Hong Kong

Hello hello. Here’s the second part to the Hong Kong update, albeit slightly late.

On the Saturday in Hong Kong, we went on a tour up one of the mountains that overlooks the place and we passed some graveyards and the prices of the plots were explained to use which makes it seem very expensive to die in Hong Kong! Just a word of warning for you there. We had a good photo opportunity up the mountain, which we all took advantage of, some coming out better than others but there were quite a few good group shots taken, some ended up on Facebook while others remain on cameras, so that’s good. We lost the girls soon after that so I went with Matt and Mark to one of the bars/restaurants on the mountain and sampled the local beer but the waitress took ages to bring them over and we had to meet up with the others fairly soon so some very quick drinking took place… but we were still late!

After that we headed on down to another harbour and were told about the boat people who think it’s very unlucky to step out on the land, Hong Kong seems to be a breeding ground for superstition. We took some pictures there too. It was so hot though, everywhere was very very humid despite the lack of any real sun so we soon went to a market place after the boating area. The market was alright, we wandered round and all about an oriental design of our names with the obligatory (made up) description of what our names mean and what kind of personality we are supposed to have. Then we were off to a restaurant for dinner, it was a high restaurant that apparently had a revolving dining area but that just didn’t happen. There were some great high views of the city, a couple of really great photographs were taken, taking in the mountains and the setting sun and all that. The meal was ok, it was free so excellent really! Then back to the hotel.

A while later we went back out to check out the mountain view but the night time version of it, so we took the mountain tram thing to really sample the atmosphere. We got kind of lost trying to find the station but we got there eventually, all adds to the adventure. The tram was so much fun and very steep, it didn’t really need to use its accelerator on the way down but I think it did anyway. Anyhow, up at the top of the mountain, we wanted to go to the bar we were at earlier but it was closed so we went to another, slightly more classy established and sampled the local cocktails (we’re such a refined bunch). I had a Chardonnay Clear (I think that’s what it was called… and spelled), it had vodka, chardonnay, orange juice, lime juice and something else, I think. Really really nice. Matt then decided to have one called The Peak (named after the bar) so lots of us had a quick taste of it and loved it so it was Peaks all round! Zoe, Izzy, Keely and Charlene then left a little while later leaving myself, Mark, Matt and Holly (Bukky decided to stay at the hotel) to partake in more Peak drinking in the balcony area before making a very late, rushed dash towards the tram station for the last tram (after paying, of course).

We tried to meet the others in town but they were involved in the taxi ride of death/danger and so went back to the hotel, we decided to carry on the evening in some other bars in town and also tried to keep in touch with the England football/rugby games. There was this one bar full of Italians and French arguing over the slightest throw-in or method of evacuation but it was a good atmosphere anyway. After leaving a certain bar we got back to the hotel at around 4:30 and Matt decided he needed an M&Ms fix so he went to the shop to get some of those, Holly went back to her room and Mark and I went to ours. Matt soon came back with an abundance of chocolate and then attempted to phone the girls to see if they had a good night, he made loads of attempts, no idea how many people he ended up calling but he got to the girls eventually, Mark and I were shouting our protests towards him about how bad an idea it was to call people at 4:30 but such logic isn’t really useful at such a time, so it seems.

Nothing much happened on the Sunday, after apologising to the girls we went on another tour to a temple and a bridge before heading over to the airport for our flight to Auckland.

So, yeah, Hong Kong was great. I’ll update about this week in Auckland at some point soon, I need to catch up with e-mails and other such things, already been given orders to send some postcards out so that should be done as well. I’m seeing Snow Patrol tomorrow night with Keely, so that should be good and then most of us are flying out to Wellington on Saturday to live there for a few months before we do some serious touring around the North Island. Charlene and Izzy are kicking off their touring now so they should meet back up with us in Wellington in a week or so. All good.

After many hours of flying, being driven around and assorted Hong Kong bar adventure, I’m finally in New Zealand now! Flights weren’t too bad, I think about 12 or so hours to Hong Kong and then a little bit less than that on to Auckland, hopefully that’s all my flying out the way for a long while.

Last Thursday at Heathrow airport was the first time that I met the people who I was flying with and I was a bit nervous beforehand because I didn’t know if we’d get on or not but we all get on really well, so that’s great. There’s 9 of us all together (6 girls 3 guys), from lots of places in Britain and it’s a good mix of people. We were quite quiet at Heathrow because we were fairly tired but once we got talking it’s been fine and we were all sat next to each other on the plane too.

Hong Kong – Part 1

We got into Hong Kong at about 8 in the morning Hong Kong time on Friday where we were met by Helen the tour guide person who took us to our hotel. There were some really nice views of Hong Kong and Kowloon as we left the airport, there’s a load of mountains and all the harbours and everything. Got to the hotel about half an hour after leaving the airport and as the bus was heading through some dodgy streets, we were a little concerned about how the hotel would turn out but it was fantastic, we reckon Bunac spent all our money on the hotel! It must have been 3 or 4 star at least, luxury for us! I shared a room with Matthew and Mark and the girls were split into three rooms, our room was the best one because it was bigger and had an advanced electronic toilet with buttons and jets and a heating seat and all that. It’ll be forever in our hearts. The girls’ rooms weren’t ready at the same time as ours so everyone just crashed in ours until they were and we all slept for a while.

We had a bit of a wander round the place, there was a huge tower thing called Times Square (wasn’t a square) that was the main shopping place with cafes and things like that, so we went in there. Later in the evening, everyone except Zoe and Holly (who were still asleep) went out to the harbour area over in Kowloon and took some photos and we went near where the Space Museum is, a building celebrating all the space exploration Hong Kong has apparently pioneered. Then we found some random restaurant where we had a meal, a partial game of pot luck menu was had because we weren’t fully sure what we were ordering but we did order far too much rice! They kept giving us this green tea which was really nice but we had to put up with some horrendous karaoke which was happening behind the screen next to our table. Anyway, the meal was really nice. Had more of a stroll around until we took the ferry back to the other side, I loved the ferry! All the public transport was so cheap and clean and really well run, I wish it was like that back home!

When we got back to the hotel we checked in on Holly and Zoe to see if they were ok and then later I went out with Matthew, Zoe and Holly to find a little pub or bar or something. After a bit of a random walk, we found a small back street pub and when we walked in, the waitress just through a small group off their table to make room for us! That was a bit strange. We had a few drinks in there, experienced a very watery toilet area and went back to the hotel and back to bed.

I’m going to end this little update here because we’re going out tonight, in about half an hour, and I’m running late as usual! I’ll fill in the rest of our Hong Kong stay sometime tomorrow and then bring you up to date with Auckland at some point. I know I’m behind schedule, I just hope I don’t forget everything before the next update!

In short though, I’m having a really great time and getting on brilliantly with everyone and can’t wait to get stuck into this whole traveling lark, we even have vague preliminary plans!