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Hong Kong Day 1
After a 3.5 hour flight from Tokyo we arrived in Hong Kong where we were met by Nick, who we had arranged to stay with. We took a cab out to Wan Chai on Hong Kong Island and offloaded our bags. It was about 1 am by the time we arrived but as we didn't feel too tired we took Nick up on his offer to show us around some bars. It was quickly very apparent that this is a 24 hour city and it didn't feel like it was a Monday night at all. We finally finished up about 4AM in a place where two older men enjoyed the company of a younger lady, enough said!
Hong Kong Day 2
With the late night we didn't get out until about 12pm. We went for some lunch at a local place that Nick had been to before. He tried to make Martin order conge, a type of thin rice porridge, but without luck. They didn't have a veggie alternative so I went without trying it as well. Although it looks very unappetising I am sure it's quite nice.After this Nick took us over to the mainland on the star ferry. It was a nice ride over the water.We walked all the way up to Mong Kong passing through some markets and tons of shops. It was apparent that there's a bigger mix of locals and westerners and I suppose this is due to the large amount of banks situated here. After walking about 7 km we stopped for a couple of drinks before taking the star ferry back over to the Island whilst watching the light show, which takes place at 8 PM every night. It was pretty cool to see all the buildings light up and shooting laser beams over from mainland to HK Island. Shame that we had forgotten our camera back at Nicks! We finished the evening with a couple of drinks in the roof garden on top of Nick's building, 32 floors up. Pretty good views if you were brave enough to look. An interesting fact we learnt was that no buildings have a floor containing number 4. It is apparently a very unlucky number. When you started thinking about it, there were no 4's anywhere.
Hong Kong Day 3
We woke up to a clear blue sky so we decided to make our way up to the Peak. We took the Peak train which was a very steep train ride up to the top where we had some amazing views over the bay.We went for a stroll and took in the nice weather. After this we took the train back down and went into the Tea museum located in Hong Kong Park. It was not amazing but we learnt about the different ways of serving tea and there were some quite nice looking teapots. After we came out of there we fancied a cup of tea so went into the tea house next door and had some oolong tea served to us the traditional way.
We then headed down to Victoria Park and Causeway Bay for a stroll around. Victoria Park is pretty big and you can do everything from play basketball to play around with your remote-controlled motor boat.
We met with Nick for dinner before we headed to the Horse Racing. Again we could not take any pictures as we had no battery left when we got there.The racing takes place in Happy Valley every Wednesday night.It cost £1 to get in and it was packed. Apart from the horse racing they had drinking and beer holding competitions.I wanted to have a look in the parade ring to see if I liked any of the horses. Danielle will know I try to talk to the horses before the race and if they respond to me I bet on them. Anyway, it didn't feel like this was the place to do this so I just watched the horses walk by.I then started to look around and some of the locals stood by me making horse noises and slapping the barrier with their newspaper to try and get a reaction from the horses. Quite amusing. I liked horse number 11 so went to find Martin so we could put a bet on. We got into the betting hall and found a list of the horses in English and realised number 11 was called GO FAY FAY. There was no turning back, we had to bet on it now!! Realising we were still on a backpacker budget we put £2 on each way. Lucky we did as the horse trailed in at number 7. Oooops. Had a couple more bets but lost on all of them. We met up with Nick's work colleagues and stood talking to them whilst drinking jugs of beer. It was time to leave after Martin explained 'monkey face' to all of Nick's friends….
Hong Kong Day 4
Didn't do much today as Martin had such a bad hangover and didn't get out of bed until one o'clock.I finished Twilight (thank you Danielle) whilst waiting for Martin to recover and then made him get up to go to the book store where we bought New Moon and the second Stieg Larsson book that Marin wanted to get. Whilst we were out we got some lunch and then headed back to the flat to do some trip planning.
Hong Kong Day 5
After an early night we got up and went to the Island where the giant Buddha is located. We had to wait 1.5 hours to get on the cable car ride but it was well worth it. We had some amazing views over the mountain and when we approached the top we could see the Giant Buddha in the distance. We had some lunch in the village whilst watching some street performance. We then shared a cab down to Tai O, a little fishing village. Apparently it is one of the few remaining fishing villages where the houses are still built on stilts from the water. There was fish everywhere in all shapes and forms. We took the bus back to the MTR station and then headed to The Peninsula Hotel for some Afternoon Tea (Backpacker style, not really).We took the star ferry back but this time we had the camera with us.Martin went out for some drinks with Nick and Russell whilst I stayed in.
Hong Kong day 6
We got up early and went to Ocean Park which is a big theme park 15 minutes away from Wan Chai. Our main aim was to go and see the Pandas as we couldn't leave 'china' without seeing them albeit in captivity. The park was huge and it took us a while to figure out where we were. They had a dolphin and sea lion show on so we decided to catch that before going anywhere else. After the show we went to the coral reef display and it was pretty good had it not been for the hundreds of people in there. Before having lunch we went on the Dragon ride which was probably a good idea as Marie felt pretty shaken afterwards. After Lunch we took the cable car down to the see the Pandas and they were cool. They had two black and white pandas and then two red ones. They were so cute. We went on one more ride, called the mine train, before calling it a day. Marie was pretty glad it was over as the last ride was pretty scary. We got back to Nick and had some food before we went to see the Flaming Lips at the Asia Expo centre. It was a good night and they played some good songs.
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