The Gap Year begins....

So i left Sheffield with my mega heavy rucksack on 19th September with mum and dad and headed down to london. We stayed in Jurys inn and i couldnt sleep very well that night (not helped by all the snoring going on!) Then we got up quite early on the 20th to head to heathrow and meet the other Bunacers! At the airport we all said good bye to the rents and checked in together. then we went to O'neils for breakfast! talked alot with Sarah Johnson who's travelling with Mike Gregson n John Harris. just for the record there was a total Work Australia VS work New zealand thing going on :P rivalry!

On the plane i sat next to Kirsty Dunks (Dunkasourus) and Sam Milne. it didnt seem so long even though it was 12hrs. Dunks managed to sit on her heads phones and destroy them and lose her glasses in the minute space of one areoplane chair!

When we got to hong Kong the airport was quite quiet, we had to stand for ages in an immigration queue and fill out the little forms, alot of people filled the wrong ones out too! haha! then we went through and collected our rucksacks. the hong kong airport is sooo big.

moving through the gates we met up with 'Tour guide' (as she will forever be known) we were all absolutly knackered on the bus to the hotel, i sat next to johno (sarah Johnson) and looked out at the weird landscape of hong kong, it all seems to be perched on hillsides or built up to really high levels. theyre so over crowded (tour guide said) that when you die you are left in the ground 10years to give your soul time to .... move out and then ur dug up and cremated so your grave can be given to someone else!!!! nice :)

We pull up to South Pacific Hotel to find its a 3 * hotel and that we look totally out of place littering up their lobby! alot of the rooms werent ready by the time we got there too so we had to stay in the lobby and die until they were. me and johno got to share a room. when we went up we slept from 10am-3pm. after that we got up and went for a walk around the streets of Hong Kong island. it was John Harris' birthday that day (the 21st Sept) so we bought him a little cake a candle and.... Hong Kong porn of a street stall!!! that went down a treat :P

When we got back to the hotel we organised everyone to come out for a big drinking sesh for his birthday. we went first to Devil's advocate and ate and watched aussie rules football and had cocktails and then we went on to the immense bar crawl. there was bridge bar where everyone kept dropping shots of sambucca etc into Harris' pint, there was the dancing bar bar where you could get up onto the bar and dance all night long and as you can imagine.... we did! and there was another bar towards the end of the night.... but i really cant remember its name! hey you';re lucky i can even remember going there i was that drunk at that point! Needless to say it took a long time to get back to the hotel THAT night.

The hotel gave us free breakfast though so i was up sharp and had 4 (count them 4!!!) servings of bacon and beans :) the beginning of me being called binbag by the lads.

in the afternoon tour guide picked us up and we went sightseeing (some of us feeling VERY hungover *hallasCOUGH* which was ironic because the day before tourguide was ripping into us for being drunken brittish people!) first we went up to the highest peak on hong kong island. the views were nice but i wasnt as clear a day as it could have been, and there was basically just a shopping mall up there for tourists to spend all their money.then we headed down to the fishing village where all the fishermen live on these boats in the river/harbour which is massive and theres a floating restaurante. the men take u round the whole harbour in there little boats and you feel a bit weird starting at the people sitting in there boat homes like theyre animals in a zoo.

next was stanely market, it was very winding and intricate and johno and i bought pashmina scarfs and an ipod charger. During our time with tour guide we came to the conclusion that she was being sponsored by 1.jade market, 2.deli france and 3.name stamps as she never shut up about them!!! lol

We were then taken to the revolving restaurante that looks like a larger cigar so it had to have some crazy fung shei done to it ( a pool on the roof) to stop it catching on fire! tried lots of food, including pigs hoof! yummy :P

Then roles on another night of heavy drinking :) we united the work australias and the work new zealanders and because we brought like 40 people into each bar they gave us free snacks and free shots where the guy stands above you and poors them into your mouth! then we went to a new bar called spicy fingers and saw a hong kong band which was so funny and awesome.

the next day we went to a typical chinese temple (which looked more like a typical chinese restaurante to me but whatever!) there were people trying to get there fortunes told by shaking a box full of stick and wating till one drops out and then seeing what number is on it so they could get it interpreted. was pretty interesting the wishing lake was closed though.

After wards tour guide took us to the bird and flower market (meanwhile theres a storm brewing and everyones worried that our flight to sydney at midnight will be cancled) walking around the bird market i thought about how bizarre it was that they have one even though they keep making a fuss about avian flu and how much the RSPCA would not enjoy it.

When we finally got to the airport at 6pm we had a 6 hr wait until hour flight which we spent playing chase the ace and eating noodles. rich bought all the girls 'slick rick' dragons to use up his remaining hong kong dollars.

on the flight to sydney i felt really sick because the chairs were weird and it was an 8hr flight. not comfy! and the guy next to me kept trying to sleep n slaver on me, not cool! grrrr.

when we FINALLY got to sydney the IEP lady met us and drove us to the sydney central YHA where i crashed in a room with Johno, dunks and hallas.

and Sydney Fun Begins....