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Published: February 18th 2008
I have never had a more exciting ride to an airport before! We took the fastest train in the world (Maglev) 430km/h. Tilting left and right-it woke me up anyway.
Hong Kong
We arrived in the afternoon and the first thing I noticed were the amount of white people. All around us there were Americans, British and Portugese ..it felt quite different no longer being the only Westerners and as Ross quoted " I miss being stared at". The second difference was the temperature it was reasonably warm! We stripped down to our t-shirts, however this action was met with puzzled faces as the Hong Kong people were wrapped in big coats, gloves scarfs. ( We got lots of looks again though 😊 )
On the way to our hostel we travelled across the worlds longest suspension bridge, which gave us a fantastic view of the city lights. The first hostel we tried looked reasonable, we wernt sure if there would be any rooms because of Chinese New Year. There wasn't but i dont think it helped our chances when Ross accidently kicked a childs football straight into an old mans face, who happened to be the owner.
The hostel we stayed at was a new experience. The building looked as if it was crumbling down and the views of drainpipes wern't anything special. However it had to make do as it was the only one with rooms available because of Chinese New Year. Me and my brother had share a single bed, the room was freezing, there were insects on the floor and no window. We both got no sleep.
We departed the hostel and left for Hong Kong Island. It was a short pleasant ferry ride across and surprisingly the water was a clean light blue and there was hardly any pollution. The reason for this became clear when we viewed a sign stating a $1500 dollar fine and 6 months imprisonment was the punishment for litter dropping!
The City was extremly impressive, overwhelming sky skrapers loomed over us on every steet. The roads seemed like skaeclectrics tracks with sports cars everywhere. Hotels even sent Bentlys and Audi's to pick up guests!
We soaked up the Urban maze; however later found ourselves in a peaceful botanic garden surrounded by palm trees, exotic flowers and water fountains. We visited the bird, monkey and Jaguar
sanctury's which felt like a larger version of Chester Zoo.
In the evening we visited an Irish bar which served Strongbow! ( Cider had been rare in China.) We were there to watch the United v City game. The atmosphere was rather quiet however Rick certainly made United' voice heard with his chants. No comment on the game 😞
The following day the highlight was definitlely the light show over Hong Kong city. We were on the other side of the river and had a view of the largest sky-scrapers on the Island. The show felt like an extremely big disco; each building had its own special lasers and projected them across the river, whilst in rythm to the music.
We also managed to get on a TV programme, I Cable was the channel. We all had to identify an Olympic symbol..and of course we got it correct it was a wrestling symbol. This was the second time I have been on Asia TV.
On Tuesday 12th of Feb we decided to view Hong Kong City from up high and took a taxi to the peak. Was an excellent views as you can probably tell from
the photos. One of my greatest moments of the gap year so far was viewing the Sun setting over the South of the Islands bay, listening to the lighhouse family, all five of us dangling our legs over the ledge.
On Wednesday we decided to take a break from the bustling city and take a few days out to visit Macau. Macau is renown for being one of the only legal places to gamble in China and is home to some of the largest Casinos in the world.
Dont worry though we were self disciplined and nobody is on their way home broke...just yet. We visited the newest Casino called the MGM which had an impressive water/ light fountain show outside. It got us soaked but we felt like Oceans 11 crew did at the end of the film, except without the money.
In the evening I had the best tastiest budget meal yet. We visited a family owned restaurant who caught fresh fish daily and put them on show in a fish tank at the front of the restaurant. I ordered fish special which was a mix of Octupus, squid, eel, prawns and some other tenticles
that I didn't recognise mmm.
After the meal we chilled in a bar which had a live band playing. The band was very impressive playing songs from Macey Gray, Lionel Richie, Robbie Williams and Fergie.
The hostel we stayed at was another budget type. Didnt get much sleep as people in the room next door seemed to argue all night. Next morning I walked past their room and on the door it said rental for 2 hours..hhhmmm.
We decided to move to another hostel situated next to a biscuit making shop. This was very useful as they offered free samples which we took free advantage of and were often there for breakfast, lunch and tea. During the day we took a strole to the peak over looking the small City. We rested and took in the suns rays whilst writing our diaries.
