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Our flight to Hong Kong was SCARY! I was already a bit aprehensive about the flight because it was a new route (round the back, as I see it, if you know what I mean) and it scared me. About 3 hours before landing, we experienced such heavy turbulence, that the pilot almost shouted over the PA System: "Cabin crew take your seats, cabin cre take your seats" Some passengers who had been walking around, had to be helped back to their seats, because they couldn't get back on their own. We both just prayed and clutched our seats and it flashed through our minds that we might go down. I remember thinking "I don't want to die in a plane crash", while Jonathan told me afterwards he was thinking, "Are we going to be a statistic". I think what really scared us was that the pilot sounded worried and he never once re-assured us. We were very relieved when we were back on solid ground.
Oour hotel in Hong Kong has been great. We stayed at the BP International in Kowloon, which has stunning views of Hong Kong Island and it's also right round the corner from the Golden Mile, which is full of neon signs and shops. The weather here has been very humid and smoggy or foggy - we can't quite work out which one, so we only had clear views of the city on our first day. We only went to bed at 3am on the morning of our arrival, so we have also been struggling with jetlag, because the time difference from Vancouver is 15 hours. Very strange!
On our first day, we walked down the Golden Mile, which was quite interesting, as you are constantly being harrassed by people offering you stuff, like tailor-made suits. Funny enough, it's not by Chinese people, it's Indian people. Joanthan has been enjoying all the camera shops and I've enjoyed the huge shopping malls and fashion houses, but mostly I've only been looking, although I did buy some sketchers and earings.
We took the ferry over to Hong Kong Island, which has the tallest buildings we have ever seen. Quite scary to look up at them - you almost want to lose your balance. We caught a bus to Stanley Market and wandered around there before catching another bus (with locals returning from work) to Aberdeen, which has a fishing community living on the water in the most appalling conditions. It was quite something to see. We've actually found it quite interesting to see the contrast betweem the modern buildings and the old run-down buildings which are side by side in the city.
Yesterday we walked around the shops some more and in the afternoon, we were so tired of walking, we decided to watch a movie, which we really enjoyed. We are flying to Bangkok tonight and are looking forward to meeting Matt & Cath.
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