We arrived on Hong Kong, making it rather slowly through the immigration – just a lot of people arriving for Christmas. Our hostel made us slightly nervous as we had to catch 2 buses to it, the last of which left at 6.10pm and didn’t resume until the next day. Sadly, our fears were justified… As we climbed the hill, we discovered that our hostel was in a tourist hot spot, that shutdown at night. There was nothing there, and we had no change for the one vending machine, the hostel was freezing, dirty, full of screaming kids, and generally not what we needed after a flight. It was also miles from the main island, so the next morning, we moved on to Hong Kong Island.

We stayed in the Novatel hotel, in the Kennedy Town region of the island (west side), where we were surrounding by the largest range of dried produce I’ve ever seen! I didn’t know you could dry so many things (including squid, which looked rather odd). Getting around was easy, with a good underground system, a very regular ferry service, buses and trams – old rickety ones which I continually banged my head on as the ceiling was so low!

The main island manic. Trucks delivering, people pushing trolleys along the street loaded to the brim with anything from building rubbish to food, street sellers… It was quite amazing watching the amount that was going on! The best view came from the Peak, which featured a rather cool tram (train thing again), and afforded a great view over the whole harbour. This whole scene was frantic! Even the harbour has boats flying back and forth – they have several smaller boats unloading the larger boats, just to add to the mix. And then you get onto the buildings! I think they’d have a fit at home if anyone tried to build some of these things, and then, just to make sure, they have light shows on the outside. Some of them were so thin, it was amazing they stood up, and must have been like coffins inside! Then you get onto the bamboo scaffolding… No way! Looked so wrong and flimsey!

Christmas day, we decided to treat ourselves and had lunch in the Hard Rock Cafe – nowhere was serving a traditional lunch. In fact, the whole place was just like normal with all the shops open. I treated myself to a pocket radio – really splashing out! The rest of the day was spent drinking and partying till the small hours! One word of warning though, drinking is expensive there, and there’s ot much else to do in the evenings.

But, after a few days of wandering round, I got bored of the place and longed to move on, or go back to Japan. I’d seen most of the major island, the buddah on Npong Ping. Wandered round the Zoological and Botanical gardens. Travelled up the peak. Wandered the streets. Ridden the worlds longest escalator to the mid levels. Seen the world’s largest permanent light and sound display – they have a range of lights around the harbour on the tall buildings, and the Christmas Eve show was a special display. But, I was getting bored.

One consolation though, again, was the food! They sell just about everything, but my favourite had to be the Dim Sum… hmmm… dumplings. The main area for food and drink was Soho, which was about 20 mins walk from our hotel, or 5 mins on the tram. But, there is something quite cool about seeing the city on a tram.

We did have a great time here, and I’m glad we saw it, I just wish it had been for less time. Oh well… We’re in Bangkok now for New Years… Shear madness, but more to follow on that!

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