A week in the HK

Arrival:

Johnny met me at the airport and took me for dinner at a Chinese resturant in the airport. It was just a noodle soup and was pretty good. Then we got the very short bus ride [10 minutes] back to his house straight from the terminal.

He lives on the same island as the airport, not on HK island itself. The building is massive and part of a very nice complex with a club house [complete with 2 swimming pools, table tennis, normal tennis, sauna, steam room, anything else...] and everything! I met his mum and his brother who are both really nice. They live on floor 20 so they have a lovely view out to sea. We went over to his aunties flat in the same complex but the next building over, she is on the 43rd floor [ish] and can see right over the building in front into the airport which is really cool. Johnny has a trundle bed in his room so I got his bed and he was on the trundle.

Day 1:

We woke up quite late and went for breakfast with Johnnys mum, brother and gran. It was really nice, they do it nearly every weekend because I dont think they get to see much of each other during the week with both his parents working and getting home late and his brother being a weekly boarder at a local boarding school. His dad just got back from Bejing that morning and I met him just before we left for Mong Kok, the main fashionable shopping area where all the teenagers go.

I picked up a 2GB SD card for 4GBP which was the top priorety and we looked around some of the shops. A very famous market called Ladys Market is in the area too so we walked down there. It is really cool and alot even cheaper than Bangkok. I got an I love HK t-shirt for $30, which is under 3GBP.

We went home in time for tea that night but still managed to stay up till 2ish faffing around.

Day 2:

We got up fairly early and went to breakfast again, this time to a place that did 'English breakfast', it was actually delicious and one of the nicest I have had while out here!

Then we set off on the walk up the mountian to the giant Budda on top of the hill. Johnnys mum said it would take 3 hours but we were rapid and it only took us 1! On the way we got overtaken by a man riding a bike up the hill and carrying it up the steps [there were ALOT of steps]!!! Then we saw an evil lizard trying to be camoflauged on a rock.

At the top we went to a place with huge tree trucks that had been cut in half and a poem carved out of them to tell a story about life or something. Obviously I couldn't read the symbols and Johnny said they didn't really make sense and couldn't be translated but I think it was something about living your life and being a cool dude at the same time.

As soon as we got to the giant Budda it started raining heavily! The Budda is so high its top half was covered by cloud already and we just ran up the steps and took shelter in the shop underneath the Budda. We waited for age for the rain to stop and decided to make a move when it died down quite alot.

Next was a bus to another island, the name escapes me. It was a small market sort of village by the sea. Lots of fish was on sail and after walking around a bit we paid $20 [under 2GBP] to go on a 20 minute dolphin spotting cruise. They are a rare species of dolphin which is whitey/pinky in colour. I was very surprised to see any because the man selling tickets wasn't very convincing but we saw quite alot and had a nice motor round in a powerboat.

We went back to Johnnys for a swim, sauna and food before heading back out into town [Kowloon this time] to meet Johnnys friend Alex and play some Pool.

As soon as we met Alex it started raining, we sheltered in the 7/11 and got some beers. After about half an hour we got impatiant and made a run for the arcade across the road. It is so strange for me, the place to go for teens, girls and boys, is the arcade. Everyone hangs out there playing 'Midnight Club 3', 'Guitar Hero' and 'Dance Dance Revolution'. Admittedly it is very fun and so so cheap I can't blame them, it is just hard to imagine having grown up in the UK.

When the rain stopped we went to the billiards club and stayed there untill 02:30. We played a sort of round robin affair at the pool table [I won overall =D] and a 3 way game of snooker [I lost =D]. We had to wait till 03:35 for the night bus so we grabbed some noodle food from a small resturant. I mentioned earlier that Johnny lives a ways outside of town...we got home at 05:30 after the most round-about bus journey ever that drove past Johnnys house to the airport and then came back via every building even remotely connected to the airport before dropping us off. I got some cool photos of the sunrise from Johnnys window though.

Day 3:

We woke up really late and only had time to go to the peak, so we did. The peak is on the top of a mountian on Hong Kong island that overlooks the city. You have to get a stupidly steep tram up there which was quite exciting. There was an amazing view but it was cloudy so I couldn't get many good photos. On the plus side I bought a Hagen Das from the shop at the top and it was really really good.

I got to look around the financial area of town too, it was interesting to see. The buildings definatly have a fair few more floors than London.

Back in Central [the main area of Hong Kong city where the peak is] we visited a few shops, I bought 2 Nike t-shirts for 9GBP each which was a great deal. Then we went for a beer in a bar but it was quite expensive so only stayed for one. I had heard of a bar where you can go into a freezer room that is at -20 C and have a drink. It is a russian bar with the largest vodka selection I have ever seen and all the different bottles stacked up in the freezer room. So naturally we had a shot of vodka, we didn't think we could stay in there for a long drink! I got Vanilla and Johnny got Strawberry, both were disgusting and tasted nothing like the flavours suggested. Then we got a tram and wandered around Causway Bay, another funky youthful area, for a while before agreeing our legs hurt after the day befores walk and coming home.

Day4:

We went straight to the IFC tower 2 [the main financial tower in HK] because they have a visitors information portal on the 55th floor. The view was incredible and we learnt all about fake bank notes. We met Johnnys friend Billy at the mall [there is a mall at every tube station!] too so he came along. Then we went to a very posh cinema to see Angels and Demons which was great! The cinema had specially imported German leather chairs it was so comfy and only a fiver to get in!! Then we caught the ferry to Kowloon to go to the space museum but it is closed on Tuesdays! We walked down Nathan road instead, which is the longest road in Hong Kong, or one of them. When we had walked all the way to Mong Kok again we caught the tube home and watched Roles Models which was very funny.