Fogot to mention.. today was valentines day so we decided as a group of 5 lonely guys to drown our sorrows over an extragovent meal. Macau was once owned by Portugal so therefore we had a candle lit meal at a Portugese Chicken restaraunt.
We also decided to hit the casinos, gap year
style, which means cautiously. Our favorite game was Roullette and after one bet me and Caz lost 100 Dollar so we both gave up. However the gambling disease attacked Nick , Muc and Rick. Ross and Nick both lost $300 dollar each and Rick the only one to win left with + $100. All the losers took full advantage of the free juices to make up for our money loss. However this was later regretted as they were very high energy drinks that kept us awake all night.
Back at the hostel James was bored and decided to shave his hair very short and left a moheakan. Ross was the hairdresser and was pleased with the out come..shame that James wasn't and he shaved the Mohawk off the following day.
Friday 15th. We took advantage of the biscuit shop and stocked up free sample supplies for our journey to Lantau. This Island is beautiful, it reminds me very much of lakeside. The hostel we stayed at was situated halfway up a peak looked over by a gigantic budda. It felt like we were in a hidden paradise shrowded by greenery. The hostel was full of school kids and
therefore we were told it was full! The owner though was a very kind indeed and let us sleep on his office floor for free and use his toaster! ( I havn't had toast since England!!)
The sun started to set through the trees, the kids were toasting marsh mellows on the BBQ so we decided to play in the playground. We found our shuttlecock feather toy from Beijing and invented a classic game. It was very much like badminton except we couldnt use our hands. It was a knockout game and ended up with one on one. The game got very competitive and the children were cheering and jeeriing at our skills.
A few hours later I had to make an important phone call back to England. There was no phone in the hostel so I had to venture on a trail through the greenary to the village. The owner unlocked the large padlock on the gate which surrounded the hostel grounds and me James and Nick ventured into the wilderness 😊 It was pitch black and were thankful Nick had brought his torch. We walked to the village which was empty, it was like a ghost
town, everyone had left. ( We foundout later everyone takes the cable car back down the mountain at 6pm and therefore all the shops close) I went on a search for the payphone however we stopped the search pretty quickly when the village seemed to be overridden with stray dogs. We started to tip toe back to the hostel not to disturb them however they saw us and started barking! We ran as fast as we could in the pitch dark and what made it worse was the scarecrows placed all over the Island to scare the birds off. We decided during day light hours may be a better idea to make a call.
Saturday 16th. We arose at 5: 30AM, wrapped up warm and headed out the hostel. We were going to climb to the top of the peak. We had overslept slightly, which caused us to rush and we forgot our rations. We got halfway up the peak and started feeling weiry. We stopped many times for rest, all of us panting hard and craving energy. However we pushed on and when we reached the peak the sun started to rise...it was soooo worth the struggle! Listening
to one of my favourite bands (3 Doors Down), pearched on a Rock in complete silence with five mates overlooking an entire Island at an amber Sun which was peaking up from behind the horizon was what I would call a gap year moment.
On Sunday my highlight was definately a traditional sunday roast! We were back in Hong Kong and in our favourite Irish bar. We treated ourselves whilst watching the FA cup games on screen. We got chatting to a friendly Londoner who decided to buy us two rounds of Bulmers cider and then he left.
At this present moment in time I am in an library now red in the face sweaty and smelly. We have just played a hard few hours of international football against the Hong Kong people. We decided to take these 7 guys on who were in there late twenties and yep we still have it. We played 4 20 minute games in total on a full pitch and won every game! It got a bit heated in some parts as there was one cocky chinese player who kept moaning when we tackled him. However i got my hat trick, Nick
scored a brilliant header, Caz crosses were Beckhames and Huntz and Mucs challenges were perfect. Unfortunatly Ross came off injured with blisters but not after winning 2 games.
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n.davenport
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keeping in touch
Hello Boys, You do seem to be having a wonderful time and we arer so pleased to receive your blogs - would love to be the fly on the wall when you all get up to your capers { no one to restrict you] Alison and Co have just returned from their Ski trip to Austria and have enjoyed it and we have looked after Alfie {thinking seriously of opening up as Davenport Kennnels ! ! lots of luv to you all. Nanna and Granpop XXXX GOD BLESS