When I pulled back the curtains on our 10th floor room at the Park Hotel, I kinda knew that it was going to be a very wet day - but "you gotta do what you gotta do". The plan was to take the Star Ferry over to Central Hong Kong and grab a Hop-On/Hop-Off bus. We met the sales girl on the Kowloon side and while the weather was pretty much overcast we decided we would be give these guys a try. So for 760HK ($110US) we thought why not. Given the weather we weren't interested in The Peak tour as we had done the Peak when we were here in October. Even the Sandpan excursion was a no go for us. The tour of Aberdeen, Stanley and Downtown Central Hong Kong we felt was perfect for the day.

We started off on the "red" line, but the most unfortunate part was that we had to go up to the second deck, and there was NO roof. So we had to put on our poncho's and survive the wind and rain for about an hour until most of the patrons got off at The Peak. It got much better from there because we relocated to the inside lower level. The looks we got from the locals in the buildings, people having lunch and the ones just cowering under their umbrellas - I'm sure they thought we were nuts.

In all our travels I can't say that I've ever been as uncomfortable on a tour yet. Deborah took it like a trouper as you can see from the shots. The rain and fog continued so it was difficult getting any kind of decent pictures, but we did enjoy Stanley, we were just not going to get off the bus and jeopardize our inside seat so we stayed on the bus. Maybe next time we're in HK we'll head back over to Stanley, of course weather permitting.

Once we docked back on the Kowloon side the skies opened up and we had to seek reprieve in a Micky D's until the downpour stopped. A quick chat with a couple from Sydney on a Royal Caribbean Enchantment of the Seas cruise, here for the day and then it was back into our cab and heading for a nice warm bed. We're done here in HK, we've seen a lot and it's just dinner left before our 8:30 a.m. flight to Phuket in the morning. We have a 3-hour layover in Kuala Lumpur and then a short flight into Phuket. Warm, sunny weather here we come..