AAAAAAAAAARSE I’m late. [View Full Entry]

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The MTR is faultlessly efficient and I’ve made up time, I’ve arrived at a multi-storey bus depot and the only problem is that the security guard doesn’t speak English. He speaks sign-language for ‘telephone’ though, and the problem is quickly resolved. As an aside, it looks like they use the bus depot for pay and display during the day. [View Full Entry]

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Only in Hong Kong can one find oneself at the wrong multi-storey bus depot. I’m late to meet Kenny but, since he wasn’t expecting me until Thursday, it’s not a problem. He interrupts his work and takes me to a meeting room “to avoid the telephone, yes?” to give me an outline of the New World group and specifically their bus franchises. He explains the outline programme for the next four weeks, observes that tomorrow is a public holiday in Hong Kong and tells me to come back on Thursday “about 9. Ish.” It seems that all the arrangements are verbally [View Full Entry]

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I spend the afternoon wandering around the city, hopping on and off the open trams which lumber around the city at $2 (18p) a time. The trams are an excellent vantage point to see the city - it’s like walking but you’re higher up and less likely to bump into things if you don’t look where you’re going. As before, the buildings are dizzily tall and festooned with laundry, advertisements and immense bamboo scaffolds. The roads are dug up in a random, impromptu style and taxis, buses and trams abound everywhere. Not even in that British tram haven of Blackpool would [View Full Entry]

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I’ve been making myself giddy looking up at all the tall buildings in the sky (there’s more building than sky most of the time) and wandered past some seedy looking bars with aggressive touts who didn’t seem beyond manhandling me to secure my custom. Happy now I’ve found Crunchy Nut Cornflakes (but no milk, bowl or spoon as yet), I’m heading back to turn in. I’m ashamed to say that dinner was McDonalds but following so little sleep in so long, an average speed of over 300mph in that time and heat to smelt the balls from that brass monkey, I [View Full Entry]

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Well, I'm packed and ready to go - tomorrow morning will see me on a bus, train, coach and aeroplane. There's some trepidation in my mind, where am I going, will I be understood etc, and a major headache about how I'm going to shop in a region where the dominance of English is reputedly waning. My packing has been somewhat haphazard - the first attempt was neat and tidy but left all manner of random items for my hand baggage like shoes and toothbrush. Male pride said I wanted to have a small bag and 'travel light'. When I zipped [View Full Entry]

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