Day 19-20

It was a mission getting into Hong Kong!! We had to go through passport control twice, once for leaving China and once for entering Hong Kong, we even went through bird flu check point! (quite difficult as most of us had colds of some sort by this point so we all prenteding we didn't!! Very difficult when trying not to sneeze!) We eventually arrive at our very lush hotel the YMCA but had to wait for like 20 mins for our guide to arrive as his taxi driver decided to take him to the wrong YMCA!! We checked in and dumped our bags before heading straight out with Cat, Andrew, Lloyd and Cameron in search of the fish market. However we never made it there!! We found the ladies market instead and spent so much time there we had to get back to meet eveyone for our last meal together. This was our last full day of the tour as the next day was just a leaving day. We headed to one of the outdoor restaurants near the temple street night market for a very nice last meal together, where we sat in the street on plastic tables and ate! After having a look around the market we headed back to Helen and Staceys room for some bevies before hitting the sac. Our last day of the tour was New Years Eve and unfortunately we'd already had to say goodbye to Jen, Sue and Cameron the night before. Most of the others were staying on like us for some of the week. At 12 we checked out and headed down towards the harbour to our new accommdation; what a shock we got!! When we arrived they told us they had no room despite that fact that we had a booked and as it was New years eve nowhere else would have any. Dave sat there for over an hour constantly annoying them and arguing with until they eventually found us a room..... I wish they hadn't!! It turned out to be a cupboard with a 'double' bed which touched three walls and only enough space to open the door!!After our traumatic morning we decided the afternoon was going to be better and headed off with Cat and Andrew to go up Victoria Peak. We went over to HongKong island and went up on the Peak tram which was an experice in itself!! The incline is so steep at some points we really had to hold on!! We made it up and went up to the viewing platform to get a great view of the city and the harbour. You could see for miles and even out to sea on the other side. We headed back and thankfully managed to get some other (much nicer) accommdation sorted for the rest of the week at the same hostel Cat and Andrew were staying at, and Dave went back to argue (successfully!) to get some money back from the other hostel!! We met everyone who was left (12 of us) to go out and enjoy New Years Eve in Hong Kong, and that we did!! We watched the light and sound show on the Harbour front which involves lots of building and their varous weird and wonderful lights lighting up in time to music. We then went in search of food on Hong Kong Island before heading back to the harbour for the fireworks at 12pm. The fireworks were quite spectacular though we were a little disappointed as they didn't do a proper count down (so we did our own instead!!). There were so many people out on the streets, we armed ourselves with beers from 7 eleven and headed back to the party street on the island and danced the night away in the streets where all the bars have open fronts. At 3am we decided to call it a night and headed back to our very horrible room!! Happy New Year!!

New Years Day - after waking up and getting ready very quickly, we made a run for it from our horrible room!! Luckily we didn't have to wait too long until we could check into our nice new room! We had a nice relaxing day wandering around Kowloon park, lunch with some of the others and we even went to the cinema in the evening to see the Golden Compass. The rest of the week we managed to fit a lot in!!

We went to the History and Science Museums, the botanical gardens, up the peak again (this time we walked - what were we thinking!!), we visited the biggest outdoor Budda on Lantau island, posted a MASSIVE souvenier parcel, spent about 4 hours on the internet (killing several brain cells in the process!), discovered Ned Kellys Last Stand pub which had jazz on every evening (an amazing place), Hong Kong park, went up the Bank of China tower and IFC 2 (the tallest building in Hong Kong), to Man Mao temple (yes another temple!!) and to Ocean Park!!! I think that was about it!!

Ocean Park was great fun though the best part was Dave hadn't been to a theme park before (which he neglected to tell me!)!! The park is a mix of a zoo, an aquarium and a theme park so we also got to see pandas and a very good sea lion and dolphin show. Dave even went on his first roller coaster (if you can call the mine train that !!)

We had a great week in Hong Kong and it was really nice to be in one place for some time after all our moving about!!