Let me say at this point that I'm not even going to try to understand Chinese money. For a start, despite the fact that Chinese is the most widely spoken language in the world (Spanish is second and English is third in case you wondered) and there are probably more Chinese people around than anyone could imagine, their currency remains a great mystery to everyone in the west. Most people I ask believe it to be the Yen, which of course is the currency of Japan. In...

Before I left Hong Kong for mainland China - a strange choice of wording considering much of Hong Kong is already on the mainland - I wanted to visit the Hong Kong Zoo. I had already tried to do so earlier in the week, but had followed the directions I had been given carefully and arrived instead at the island park and spent much of the morning exploring the large undercover aviary, assuming it to be part of the zoo. In fact, I should've continued further up the ...