We've spent the last week in (very welcome!) stress-free and fun environments, visiting good friends for Christmas in Hong Kong, then hopping across to Singapore for a complete spoiling on my 30th birthday!Of course, this has made the transition to Malaysia somewhat of a shock, but Em will pick up on that in her next update.

We flew into HK early afternoon on Christmas day and, thanks to the excellent transport infrastructure (including blissfully cheap taxis!), were soon 31 floors above the city streets, safely nestled in Kurt and Heather's beautiful (if compact) flat, with its spectacular views of the HK high-rise buildings and The (formerly Victoria) Peak!For sure, the most striking aspect of this city is how vertical it is - Japan introduced us to really efficient use of space (I suspect their city planners shrunk the people to fit) but Hong Kong, with its less earthquake-prone land, really reaches for the sky!

Despite the location, our Christmas celebration was a lovely little slice of home as Heather had rallied together further English-speaking friends for a proper turkey roast, with Santa hats, poppers and the kind of headwear that brought a welcome wave of immaturity to the proceedings - do check out the photos!From dinner, we made our way through a startling maze of streets to an ex-pat oasis: a bar with a jukebox that must have been imported from a UK pub, filled with both modern cheesy treats and Em's favourite Bon Jovi anthems!

On boxing day, we hit the tourist spots, taking a mammoth cable car up to the Po Lin monastery and the Tian Tan Buddha - this bronze statue is a whopping 34m in height!On our return to the flat, some slightly suspicious behaviour from Kurt and Heather developed into a near heart-attack for me when my sister jumped out at me from a darkened room!Through my air-hostess cousin, Jenna had wangled a free flight to HK to surprise us both and wish me an early happy birthday... amazing effort and hugely appreciated - thanks Jen and cousin Nat!

Whilst we can't now afford to buy anything fancier than a Pot Noodle, we did wander around the various HK markets, fascinated (and slightly horrified) by the dried food products (whole ducks, snakes, reptiles, shark fins, etc.) and tempted by the excellent-looking Diesel/Quiksilver/Gucci knock-offs.Em did manage to pick up a super-bling watch for £2.50 and I would have come away with a T-shirt, had the supposedly XXXL-stated shirt been just a little bigger!

We managed to try some authentic Chinese food on several occasions, ranging from excellent Dim Sum to pretty good shredded jellyfish to super-cheap sweet-and-sour beef.On the whole, a good experience but Em and I still have a major craving for the completely unauthentic British version of Chinese food!At one stage, we were cheerfully inspecting the menu at a budget takeaway place when Em discovered the available meats extended to cat... after a short, stunned silence, we moved on quickly.Happily we do think that, based on the included bone, the "chicken curry" Kurt eventually got to eat may have had a significantly higher feline content than expected - no doubt a subject to gleefully bring up in the future whenever Kurt is nearby.

From HK, we flew south to Singapore and on arrival we were, to my surprise, greeted in the airport by a gentleman who led us to a beautiful stretch limousine!This was the start of some amazing 30th birthday treats arranged by my wonderful fiancée!The stretch limo seemed to add just enough celebrity to our hotel arrival as a number of hopeful tourists Papp'ed us as we climbed out, me in my best rock-star look of stubble, vest and flip-flops accompanied by a much more glamorous-looking Emma!Needless to say, I was spoilt rotten from that point on.My thanks again to those of you who sent birthday messages, cards and even wine - really added a lovely touch to an already wonderful day!

We managed to catch up with one of my Barclays friends, Edmund, who gave us some insight into Singapore life.Edmund helped us to appreciate Singapore's rather extensive use of fines... when enforced the fines seem brutal (e.g. roughly £500 for riding your bicycle through an underpass!), however we got the impression that the fines are not dished out with extreme determination... that said, we weren't prepared to test the efficiency of the law enforcers!

To celebrate the New Year, we watched Singapore's fireworks from the comfort of our perfectly located hotel balcony, before hitting the dance-floor for some classic tunes from the hotel's live band.A little sad to be far from family and friends at this time, but it made a very good second-best!

All in all, a really fun festive period and we left both HK and Singapore feeling that we needed more time in both to do them justice - very accessible countries with lots to offer!Our thanks again to Kurt and Heather for looking after us so well!

Wishing you all happiness and success in 2011!

Chris (and Em)