Hong Kong - 2nd-4th May 2008

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Hong Kong. Awash with red and gold. Stone; glass; concrete and bamboo scaffolding sticks thrust their heads up high. There is just a small hint of a breeze in the humid swaddled air, pulling at the makeshift clothes lines, taunting the dull clothes - the city making them a shadow of their former selves. Umbrellas weave in and out of each one, stopping now and again debating which live fish to take home from the market. It is wet, hot and so different from home.
That is what it's all about. Life's adventure. Discovering new cultures, drinking in new things like the first sip of sparkling champagne. It's that spur of the moment decision to get up and find out what is around the next corner. Travel is impulsive, something we need to do to make life the adventure it is.
Hong Kong is just a stopover for myself and the group I'm travelling with. Four of us are heading to Australia the rest of us, myself included, to New Zealand. We are all different. Different ages, different thinkers and different travellers. And as travellers we will take influences from this amazing world that we live in. As long as we continue to lead these exciting lives, we can be part of the whole travelling ethos that will keep evolving for the generations to come.
We waste no time in starting our adventure. The day and a half we have to explore is filled with dashing around, racing against the clock. We eat ice-cream at Victoria Peak, test the water at Repulse Bay, jump on a Sampan at Aberdeen Fishing Village and take a ride on the cable car to see the Buddha upon the hill. We experience Hong Kong's nightlife, meeting more travellers and people who remind us of home. Too much to think about and see to be homesick. The group barely know each other but by the end of the night, three of us girls sit in the hotel room eating chocolate ice-cream and having a girly chat about the events of the evening - just like we would do with our friends and sisters at home.
Perhaps too little time was spent in Hong Kong, soon we were saying our goodbyes to the four who was going to Australia at the airport. We will have many goodbyes, I am sure, on our journey but looking at the faces of my new friends at the airport the excitment of the yet to come was visable. The getting to find out what really is around that corner. Not many airport farewells are sad, knowing that I've been part of someone's life's adventure is an immense feeling.
And as we say these goodbyes I know that we are all unique and as a traveller we will encourage that free-thinking, individual style, so that, throughout this exciting life journey that we lead, our adventure will never stop. You only live once, we will live for now, experiencing both the lows and the highs. Enjoying everything and regreting nothing.

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