Hong Kong day 2 (day of nostalgia and Happy Valley)

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Got up earlyish.

Was very excited as today me and Celine were going to go and visit are old appartment and schools.

It was a much clearer day today.

We caught the star ferry over to Hong Kong island then Caught a cab to go and see our play school 'starters'. We used Celines map which had the location of the school clearly marked by our Father. Cab driver hadnt heard of the school but used the map anyway and dropped us off outside a primary school which was on the same road. We then spent the next hour and a half trying to find the stupid place. dont know if my dad had marked up the wrong place on the map or if the school had been knocked down or somthing but after having been caught out by a rain storm we decided to give up and try and find our old appartment.
It was here we started having major problems with the buses. We'd hope on to a bus we thought was going the right way ask the busdriver if this was the case, hed say yes, i'd ask again to make sure he'd say 'yes' again and then we'd end up going in completely the wrong direction (guess the only english word the bus driver knew was 'yes')!!. Anyway the last bus (at this point I was getting very pissy) went past all the roads we thought it should have gone up and ended up taking us to the south east of the island. We decided to take this opertunety to go visit Stanley market.
This side of the island is nice as its all very lowrise and a bit calmer and with Repulse bay not far it has some nice beachs too.
While at stanley we had Lunch (most expensive one ever and im still not sure why) then wondered along the market and bought some bits and pieces.
Later we caught a taxi and decided to go and try and find our old appartment again, using the directions given by our parents. Still couldnt find the stupid place! So we stopped off at a gas station and the kind lady there (who didnt speak any english) wipped out a map.

With the map we found it! So we caught another cab and hay presto we were there.

It was a strange Celine feeling being there again. With some respects it felt like we'd never left as very little apart from the park had changed (all the other appartment blocks had been repainted apart from ours, how strange). Even the dary lane supermarket (now changed to some other company) around the corner seemed to have not been refurbished since our departure.

Afterwards we wondered down the road to my Primary School, where I managed to blag a visitors pass to go and have a wonder. The school hadnt change much either apart from it was now blue instead of red. And everything felt slightly smaller. The view from the classroom had changed somewhat. You cant see the harbour anymore as its almost completely hidden by skyscrapers. Still remember when I was 7is seeing Britannia (with the Queen on board) sail up the harbour.

Afterwards we headed back down the hill and to the Visa office to pick up my passport and chinese visa.

We then headed over to Causway bay which is packed full of shops, shopping centres and cinemas. Its incredibly busy there and the whole place is ablaze with neon signs. Celine and I went for a shake in one of the centres to rest our feet before visiting the 10 storey high centre (which I think is called time/clock something?) We then headed off to happy valley.

Happy Valley is hong kongs race course and every wednesday is race night. The place was packet and me and sis spent the remainder of the evening drinking, eating (well i was anyway) and loosing money on the races.

Everything finished at 10:30ish and me and sis slowley made our way back using HKs super underground back to Chung king mansion

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