Today would be our first day travelling on our own, although we would miss Glen and Blair the feeling of freedom was welcoming. We woke relatively early, packed our things and the hotel kindly stored our luggage for us. We headed out into Hong Kong and down to Victoria Harbour. Our decision to leave the peak climb until today seemed justified as the sun was out and no mist... a beautiful clear day. We boarded onto the star ferry which carried us over the harbour with spectacular views of skyscrapers on each side, all for about £2.50 each. We docked up and shortly after boarding Laura spotted the iconic apple logo on one of the buildings....hopefully someone could fix my iPad. We headed in a young man had a quick look at it and magically it came on. Apparently it needed resetting or something but he did not give a clear explanation as to why. To be honest I did not really care as the iPad was working and saved us a lot of trouble.

After that crisis was over we walked into the heart of Hong Kong island and spotted hundreds of designer shops including, yes you guessed it.... Tiffany and Co. I guided us to the peak tram where we queued up for this gorgeous red vintage tram that would scale up Victoria Peak. The climb up was surprisingly steep and would not be for the faint of heart. At the summit we climbed the observation tower to an amazing view of Hong Kong. We used the quiet periods to get our photos and Laura had fun telling the professional camera man No when he kept telling her to move... her argument was that she had politely stayed out of the way for several mins so he could take his shots and to be honest if you don take the opportunity when its there.. you lose it! The view was stunning and you really appreciate how large Hong Kong actually is. We had a look around the shops then made are way back down the peak via the tram. This was followed by strolling around some lovely parks and the Man Mo Temple which actually made your eyes water for the amount of incense burning. We then bought some sandwiches and crisps and had a mini picnic in a small park... We also travelled up the longest escalator in the world at 800 meters... By this point we both felt tired and Laura's cough was flaring up and we knew we had a ferry to catch later this afternoon, we headed back to the hotel and picked up our bags ready for the next part of our adventure.

The walk was brief to china ferry terminal where I booked us tickets for the 16:30 sailing to Macau. I had not really heard of Macau until it was mentioned by a fellow traveller in India. Macau is like Hong Kong, a special autonomous region of China. In the 1500's the Portuguese settled there and used it as a trading port in south east asia. The local Macanese gratefully accepted the boom in trade to the area and Portugal were rewarded ownership of the region.

As the British empire invaded and took control of Hong Kong the trade in Macau diminished which lead to substantial decline in economy. In 1966 during the Chin cultural revolution riot broke out in the region with the locals wanting to extradite all Portuguese. The Chinese government declined fearing the backlash this may create on Hong Kong. In 1999 the region was handed back to China but to have a high degree of autonomy. This autonomy is very evident with the termination of the gambling monopoly (gambling is banned in China) and subsequently massive casinos were built attracting hundreds of Chinese to the region we know as Macau today. It has now been dubbed the 'Las Vegas of the east'.

The ferry took approximately 1 hour to make the 30km trip. It was a misty arrival and we managed to get a cab to our hotel on the northern area of Macau known as Macau city. We settled into our small room but we had comfy beds and free wifi so could not really complain. We both went on the hunt for food and initially we felt a little unsafe without any just reason. Our walk did take us into the busy centre square which did put us at ease. We eventually found a supermarket, bought some snacks and headed back to the hotel. We ate and rested ready for our sightseeing tomorrow.