish. Then we feel like idiots for not understanding English haha.
I'v had it happen to me before too haha. Sometimes I'll be speaking to a chinese friend in mandarin and they suddenly insert an english word because they might think I don't know it in chinese or whatever and it always goes right past me and takes a minute to realize.
Hahaha, I do that all the time.
Always good for a laugh at least! ;)