Day 5:

To be honest I cant really remember what we did in the morning but we met up with Alex again, somewhere, and headed to the beach in the afternoon. It was 33 C and the only lovely day I had! I spent most of the time swimming and I think I got a tiny bit burnt but it wasn't visible to anyone but myself. We tried out my shuttlecock that I bought in Siem Reap that the locals do keepie ups with, we sucked big time and gave up to play frisbee instead. That was so much fun and we even had some small local kids join in as well haha! Then we went for supper near Times Square, apparently there is one in Hong Kong too which I was totally ignorant of.

Day 6:

Macau. I woke up at 5:45 because we had to leave at 6:30 and I wanted to shower and eat some Corn Flakes before we left. We met Alex at an out-of-the-way tube station that doubled up as the port for ferries to Macau and the mainland . Oh yeah thats what we did before the beach! Bought our tour to Macau! The ferry left at 08:00 so we got a Japanese breakfast. It was OK but tasted alot like I was eating the sea. The ferry took an hour and we met the tour after going through customs and passport control.

Unfortunatly for me the whole tour was in Cantonese so I didn't understand a single word that was said. First stop was a shop that sold dried ham and almond cookies, neither were great and Alex was the only person to make a purchase of cookies.

There are 2 sights in Macau and they are right next to each other. So next we drove to the fort/ wall of burnt down church. Then we walked through town a bit in 'free time'. I couldn't resist an awesome pair of grey jeans and Johnny actually bought some shorts because he was so hot in jeans!

Then we went over to the tower, it is something like 213m high and you can bungie jump off and do other extreme activities. I dont think anyone on our tour did but there was a viewing platform at the top which everyone dissappeared up. I was so tempted to do a bungie jump but it was 100GBP and although it is a 3rd the price of doing it in New Zealand [apparently] I decided I probably couldn't afford it or have the courage to jump off.

A buffet lunch at a nearby hotel was quite delicious, I even ate the head of an octopus after Johnny refused to tell me what it was and I had a nibble. It did not taste nice but Johnny claims that the sauce was not great.

Then we got dropped off at a very big casino with a ferry ticket back and left to our own devices. Naturally we went straight into the casino, the gambling floor was the size of 3 football pitches! Alex played a few games of a random dice game and came out $200 in the green which was quite impressive. Johnny and I opted not to play but enjoyed watching the tables where large crowds had gathered.

We heard that there was a free show across the road so headed over there. We had to wait 1.5 hours before we could get a viewing so checked out that casino and chilled out a bit. Incase you didn't realise, casinos are the main event in Macau. A few of the big Vegas casinos also have ones in Macau, such as the MGM Grand. It is pretty much Las Vegas for Asia. The show was pretty cool, just 15 minutes but it was inside a huge sphere and the whole wall/roof were used as a giant screen. It was something about underwater dragons, it looked more like a technological trailer than a proper show but was cool none the less. They also had a huge water feature in the middle that dropped water down and changed the colour of the light shining through it, there were steam blowers in the walls for when the dragons roared. Very nifty.

We checked out the uni because it was where Alexs dad graduated from, it was just like any other uni to be honest but only $3 for a can of coke which is like 25p.

We wandered around for ages and finally found somewhere for supper, it was a Portugese resturant and was very delicious. Then we went to the nearest pub and had a few cheap beers and played some pool. We got the 10pm ferry back to Hong Kong and went straight to bed, everyone was so tired after waking up so early and walking for so much of the day.

Day 7:

My flight left at 9pm so we still had the whole day to do stuff. We went to a mall we hadn't visited yet and went ice skating for 45minutes - 1 hour, it was so fun, the time went really quickly. The ring is used for the team to train as well so there were random people doing spins and jumps while everyone was falling over around them it was so cool.

Afterwards we headed for a chinese resturant to have Dim Sum for lunch. It is traditionally a breakfast food and it like bitesize pieces of food wrapped together in something tastey. It was so nice apart from the seafood one which was just kind of nice. The best was BBQ pork wrapped in a delicious sweet bread that was bright white in colour, really soft and a little chewy.

After that we quickly went to Mong Kok again because we wanted to go to the Lady market one more time. Johnny wanted some sunglasses and I was looking for a 2x2 rubix cube, having seen them in the Toys'r'Us at the base of the tower in Macau, and one of those leather wallet to jean attachment things. Johnny found his sun glasses first then I bartered my 'revenge cube' from $39 to $25. I didn't find my leather wallet thing but it could have been for the best because I already dont like them anymore.

Naturally I got out the cube on the tube and had the top half completed [the top colour full and the first row full] but could not at all work out the bottom! Johnny was annoyed by the time we got home and looked up how to do it on the internet. I didn't watch the whole video but I saw one of the 'algorithums' which is up, left, down, left, up, left, left, down. It is suposed to complete the bottom and leave just one more step for completion but for some random reason it filled in the whole puzzle! My first completion of a rubix cube just 2 hours after buying it!

We went for supper at the airport with Johnny, his gran, his mum and brother. I had to rush to catch my flight because I left from terminal 1 but we were in terminal 2 for food, so after a quick goodbye and a few minutes I was boarding the plane.

On the plane I did the rubix cube in the same way 4 or 5 more times, much to the amazment of the guy next to me. On the bus to Khoasan road I mixed it up thinking I could easily complete it again and found that it didn't work. No matter what I did I couldn't get it complete, there were always 3 sides that had just 1 block out. I still can't do it!

I checked into New Joes again as I had stayed there before my flight to Hong Kong. I have to pay for a double room because all the singles are full but it is only 50Baht extra and I can cope with that for 2 nights.

I have decided to go to Phi Phi tomorrow, I have only heard good thing about it and although it is touristy it is suposed to be very beautiful so I will check it out.

This entry has actually taken me an hour over 2 days to write :O