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Published: July 17th 2008
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Hong Kong Skyline
View from the Star Ferry... Hello all, well, we have some more free Wi-fi so time for another installement of our blog!
The last week or 10 days has been dominated by cities, Hong Kong, Macau and Singapore. We left Johannesburg just after our last blog and entered Asia through Hong Kong afer a tiring 14 hour flight. There are only so many movies you can watch on repeat to take up the time!
Hong Kong
We managed to find our way from the airport to Kowloon where we had booked a hostel. To be honest the front of the building looked like a dive, about 18 stories of grey, stained and grotty building and when we finally negotiated our way through the warren of floors and elevators we were hit by a smell of drying laundary and curries! Not pleasent or inspiring so we were pleasently surprised by our room which was small but perfectly formed and overlooked Nathan street, the main throughfare in Kowloon. After a good (and well deserved) afternoon nap we rose and started to explore the general area with temple street night market as our ulitmate destination. We both loved the frenetic atmosphere of HK, bustling crowds, the huge neon
Chinese Dragon
From the display in kowloon park lights everywhere, the street food was great, beer refreshingingly cool and cheap, and of course bartering for bargains in the market was great fun.
The next day, after not much sleep (cheers jet lag!) we explored the Mongkok area of Kowloon, which included the fascinating bird and fish markets and the slightly less fascinating Flower markets. The bird market was quite interesting with older, and we suspect retired, chinise guys comparing thier singing birds. The cages were small although very decorative and it seemed pretty cruel (the birds are basically singing for thier freedom) but it was quite a sight. Very much on the tourist trail we headed to Hong Kong island via kowloon park for a sunday afternoon martial art display and the iconic Star ferry. As we didn't have much time so we decided the best way to see things was to take a lesiurely ride up the travellator, a series of escaltors for commutor purposes, going from the lower levels of Hong kong to the mid levels and then complete our day with a return trip down pub crawl back down to the harbour.
Macau
Even tough we had a short time in Hong Kong we decied
Mirador Mansions
Home for a few days, not as bad as it looked! that we wanted a day in the ex-portuigese colony of Macau which is a short jetfoil ferry ride away and is China's version of Vegas. With gambling illegal in china and gambling being very popular in china they flock here in thier millions, rumour has it it took more than Vegas last year. After getting off the ferry and clearing immigration we caught one of the many free buses to the MGM grand. It was our first stop and we decided to take the plunge by getting some chips and trying our luck at one of the many tables playing a chinise dice game called Sic bo. Very addictive but we luckily walked away quids in, and moved onto the next casino. In total we visited 4, The MGM, Wynn, The Venetian and Sands. The Venetian in Macau is twice the size of that in Vegas, and just like the one in Vegas it has a network of canels, full of water, complete with gondalas and singing Italians....all on the second floor. With the blue sky covered ceilings and oxygen pumped casino's it was difficult to to keep track of time, but soon enough we headed over to the Sands
Hong Kong Travellator
great fun coming back down casino to take in a show over a cocktail, which was my favourite (half naked dancing girls), Carol preferred the scenic Venetian. We decided also to initiate ourselves in another tourist pastime, the purchase of cheap electrical goods and have walked away from Hong Kong with a snazzy small laptop, so we can take advantge of all the wi-fi everywhere as well as storage of photo's, music, and saving ourselves time sitting in hot internet cafes we can sit on the veranda's of our chalets taking our time, writing our tavel blogs, sipping a cold beer....you get the idea!
Singapore
We moved on from Hong Kong the next morning (very nearly oversleeping as the alarm clock was still on UK time) to Singapore, thankfully only (only?) a 3 1/2 hour flight away. For Singapore I (thats richard BTW) had got in contact with my cousin Brett to see if he wanted to catch up and show us the sights of Singapore, he kindly also offered us somewhere to stay for a few days, which we took advantage of and ended up staying for 6!! (thanks very much Brett, we had a great time and thanks so much!) Not only was
it great to catch up with him and Connie, we got taken to all the best places to eat, have a drink and hang out, and watch some live bands. We was taken to some lovely little restraunts for Nepalese in little India (in the words of a great man 'like india but smaller'), steamboats, chinise (in chinatown 'like chnia but smaller'), sushi, and....... Got to try some lovely dishes, Frogs legs, sea cucumber, and i even got pushed into trying some uncooked fish in the sushi restaurant, which for those who know that i'm not a seafood lover, was not a bad achievement.
Singapore Zoo was definatley one of the tourist highlights and we have to say it's probabaly one of the best zoo's either of us has been to (safari in africa doesn't count as a zoo) (and no we're still not bored of wildlife)(yet). With only a few exceptions the anaimals are kept in thier enclosurs with the use of moats, and in some cases, not even that. The oranagatans were free roaming through the trees (i think they're terretorial and stay within the same area anyway) and of course it was marvelous to see, human like
in thier features and expressions, not to metion mannerisms and gentleness, it only inspired us to see them in the wild more, and we're both looking forward to Bornoe later on in the trip. We saw all the other major animals, with the other higlights for us being the White Tigers, which were beautiful, the pygmy hippo's (small and cute, bet they don't kill so many people in AFrica as thier bigger realative), and of course all the other big cats, leopards, black panthers, cheetahs, and lions. The big surprise to us both was how the asian elephant looks so small comapred to the african that we have been so used to so far. They looked cute, with thier smaller ears, so much so that they looked like youngsters. Bless. We also checked out Sentosa Islsand, taking a glass cable car over the harbour to the theme park island of Singapore. The island has loads of attrractions, however none of them as good as you would find in Chessington 'World of adventures', with one exception, the Luge. This was a 650m downhill track on which you streered a plastic cart with a brake, seeing how fast you could go, overtake
The Golden Tree
In the Lobby at Wynn Casino....it changed colour, then sank through the floor! the children at high speeds, and not crash. Carol won, of course. Because she cheated and went before the guy said go (Carol here, that is so not true...Rich is a sour loser!!). nuff said. At the bottom was a beach. Now we both been to a fair few around the world and this had to be one of the most bizarre. It was man made, and looked south out from Singapore. Singapore is one of the busiest shipping harbours in the world, with the Melaka straights being of one the busiest shipping lane in the world, so it was unsurpising really that the view from the beach including a couple of dozen large sized cargo vessels, larger tankers, and associated traffic. Not really all that scenic, but when your desperate for a beach, i suppose you have to make do, however there was no way was we going in for a swim!
We had a brilliant time travelling around these 3 cities, once again thanks to Brett, Connie, Mark, Selina ande Mark B for keeping us entertained in Singapore. That said, it was time to find a beach, a real, proper, idyllic beach, on an island......only accessable by boat.....
Inside the Venetian
Gondala's, canals, with the blue sky abaove...bit strange Sorry this has so long to come through, we're actually at the beach now, but due to there being no Wi-Fi, it's been a bit slow. The beach and the long journey to get here is another story......Love loads to all and the other blog will follow as soon as we've stopped stopped being lazy on the beach
Love loads to all, both still safe and well, mums please don't worry!
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Kit
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Looks wicked cant wait to see you guys wahoooooooo not long now :) x