Hong Kong

De de de de deh deh deh deh deh… oh wooh oohh woooooh sexy kung fu fighterrrrr.. etc
Hong Kong was Hot. .
Hot & sweaty.
It was 30 odd degrees when we arrived. I think we spent a large portion of our time trying to elude the heat by strolling in and out of large air-conditioned department stores all day.

We only had a few days in Hong Kong as we lengthened our stay in Japan to hang with Paul and then decided to head to Bangkok a day earlier to meet up with John & Karen for the World Cup Final. :D

We had quite a nice hostel room complete with air con which was nice. On our first day in HK, we decided to go to the beach!! Well we hadn’t seen any sun in Cairns and we’d only been on a beach a couple of times on all of our travels. Twas quite a nice beach and a nice relaxing day. When we went to leave however, some young vagabond had stolen my flip flop. Just the one! It must have been a very funny joke for them because I can’t see how one flip (or flop) could be of any use to anyone. Nonetheless I one-footed it off to the supermarket to buy another pair. I got a bargain pair for only 1 euro something. They are very bendy but they’re grand. I’m wearing them right now. ) (snore)

We went out for some grub later but the restaurant was bloody freezing! It’s so hot outside that the restaurants and stores tend to go a little OTT with their air con. Despite it being 31 degrees outside, I was wishing I had brought some type of shawly devise (am I too old for cardigans? And too young for shawls? – who knows!)

On our 2nd day in Hong Kong, we went for a trawl through the various markets. We pushed our way through fruit and veg markets, ladies markets, mens markets, markets full of chopsticks and finally (and the best) the goldfish market – which was exactly what it says on the tin!

After that we decided to go and visit the first of our Big Buddha’s. We got a long bumpy busride up into a mountainy region. There we saw the big Buddha – who was cool. Jim maybe able to add some more detail at this point as I don’t remember anything important about it. :/ we climbed up the top, had a jaunt around, took some cheesy pictures and then took some sneaky pictures of a guy doing Tai Chi and a monk.
Then we had an expensive ice cream and jumped on the bus, only to find out we didn’t have enough for the bus fare. Luckily for us, the bus driver changed. He he. We were going to pay at the end of the ride but instead we bonked out past the driver chuckling gleefully all the way to the ferry queue. I half expected yer man to come looking for us in all honesty. I was imagining the two way radio conversations going on between the two bus men about the tall beardy westerner and his small bird who didn’t pay the fare. I was relieved to look around and see that everybody was a tall beardy westerner with a small bird. Hahahaha – he’ll never catch us now. Pfft :P

The ferry ride back to Causeway Bay was pretty nice, although we had to sit inside which was a bit pants. Jim was jealous of other people’s ice-creams on the ferry even though we just had one.
Instead of braving another freezing restaurant, we opted for some sandwiches and spicy crisps and headed for home where we watched Star Wars. It was in Hong Kong that we also discovered the deliciousness of Frappucinos. Holy Moly Roly Poly. Where have they been?? Yum.

On our turd day in Hong Kong we spent most of it looking for shoes for Roly. First of all he wanted (and only these) brown Haviana flip flops. After searching for two hours for these – even in all the shops on Sports Shoe Street (I kid you not), we had to admit defeat. Then Jim said he would like to try a pair of white Bergenstocks with the two straps only (sigh) and off we went again to all the same shops looking for the white ones. I really wouldn’t have minded – I’m always happy to see Jim get something he really likes but a bit of an open mind whilst shopping is always a good thing. Literally nothing else would do except the things he had in his head. It reminded me of Al Redmond and his shopping techniques in a way.

Finally we got Jim some nice white sandals (with two straps) although not Bergenstocks (a different brand). (Later on in Thailand we would see white Bergenstocks with 2 straps on the streets everywhere for only 3 euro – but shhhhh)

On our last night we decided to buy a camera. Big mistake – always buy them a couple of days before you go home. The one Jim wanted wasn’t in stock so the store dude obviously was trying to swindle us into trying another model. The model he was giving us though was a very good make (Al – Konica Dimage!!) and I was convinced pretty quickly. After Jim checked it through for about 45 minutes, we said we would take it. But when we got it home, it was pretty slow and not that great. We were disappointed and Jim really wanted the Sony Cybershot somethingsomething.. But we took it back the next morning and got an Olympus camera – which we weren’t sure about at the time, but now that we’ve had it a while, it is quite fantastic. So all was fixed up .. kinda..

Well that was about all we did in Hong Kong, we seemed to be in shops a lot. But I got a day on the beach and we saw the Big Buddha. I was so excited about going to Thailand to meet up with John & Karen that I couldn’t sleep. Woohoo! :D