When I left China & landed at the airport, I felt different, no longer tense or uneasy (I had this same feeling when I left Russia for Finland many years ago). I think it stems from the fact that I can understand what people are saying to me (50% of the time) & the locals can switch to English when I get stuck. Besides, I no longer have to carry tissue paper with me at all times, ;)!

I think everyone should visit Hong Kong once in your life. I've been to other big cities around the world (NYC, Moscow & Beijing), but none of them maximized the use of space as efficiently as Hong Kong. Tourism information is readily available & purchasing an Octopus smart card makes traveling around the city fairly easy (trains, subways, buses, ferries & trams).

I've never seen a cleaner subway system than the Mass Transit Railway (MTR). You can be charged a fine if you are caught drinking/eating on the subway (1000 HK $) & people enter/exit the carts in an orderly fashion unlike the pushing/elbowing in Beijing.

Today, we visited the Peak. Victoria Peak is located on the tallest mountain & offers the best views of the city, unfortunately. The view was not as spectacular since it was cloudy, rainy plus smoggy. We walked 30 minutes to Victoria Gardens and saw some spectacular homes & since it is usually cooler here than the city below, it has been one if the most desirable places to live. The most expensive house sold here during the 90s reportedly went for 69 million US. In general, space is premium, factoid: A 375 sq ft apartment costs 1.8 million HK dollars (exchange rate is 1cdn$=7.3hk$).

A stroll down to Central section lead us to the Two International Finance (IFC), the 7th largest high rise building in the world. It's an impressive building with a high-end mall at the base of tower. We also viewed the competing Feng Shui HSBC & Bank of China Buildings.

We took the subway to Temple Street Market. The market livens up after 7pm & it offers a range of items from fake designer labels to electronic gadgets. Too tired today to haggle over stuff ... I have 3 more days to shop for items, ;p),

Wifi is free for a limited number of time at malls; however, I noticed that there are no place to sit which is very different from the malls in Canada. So imagine the three of us standing around with our apple products trying to get our Internet fix. Kim was tired from a full day of walking decided to sit on the ground & was quickly told by a security person @ IFC to get off the floor.