Starting chinese new year with a bang!

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Out on the town

So i'm sitting here writing this blog already for two reasons, one the weather is terrible, it went from a lovely 26 degree's the other day to 10 in the last 36 hours, and number two we blew the budget by going out last night. So far we've done a fair few of the touristy things such as bus trips the night market, pretty temples, and yesterday we did the buddha which was an experience as even after climbing 210 stairs we still couldn't really see it due to the fog. Lama island on the other hand was beautiful, and wonderfully quiet, for most of our 8 mile trek across the island there was no-one to be seen.
Last night we marked the start of chinese new year with a group of people we'd met five minutes earlier,the hostel might have selotape holding the wallpaper together but it's a very social plac! We decided to go clubbing in kowloon and after about an hour of walking round stopping at each of th 7 eleven corner stops for drinks we finally managed to decide on a club that had some very good live music with the chinese guy on stage singing everything from Michael jackson and James blunt to wheezer-teenage dirtbag whilst jumping around on stage with sunglasses on. In order to gain entry we all chipped in a tenner and ended up with a bottle of tequila? Some mixers, salt and lemon. Needless to say we all had a good night, the spanish smooth-talked, the german man pulled out his best dancing skills for kiwi, and the austrians and indian were generally a laugh.
So now we're heading of to kowloon to watch the chinese new year night parade, the plan is to meet everyone else either here or there but we'll see how it turns out. I'm also glad to report we actually managed to book our train trip to the next place guilin using only hand guestures, as the lady at the counter could not understand a word we said or was having a really dull day and decided to pretend that she didn't either way we have ended up with a ticket for a hard bed, three tiered for thirteen hours 😊

Watching the parade was an experience, i ended up with some little angry old chinese man in front of me having a rant about everything and anything, thankfully i couldn't understand him, and a sweet little chinese boy nearby constantly saying hello and asking me if i liked Hong Kong. We waited for around 2 hours and the parade was a bit of a letdown with american cheerleaders wearing nothing, (they must have been cold) and a lot of advertising, but it did have it's highlight with a korean parade, the nottingham festival parade and the swiss tigers being the most impressive. Afterwards we went out for another night on the street that serves as Hong Kongs nighlife and seemed to end up doing another 7 eleven crawl (7/elen is like tesco express) before actually choosing a bar. Lot more english people on this night out, but we still bumped into len from the previous night out!
Unfortunately we'd arranged to meet up with the German girl, Linda, at 10 the next day so despite having got in sometime sfter 5 we were out bright an early the next day, ouch, we went to see the botanical gardens which were really beautiful and somewhat like a free zoo. Having not had time/ not felt up to breakfast we were deaperate to eat and ended up at one of those sushi restaurants where the table revolves and you choose your own dish, tryed quite a few of them some were definately not to my taste but most were delicious. In the evening despite being absolutely knackered i dragged us out to see the fireworks which unlike the parade were spectacular with flowers of several different kinds, the skyline was just illuminated and sparkling for the entire show which went on for a considerable amount of time.
Finally got a lie-in this morning before heading of to the peak, unfortunately the weather is freezing now so am wearing practically all my clothes, the view from the top of the peak wasn't spectacular as it was cloudy but was worth it for the tram ride which seemed to go at an impossible angle, i've actually had to turn down going out tonight, shock horror, because i'm so tired and would actually like to catch our train tommorrow morning...

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Photos

The multicultural lot
This was from the first night in hong kong see first blog

Day of the parade
We just seemed to accumulate new people and by the day after the first night out this was the group although this picture cuts a few people off.

The peak
Very cold, but deffinatly worth the visit

Comments

[deleted_150761]

So i'm glad the "no drinking while travelling abroad" thing is going well :-) . Trust you to find a group as soon as you arrive. Sounds like a lot of fun and i am very jealous. Make sure you keep up with this blog missy, i'm already hooked (now i've worked out how it works :-p). Nothing exciting to report back here (surprise surprise). Love you.