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Hong Kong
Thursday 10th January - Sunday 13th January
Our snoring Chinese companion wakes up and heads out to the buffet car for breakfast, while we slowly rouse ourselves and prepare for our 1pm arrival in Hong Kong.When he returns, he tells us he's 70 and a semi-retired, opera singing maths lecturer at one of the many Hong Kong universities.
The conversation is going quite well until he mentions Japan... we ask if he's travelled there, and he explains that he's travelled through on the way to other places, but will never stay there because he hates them (at this point he is almost foaming at the mouth).He explains that the Japanese killed over 20 million Chinese during the war, and they will never admit that they were wrong or even contributed towards the atrocities.Dave gets a bit tongue -tied explaining how politically correct our history lessons in school are now, steering well away from any direct accusations of violence on any part in any war, if we even learn about them at all...
Steering briskly away from any further potentially contentious topics, we turn to the neutral subject matter of the local sights as we chug into Hong Kong - our companion is very knowledgeable, and points out some of the state owned apartments that are their equivalent of social housing - it's difficult to spot the difference between government owned and private blocks, and even harder to spy any houses in this land of high rises - those who own them have paid a lot of money for them, in a place where land is at a premium - even when they don't look anything special.
We pull in at the station at 1.30pm, feeling refreshed but hungry.Whilst waiting in the queue for immigration, Bob and Emily surprise us - they'd managed to miss the train two days previously, and had been on the same train, a few carriages along, all along.We agreed to meet up later and headed for McDonalds (sorry) for a sausage and egg mcmuffin... in case you wondered, they serve them all day here, and they're called a sausage mcmuffin with egg (the source of much confusion when I ordered).
Temporarily satiated, we head back to Kowloon and check back into the seedy Chung King Mansions for a shower - at least this time we get a bigger room... there's space to swing a small rat.We head out later for the Temple Street night market, meeting Bob and Emily on the way, after some quick rice dishes at Yoshinoya, a Japanese fast food restaurant.After I flex my spending fingers and buy a few things from the market, we head to a nearby pub for some Tsing Tao, accompanied by some good conversation and some very bad Cantopop karaoke.
Our next couple of days in Hong Kong are similarly easy going - we didn't expect to be back here for long after China, and don't want to spend much money, so we decide to kick back for a while and enjoy Bob and Emily's company - our only 'must do' task of the next couple of days is to finally make it up to Victoria Peak on the tram.We spend a fair bit of our time in Pacific Coffee, pottering on the internet and drinking earl grey tea.
We treat Bob and Emily to a viewing of the lightshow - they are suitably amused - and we have a tasty meal at one of the many Indian restaurants surrounding our hotel.
On our last full day, we manage to motivate ourselves enough to cross over to Hong Kong island for the Peak Tram.We arrive at the ticket queue at about 4pm, slightly delayed by another visit to H&M (I needed some new trousers!), and only forty-five minutes later we find ourselves enjoying the 27odd degree gradient of the quick trip to the top - for more info see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_Tram.
The tram is a lovely novelty, although very busy, and we clamber out excited about the journey down.Sadly, this is not to be - once we've spent a couple of hours taking in the view from the Peak, the queue for the return tram is at least two hours long.Emily joins us in the queue, and together we decide to find an alternative way down... which we certainly manage.First, we catch a bus down the winding road, until Dave gets travelsick and we get off.Then we walk, but get a bit lost and hail a cab to the Star Ferry stop... we catch the ferry, and then walk the last 20 minutes back to Chung King Mansions, for a quick pit-stop (lifts permitting), before we amble out for a goodbye dinner.
Bob and Emily surprise us again by treating us to the meal, and we head to the Irish bar next door for a farewell drink - the bar wasn't that special in itself, but what was strange was that we could have been anywhere - it was like stepping out of Hong Kong and back to any nameless city, except with Tsing Tao being the beer of choice.We say our goodbyes and head home for some sleep before our 4.30am alarm to get us up for our flight to Bangkok, via the airport bus, which we catch, sleepy-eyed, at 5.30am.
Hong Kong airport is huge, with multiple designer shopping opportunities and coffee bars aplenty.We opt for breakfast from 'Popeye's Chicken and Biscuits', just to see what it does... Dave enjoys his fish fillet and scrambled eggs, while I opt for some chicken and hash browns.Healthy.
After multiple escalators, moving walkways and a small subway train, we arrive at the gate - at which point Dave starts to beam with excitement.Now, we've both admitted to enjoying spending time in airports, but this was unprecedented - especially for 8 o'clock in the morning.The source of Dave's glee turned out to be the plane that our gate was hooked up to... a jumbo jet.He couldn't quite believe that we were really going on one until we were actually on it (a plane with stairs!), but soon settled into smug enjoyment.It has been a lifelong ambition of his to travel on one, so he'll have to come up with something else now!
A two hour and nineteen minute flight later, and we arrive in hot and humid Bangkok...
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