...SO after a long 8 hour flight (got to eat ALOT ot food and watch alot of movies... one "the wild things"- not yet at cinema is absolutely crap - so dont bother wasting your money there!)... Otherwise the flight was nice, sat next to a Taiwaneese chap and we had a good convo about cultural, and now I have an invite to visit Taiwan lol.

When the plane landed it was after 6pm... going through the clouds it looked like a murkey miserable English weather sort of day... 10-15oC bit of rain... and compared to Perth it felt absolutely freezing! So as I gathered my bag and got on the airport express to Hong Kong Island Ifelt excited to meet Alicia... she has been teaching out there for afew months now and is way into her 10 month teaching contract so was excited to see her after so long!

**HK - I hadnt realised it is made of Lantau Island (where the airport is based... as well as the giant budda- and surrounding area) Kowloon and the northern terrotories - on mainland China (though still HK) and Kowloon is where all the markets are: Ladies market, Temple street market.... (Alicia lives a stones throw away from there) and where the habour city is based... HK island is the main business district where the peak is and all the mid-levels, trams and main city is...Although HK is broken up into 3 main parts... and there are lots of little other tiny islands you can visit for day trips by one of the main ferry services, the trains also all connect up, and like in England our Oyster card... their Octupus card allows you easiest access to the city's transport... the MTR (like the tube) is the easiest and most convienent way to get around, though you can get a "star ferry" across the islands for a mere $2 (HK) and when you consider 1 English pound is $12 it can be pretty cheap!!!

So once I arrived we ate in Temple Street (cheap-ness galour) for a rice bowl with meat - most popular meal along here (costing the equivalent of 1.80p) and pretty tastey too!! The second day was spent following Alicia around her school and watching her teach a whole day at a Hong Kong primary school (2 words: HARD WORK!!!) We had to get up about 6am in order to catch about e MTRs to her school - not located in the prettiest of areas and the day was long and hard...big respect to her!

After day 2 we were shattered from school so explored temple street more... and the famous temple street market... got myself a nice big cheap but warm coat and a 2quid watch as well as other bits - markets in Asia are too hard to resist! lol....

So with only 3 days left of my HK adventure I decided to go sight seeing for the next few days whilst Alicia and Katy (her lovely house mate) were teaching... Lantau Island was first to see ... and although I hadnt realised how far it was away from me (train...ferry...bus...walk...2 hours later) once I arrived it was amazing! Absolutely HUGE and quite breath-taking! You felt the achievement of climbing all those stairs too - in order to reach the darn thing! lol... There was also a litle village, temples and monestries to visit in the area and trials and walks around the island (which I spent a little while going round) to make the most of the time on the island.

On the Friday night a few of us went into the city and on th eIFC tower (the one with about 50 floors or more) there is a terrace bar tucked away on floor 5 or 6 ... a perfect place to have a drink and see all the surrounding skyscrappers... which are amazing! On one of the nights we just walked round the town and city, saw the night show (we did that on my last night) and on another eve explored the mid levels ...including Soho (a bit like in London) is the place to go - and so many people speak English that it is like a little London itself!

Another day sight seeing including THE PEAK - and the views on the sky terrace...WOW ... HK is beautiful for views MASSIVE skyscappers and the building designs themselves... to reach the peak I got the Tram -which I never thought I would do as I am still terrified of heights... but not only did I do that I got the 10 escalators it takes to reach the terrace... was SO worth it when I reached the top - the amount of pictures I took will hopefully show that!

Ladies market is also another place I would recommend to visit - all the fake goods and clothes are there... its like all the other Asian markets with a twist of HK - so of course I loved it... it was abit scary though as acid bombers were around (throwing acid out the window in hope to mutilate someone - bit horrible really!!) Ah well got some nice things :P lol, and wondered round the city in the evenings too... the bank building have brilliant light decorations and again impressive to see!

Qithin my week in Hong Kong I got on a number of the ferries in habour city, visited the space museum (which I probally wouldn't recommend) lol - but was fun to see... got on one of the trams and ate dum sum (sooooo good)!!! The onthe whole if I was to reviwe the food... its quite bland and basic... and in the main city quite expensive too... However they do foods from all cultures and I finally got to have another Thai too (YAY YUMMY) and had a slap up western meal for a mere tenner... not bad... drinks and alcohol on the other hand ARE London prices so unless your feeling rich that wasnt really an option... With so many things to see and do in HK I feel I did the main attractions and I think the main draw for me was the views and shopping which I happily experienced...

I have a day there en route home when I go back to England so if anyone has any suggestions then I am happy to hear them!!

So leaving HK was simple - airport express bus all the way there and a spacial airport which was easy to navigate through - maybe one of my favourites for that!!! And with only a 3 hour flight to Busan back to South Korea I feel happy to begin the last leg of my adventure and have a bit of a winding down process before coming home.... YAY ... CYA all in March :) much love and check FB for future Korea updates (unless I visit somewhere unique and exciting - whereby I will create another blog :P hee hee)...