Hi!

We've been in Hong Kong for about five days now, and so far it is keeping us busy! After a 16hr flight and fighting through a jungle of Indians, we found our hostel at the Walhalla of trading and the selling of copy-everythings.

Our hostel is clean, it is at the 15th floor so the smell of Indian food is slight but still it is the last thing we smell at night and the first we greet the day with. The rooms are very small though but the most important thing is that Marcel fits in the bed :)!

The first day we had an intense day, we had to apply for our visa at the Chinese Resources Building at Hong Kong Island. This was a very interesting experience 'cause the application we filled in ended up as a slight suggestion, the woman at the counter had an entire different idea about what we wanted. Multiple entry? NO! Double entry! Rush service? NO! Regular service, you come back on Tuesday! Oh, and you want to visit China for about 90 days at a time? NO! Thirty is all you get. BYE! .. Ok, change of plans, we have to stay at Hong Kong an extra night, and will leave without a visa for Vietnam, we will arrange that some place else and we have to find out how to enter Hong Kong after six months because at the moment we have to be back here in ninety days. The McCafe has become our friend over this experience, it gave us great coffee and a place to catch our breaths. We bonded.. For you who don't know me that well it is a big deal for me to bond with de McDonalds because I have a thing against fastfood companies :P.

Tomorrow we will go back to our dear friend at the Resources Building hoping she won't have more surprises in store for us! In the mean time we got to know our true new friend Bella, we found her on Couchsurfing.com and met with her. She has shown us around and introduced us to the local foods. Eye-opening! Everything here is in Chinese language (of course) but for us unreadable and therefore the menu's are very limited. But she learned us some words so now we can recognize at least some more. Besides all our adventures with Bella we've seen shopping malls, parks, 'special' buildings, statues, boulevards, temples, markets and other interesting places Hong Kong has to offer. Tonight we even saw the laser show at the harbor. Very special! So far, Hong Kong is very busy, when walking we are surrounded by sounds of music, trading, Indian salesmen trying to sell rip-off watches and bags, Chinese or Filipino's offering massages and invites to restaurants. Everywhere it smells like Asian food. And in all of this commotion around us I feel very blessed to be with my dearest friend :)!

Our journey continues tomorrow, after picking up our visa we will get on a train to mainland China. Where we will visit some neighboring cities (e.g. Gangzhou) and towns before going to Shenzhen, to enjoy Chinese New Year with Bella and her family :).

This is it for now, more later!

All is good, PEACE ;)

xxxx B