We have been sweating our guts out for the last 2 days in sunny/smoggy Hong Kong. The Flight to Sydney was good though very rushed, but the flight to hong kong was very bumpy (plane was shaken like a milkshake!). This was made slightly better by a lack of people on the flight, and awesome sevice (yay for Qantas!). Luckily neither of us threw up, and after we finally made it to our room, we just crashed for the night.
We have been staying in Kowloon which is on the mainland, and we caught a ferry over to Hong Kong island yesterday and checked out the main attractions. We have lots of pics to post that explain what we have seen and done a lot better than words, but we will have to post them later because we can't right now (damnable free internet access with no usb ports). But basically we have eaten lots of authentic chinky chink food, been to the peak, been on the ferry, been to an awesome Irish pub that made us feel so much at home after being a bit rattled on our first day here by all the foriegn-ess (there was a wedding reception there for a Scottish bloke and a Phillipino girl, bagpipes and everything!) We had about a litre of Bulmers (apple cider) there each and felt ready to take on the world again.
We both love and hate it here at the same time. The big sweaty pushy crowds, over polluted air, and 35degree heat combine to make it a bit hard to enjoy existing. If you enjoy being hassled and chased down the street by an Indian every 10meters, you will love it here. "Excuse me my friend, very good quality suit for you! Come to my shop, its just over there, make a good suit for you my friend!"
On the other hand, most people are really great and friendly and everyone knows a bit of english. And the flashing lights, cheap as chips stuff, and dumplings (oh god yes the dumplings) have made it all worth while. We have also both bought some cool stuff, including some very nice silk shirts. These said shirts and other misc items have consequently filled the last spaces in our packs...so...to all those people who thought they were getting some presents, guess again!
So we are catching our flight out of here at about 11:30pm tonight which arrives in Rome at about 7:30am (plus a stopover in Switzerland at some ungodly hour)....we arn't so much excited about that..but hey, its better than a hard kick in the face.
Until next time.....
Here's some pics...
1. Hong Kong Island from Kowloon (city on the mainland, part of Hong Kong)
2. Star Ferry (takes you to and from Hong Kong island)
3. View from The Peak (very high and impressive)
4. Us at The Peak
5. Kez at The Peak (could you guess?)
6. Streets of Kowloon
7. Same streets at night
8. Streets in Hong Kong Island
9. Engrish for Victoria and Maddy (don't know about you, but I don't like my pasta smiling at me)
10. For Ben-San (we found you a placenta mate!)
11. Ize chowing down some Dim Sum (Yum Cha)
12. Swiss Alps we crossed on our way to Rome from Zurich (our stopover in Switzerland)
13. More alps
14. Us enroute to Rome with our travel buddy -Scraggles, the sheep from NZ. (don't we look good for over 24 hours without sleep? yes, we did feel like puking, passing out, and hurting someone at the same time)
