A blast from the past in Hong Kong

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After arriving in China from Laos and spending a couple of days in the Yunnan province, Dali and Kunming, falling in love with chinese culture (God this was what I had been looking for in Aisa) and already being rescued several times by generous Chinese people it was time to f*&^ (sorry Mum) up the visa I had nicely stuck in my passport and head for Hong Kong airport where I would dutifully meet Cat off the plane (she had flown rather a long way to see me).

I did duitifully meet Cat off the plane, and we straight away sat, and talked for waaaaaay too long. Not feeling at all like over a year since we had hung out. From the airport we were to head to Cat's friends flat in Nathan Road, THE hub of central Hong kong, Mong Kok on the NTR. We stayed a week surfing the sofa of some English boys who were out in Hong Kong teaching English for a year. They showed us the sights of where to eat/where to drink, their little English hangouts. In between all this we met up with Charlie (Cat, Charlie and I had worked together in Uganda) who was out there for a semester of uni. He had the right idea, taking us to swish restaurents for cheap ass dumplings and tea, hospital canteens for the best BBQ pork and rice I ever had and riding the trams with 711 beers to see HK by night.

Rather predictably we were soon over HK, it is just another city, and as soon as my visa was ready to re-enter China we left. Crossing the border was the easy part. The hard bit was trying to get a train or bus to Yangshuo so late at night. In the end we took a chance with a tout and it paid off. We arrived in Yangshuo the next morning tired but alive. Cat spent far too much of the week buying presents for people back home and I spent far too much of the week trying to persuade her to rock climb. In the end she wussed out and we just enjoyed each other's company exploring Yangshuo and the surrounds and it's many eateries.

Those two weeks served as a gentle reminder as to just how important good friends are, as if I could forget.

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