Hong Kong - What a beautiful place. Dave and I stayed in the backpackers hostels called Chunking Mansion - Block C, floor 15. The place was fully booked in our first night which was unfair as we prebooked so they took us at the back door, went up 2 floors up to a dodgier place (think its were locals and workers slept) flat. Room was v basic with tv, fan, AC and a very hard double bed and a wet room/shower toilet. Yep I was a little scared staying in that ghetto. The Chunking Mansion is famous for backpackers and maybe even illegal immigrants lol. We managed to sleep and the next day headed out for some brekkie - looked forever and got fed up as time was running out so we ended up having a burger king brekkie (yuk!). We then made our way back to our floor 15 hostel to get our room. The room they gave us was even smaller and two twin beds together. At least it was clean. Felt safer as it was full of backpackers at least. However when it comes noon time there was a strange smell ( a mixture of african food and insence) that made me gag a few times till we got in the lift...
Anyways enough about the unpleasant smell which i never got used to. Hong Kong is a brilliant city to visit. Went up to the Peak using the tram. Saw Hong Kong at night and its very colourful - it was so romantic. We have pics to prove it but no USB port on this hotel computer. We did try and shop for electronics but it seems to be the same price as UK anyways. However shoes and handbags galore in this place...if I was not backpacking I would have bought half a dozen shoes and few knock off handbags (but I wouldnt know what looked real of fake). We had a few problems with restaurants around here unless their chain restaurant which are a lil in the expensive side for our budget. We managed to use chinese local cafe which they give us picture menus as we cant read chinese. Dave and I managed to use chopsticks and yes it took us twice as long to eat our meal! We had to there was no knife and forks lol.

Central station on a sunday was just full of Filipinos - it was unreal! They were just having picnics underneath the HSBC building and the park opposite. Dave was obsessed with the modern buildings and cant stop taking pictures of it.

On our fourth day we changed our hostel and upgraded for a hotel in Lantau Island. Lantua is very quiet compared to Kowloon and HK island, it is a nice change as we are both liking the rural scenery. Dave and I got active and hired a bike and cycled to see some sights. It is a lot faster and easier to cycle than to walk in this heat! and no I didnt fall over once hurrah! We saw caves and waterfalls and just went around the beach. The next day we took a local bus and visited the Big Buddha and Po Lin Monastry, which was gorgeous. Lantau Peak was nice but no way (and thank god we didnt have enough time) I would go off on the trail to trek up. Saw some men coming back from the trail and their t-shirt was soaked with sweat - no thank you.

Heading over to Vietnam tomorrow so hope to upload HK pics then. Hoping all the Vietnam flooding has cleared up!! or else we will be stranded there for 2 weeks!