Heading Home

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Geo: 22.33, 114.18

Our journey home was via a three day stopover in Hong Kong. We arrived at the airport from a 12 hour overnight flight, which followed an energetic day in Barcelona finding the GP circuit and working out the best way to watch the free practice. We were greeted with the news that Andrew's bag had not made it. Very bad timing since what we wanted so desperatley, apart from sleep, was to shower and change our clothes. So my first mission after doing that at our hotel was to go out and buy Andrew a new set of clothes, after very little sleep in a strange country. Turned out to be relatively easy considering the circumstances and we actually managed to enjoy a very nice meal in a nearby restaurant before catching up on all that lost sleep. Andrew's bag turned up the next day much to our relief. We spent a couple of days looking around Hong Kong and doing a bit of shopping. Andrew bought some computer parts and I bought a new phone and a few gifts. Apart from that we were interested to observe the shopping frenzy that is Hong Kong but weren't keen to participate. We managed to find a bar where we could watch the Barcelona round of the Moto GP but were completely outnumbered by the World Cup fans wanting to watch Japan play. Visited the bird and flower outdoor markets and suffered the overwhelming smell of "Dried Seafood Street". Mixed with that trademark humidity and open sewer smell, there was no doubting you were in Asia! Took a tram up to the peak for great views of the city and enjoyed the mix of lush gardens surrounded by monolithical modern city buildings in Hong Kong Park. Enjoyed a good view of other parts of the island and the surrounding coastline via the bus to Stanley. The modern and easy to use subway system is an intesting contrast to the old double decker trams but these combined with the abundant buses makes for easy access to everthying on the island and in Kowloon. We were a little confused by the cuisine and at times weren't quite sure if we were eating Chinese, Cantonese or Honkinese but had some nice meals regardless and managed to satisfy my quest for Vietnamese at one point. We found the people to very helpful and friendly and keen to come to the aid of a lost tourist as we had previously found in Japan. Not sure if this was to practice their English or as a result of the current tourism push by an obvioulsy very persuasive government or perhaps its just their nature.

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