We knew when we booked our hotel in Hong Kong that it wasn't exactly in the classiest part of the city, but we hadn't expected it be almost next door to a building called - and we kid you not - 'Gofuku Tower'! Say that with a Kiwi accent and you probably have the dealer's response when we try to knock a couple of thousand dollars off the price of the campervan we hope to buy next week.

The Hotel Evergreen is in Kowloon, on the edge of the Temple Street 'Night Market', a warren of small streets lined with market stalls selling everything from dried fish to knock-off designer goods. Katy was particularly taken with the extensive range of bizarre fruits. We later identified one example as a pomelo, but have no idea about the identity of what looked like an enormous pear-shaped lime, with the skin texture of a lemon.

Given the market's name, there is a steady hum of activity, though it certainly didn't bother us last night, given that we'd only had about two hours sleep on the plane. I quite fancy eating at one of the several open-air eating places around the market, having seen interesting bowls of meat bubbling away in small cauldrons on gas burners on tables frequented mainly by locals. Katy, however, says there's not a chance in hell of getting her to eat in such a place. The kitchens are basically shacks and the standards of hygiene would almost certainly give Gordon Ramsay a cardiac arrest.

The hotel itself is fine and exceptional value for money, given that we paid only £34 a night, including breakfast and free internet access. The room is small but clean and has everything we need. The shower deserves a special mention for the sheer power with which it sprays out an unending supply of hot water.

We spent a good proportion of our first 24 hours here trying to buy a memory card for our new camera. Katy was justifiably convinced that it would be cheaper here as Hong Kong is renowned as the home of cheap electronics. However, after hours spent traipsing around the hot and humid streets (yes, the weather has been sunny) the cheapest price we found was twice what we could have paid on ebay in the UK. And that was in the Sony shop itself, rather than one of the supposedly cheaper outlets.

All the walking around has given us the opportunity to see what life is like at street level. We were surprised to find so many grotty tower blocks mixed in with modern skyscrapers. They reminded us of some of the worst excesses of Bulgarian architecture.

On the other hand, the city is clean and very free of litter. When I accidentally dropped a receipt as he opened a bag to take a drink of water, a smartly-dressed man in a taxi wound down his window and indicated to him to pick it up. The man wasn't being officious, merely helpful in pointing it out in case I hadn't noticed. In that vein, two other locals have helped unasked when they saw us looking puzzled at a map.

Would either of these things have happened anywhere in the UK? We rather think not.

Tomorrow we plan to catch the ferry over to Hong Kong island itself and take the tram up to Victoria's Peak. Sunday we are heading off to the races at Sha Tin and Monday is as yet unplanned.

We leave on Tuesday evening and hope that our Cathay Pacific flight to Auckland is as luxurious as the one bringing us here from Heathrow. It's not that we were in business or first class, but after many years on budget airlines it was very nice to have seats where our knees weren't rubbing up against those in front.

We spent most of the journey watching films and TV or playing games on the entertainment console. We both watched Mamma Mia and I then took in the latest Indiana Jones film (which was disappointingly awful) and two episodes from the fourth series of Dr Who (I hated Catherine Tate). Katy went retro and played Pong though didn't win a game while I beat the computer at backgammon.

Richard