Hong Kong.... don't even know where to start. I'm going to go with our bus journey. It was all going swimmingly. jon was taking pictures and admiring the views... I was listening to the i-pod and sleeping. A normal bus journey for us. Until the bus stoped at Shenzen port where we all had to get off and take all our belongings. We offically left China, walked 20 metres further through the building and arrived in Hong Kong! Therefore going through customs again! It was all very wierd but we got amazing stamps in our passports so smiles all round.

As you all know, Hong Kong is renound for being expensive so Jon and I booked the cheapest hostel we could find at 7 pounds each a night. Bargain hey?! We got to the outside of a run down building having been bombarded with Indian men shouting "happy handbags" (We later discovered they were saying "copy handbags" which makes more sense!) Anywa, I digress! Taking the lift up to the 13th floor we followed signs for New Garden hostel... what we stumled upon was a room that has 12 beds in (bunk beds for optimum space) and an infamous shower over the toilet room (although this one is a western toilet!) But alas, beggers can't be choosers and we have spent the last 3 nights here. If you ignore the fact that the buildings washing machines are behind the room so random workers traispe through from 8am until midnight... and if you can block out snoring man then its really not so bad!

Hong Kong is an amazing city that has a strange feel due to the English influence on Chinese people. You're definatly not in China when here but yet your not in the UK either. On our first full day here we got the boat across to Hong Kong Island and set about exploring every inch. We went up the world's longest escalator... a bit of a con really as it is broken into loads of sections and you can get off a different points for various shops and restaurants and sights. We went all the way to the top, went to a supermarket to buy some 4pound shampoo and 4pound conditioner and then started the descent in a different direction (the escalator doesn't go down you see!). We stumbled upon the Zooilogical and Botanical gardens, which were free. We were drawn there by a very strange sound... it was 2 baboon like monkeys creatures (i forget the name) making there calls... i was very loud! There were lots of different monkeys there and it was strange to see just how human-like some of them were! We also saw some birds - the flamingoes were nice and we saw some little crocodiles. We then went to a park just to while some time away before Sunday Mass. It was interesting (it was in English thankfully!) but everyone sang in american and the A-men was inscrutiating... then we held hands for a hymn... We got the boat back to Kowloon and went for dinner at a Indian restaurant (they are very big in HK).