The beginning...

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Around 2 o'clock I left the uncomfortable surroundings of our rented house in Portstewart and began the trip up the road to the city airport in Belfast. I was joined by my dad and a slightly fragile mum who hadn't been the biggest fan of my plans to travel the world when I first decided to announce to them both I was heading, however she was a big part of getting me organised to actually get away and without her I would have been completely unprepared. I was given an emotional send off by my folks, one that will stick out in my mind forever as one of the most difficult times in my life. However I was there and the rest of the 'Globetrotters' were waiting patientally. Conan Loughrey, Ciaran, Sean Leo and Barry McGoldrick, Paul Daly, Ciaran Lenehan, Kevin McCarry and Ciaran Mullan - standing wearing white t-shirts with tricolours across the front with the details of our trip on the back, looking slightly apprehensive but excited at the prospect of what lay ahead. We'd finally reached the day that had been planned (despite the occasional "wing it" from Mully) and discussed for the best part of 6 months. There was a few photos taken and we headed off to a BMI flight to London Heathrow. Following a frantick search around Heathrow for a non-existent McDonalds we hit the air once more and were off on a 12 hour flight to Hong Kong. The flight was a bit of a haze, between drifting in and out of sleep and watching Tom Hanks in Angels and Demons but eventually we were there. Instantly face with our first challenge - trying to figure out where we were going as the taxi's seemed to have no clue. Lucky for the lads conan had a goole map and we were off. As we travelled through some questionable areas of Kowloon (mainly Tampon and Fook road) we reached the destination in Mong Kok...and yes it's pronouced exactly as it reads. Anyways we got into the rooms which were incredibly small but clean and the sight of a bed was like a god send. Despite an obvious jetlag we set out around the city to explore. It wasn't quite what i expected...I don;t think anyone did. The amount of people that spoke english was...none and we had no idea where to go or what to do, but we had a wonder round some market stalls and enjoyed haggling with some under privleged chinese folk and unbelievably found our way to our hostel once more, completely by blind luck. The lads having seemingly got rid of any jetlag hit the 7/11 and decided a first nite drink was in order, a quiet one perhaps so McCarry and Lenny picked up a half bottle each and consey bought 12 beer...as you can imagine it didn't stay quiet for very long. Ciaran hit the hay and the rest of the lads hit the streets with Jamie Burns in the search of a bar. As luck would have it McCarry came across a chinese gentleman who actually understood the word bar and drink being shouted at him. He told three taxis where to go and we all jumped in. Lenny and myself got into the last taxi and unfortunately lagged behind slightly. Now let me just put things into perspective, I was as sober as sean leo is in Bar 7 and lenny was saying "It's amazing to think that the people in this shitty city have never seen a beach or a sheep", needless to say he was getting on a bit. Nonetheless we hit the street in search of our fellow travellers and had no luck no matter how many bars we went into and no matter how many girls were slagging our flip flops and shorts combo for being "no trendy." We finally gave up the search after I tempted lenny away from some older, suspicious looking woman holding hands with a McDonalds. We jumped into a taxi and headed back to the hostel. In McDonalds we bumped into a slightly drunken Conan, Barry and Sean Leo who immediately threw apologies at me (perhaps because I had a face like thunder looking after lenny) and conan bought me and Lenny some food. We returned to the only room we had the keys for and waited. This was to be the place we waited to for some time, as Paul had taken the keys for the other room so myself along with Barry in one bed, Conan and lenny in the other while Sean Leo managed a bed to himself - top bunk. If this was the start it was gonna be some craic to come...

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