Lai Ho Everyone!!

It's our last day here in Hong Kong and boy, what a place!! lets start from the beginning...

DAY 1 - We landed on time, bright eyed and bushy tailed. No trouble through customs apart from Tony got frisked in UK! haha We headed for our hostel, weather much warmer than expected! The Hostel is very nice, we have a window but no daylight, cosey with brilliant air con! ok, off exploring we go! Within two minutes we find a lovely looking market. Sold allsorts from clothing to souvenires and fish heads to cows willy!!haha very interesting! We got landed with the culture shock pretty quickly at the market - with the meat they use every part of the animal which is pretty cool on display where ever you look! Round the corner there was a fish market, couldn't get any fresher! fish heads cut from the body but still breathing and a sight we both weren't expecting, a live turtle being killed (Polite way of putting it!) not nice at all! Anyway, we then found a gorgeous park with a gym for the elderly, they we're using it aswell! After a well needed nap we went to the peninsular, Wow our first sight over to Hong Kong Island. it was amazing, huge skyline with an amazing mountainous backdrop. Still felt like we were looking at a photograph! Dinner time consisting of chicken noodles, chicken and sweetcorn rice and satay chicken, very nice and friendly service. Our first impressions of Kowloon were very good! After a looonnggggg walk we got to our hostel and were very glad of a bed!xx

DAY 2 - Not really knowing what the chinese have for breaky we end up eating a measley muffin. (not good for Tony!!) We caught the MTR(tube) to Lantau Island very easy, just like London. We went to Lantau for the sky rail and the gaint 22m bronze buddha, the biggest in the world. We jumped on the sky rail to get over to the buddha which took around 20-25 minutes covering great views of Lantau Island and the airport also the first glimpse of the gaint buddha, what a sight! As soon as we stepped off the sky rail we could tell it was very touristy but we were both still looking forward to the history of the buddha and in our minds we were imagening what it would have been like on the old pilgrimages through the tough route up to it. Great photo oportunities surrounded us and the 200 something steps up to the buddha was pretty impressive. However once we'd reached the buddha we were soon disappointed as in side was full of tacky gift stools and reading about the building of the buddha the final peace being placed in 1993!!! we both are older than it :-( haha. After a quick walk around and a few snap shots we decided to go back over the sky rail and head for a more cultural feel. Back in Kowloon we headed for the flower market which clare loved! stool upon stool of beautiful flower arrangements. very easy to find as we just followed the chinese who carried flowers. Some fantastic garden shops too! Just ashame we dont have this back home. The flower market lead onto a bird garden. With hundreds of different birds hung up in cages it seemed the chinese really admire the species. There was everything from budgies to parrots and selling the largest grasshoppers we may have seen.

That evening we went to see the symphany of lights down at the peninsula, where the lights of Hong Kongs sky scrapers do a show to chinese music. We had a great view but mainly watched it though the lenses of our cameras capturing some great pictures.

DAY 3 - We thought it was about time to see Hong Kong Island itself, so we jumped on the star ferry for a short 7min trip over to the Island. We headed for the peak tram walking through the huge buildings as they all link up, you hardly need to touch the ground. We passed shops such as Georgio Armarni and Louis Vitton on the way. We had to climb a steap hill to get to the tram station, very tiring on the hottest day so far! The ride itself was interesting as we climbed near enough vertically upto the peak, pretty scary when you look back!

The Peak - The peak is vertially a big shopping mall built on a great view point with the roof made into a viewing platform. We were stunned by the great views back over Hong Kong and Kowloon, you could see for absolutely miles. With not much else to do apart from admire the views and shop, we found ourselves a little garden which looked out to the sea. Spent most of the day here relaxing and catching up on our diarys, it was a great contrast to the hustle and bustle of the city. At night we went upto the viewing platform to see the area light up and it was outstanding. We felt like we were on top of the world!

Hey everyone! Sorry for the lack of contact, hostel computers are not reliable!!haha will update you on what we've been upto from our diary!

DAY 4 - We had an amazing breakfast today consisting of noodles and sweet milk bread, soo yummy! We were going to go to Ocean Park togo on the famous sky rail and see the new pandas they have there but after counting the money we had left we decided to avoid it!haha Instead, we got the ferry over to HKG island and went in search of Man Mo temple which was a pretty easy task, just follow the scent! Basically it's a Chinese temple completely packed full of incents hanging from the ceiling or placed infront of the Gods. It was a fantastic piece of culture! People were sacraficing loads of things to their Gods, really interesting! After looking around more markets and walking around the city we headed back for Kowloon to find dinner! It was the best dinner so far - noodle soup! YUMMY!! We then went to watch the symphany of lights again without taking pictures so that we could see it all, it was brilliant, much better than the other night!

DAY 5 - Our last day! We both feel ready to leave now but are sad at the same time! so we repacked our bags, which actually didn't take long and headed out around Kowloon, revisiting the markets which Tony loves so much. Seeing the fish and meat again. We came across some very cute back streets to explore. So off to the airport we head, saying bye to HKG, a quarter of our destinations completed!! The plane ride was quite fun, we made friends with a couple near us who are planning the same sort of trip as us! However, the flight attendants were annoying! The two male ones kept checking eachother out! very awkward! haha

Hong Kong was GGGGRRRRREEEAATTTT!!!!