Well here we are once again! We have left it a long while i know, but we have been busy bunnies. Before we get to iit, let me just tell you about our flight to Hong Kong, we went to check in a Sydney Airport and the cahsier or whatever she is told us that Jades flight had been changed to that day but mine hadn't! The stupid woman on the phone at Qantas had changed one persons flight when we are both on the same ticket! surely thats harder to do? Anyway i had to make a mad dash to the customer relations desk and wait 15 minutes to be served, and by the thickest Aussie ever, get it sorted and then make a mad dash for the plane. Drama over. Well we jumped off the airplane and onto an express coach into Hong Kong itself, easiest bus i have ever used, all the stops were numbered and we had to alight at number six. after about an hour of travelling down a highway in twilight, we got onto kowoon and discovered that we had been on the bus loner than we thought as we were blinded by light like it was the middle of the day. Really hard to get used to. We got off the bus at Mong Kok and the smell hits u like a brick wall, (raw sewerage, BO and decaying rubbish) and along with the clammy heat is really hard to stomach! we tried finding our hostel in this heat which was not fun to say the least, and because we were in Mongkok, the main working class area, there were no tourists or anyone who spoke english! so we battled through the never ending amount of chinese people, who by the way have no concept of personal space, into what was supposed to be our hostel. It turned out to be a huge shopping mall dedicated to anything small and electrical. our hostel was meant to be on the tenth floor, so we proceeded up the escalators to the thrid floor where they just stopped. So we were stuck in a packed shopping mall at nine o'clock at night unable to find our hostel. Great. We found our way out of the maze after about fifteen minutes of trying, and decided to walk around the block to see any other entrances, lo and behold there it was. So we got to the reception and got checked in, it was an old couple that ran the place and they were really friendly, we was shown our room. By the way our ensuite shower room was a toilet with a tiny sink in there, and a shower over the top of the tiolet, we have pictures! We decided to venture outside and take in some of the local area, and also to get some food. we headed for the brightest street we could find, and it was crazy, this was a monday or tuesday night at about half ten, and it was heaving, with people buying and people selling. as we walked down we saw a few noodle bars and decided why not? when we wnt in, they never had any room for us in the main dining area so we were ushered into the back via the outside kitchen, with all the washing up being done along with the rotting vegetables and stray cats. but apart from all this our food was delicious, i had fried rice with duck and Jade had the same but with chicken. Extra bonus, it only cost 1 pound each! We then continued down the road and discovered a small shop selling clothes, Jade obviously wanted to investigate so i obliged with great enthusiasm :-), and would you believe it, it turned out to be a Alladins cave of small independent shops selling clothes accesseries, and obviously it was of the upmost impotance that we "soaked up some culture" and had a look atr the fashion sense of Hong Kong! after two hours of window shopping we gratefully headed to bedOn the way i decide on a shortcut through a night market, and guess who we bumped into? The Triads, I s*** you not. There was a group of about tweenty of them all playing cards outside. We walked trough them as fast as was safe but they all fell silent eying us up! They new i wasnt to be messed with... hmmm... The next day we decided to haed for the main tourist attraction as such, the peak, and to get there you need to get the peak tram, which goes on a incline up to forty five degrees!! first we had top get the MRT from Kowloon to Hong Kong island,m it cost two Hong Kong dollars and was the most reliable train ever, every three minutes without fail. boring i know but it excited us! so we took a hair rasing journey up a mountain to get to the peak, and the wiews were amazing!! so after a few photo's we decided to get food, and i am ashamed to say we ended up at a starbucks... but in our defence that was the only place open, we got there really early to avoid the heat and crowds. we had a pasty, sandwich and a scone and it came to three quid, so cheap as chips! we decided to do the walk around the the top of the mountain and soon regretted it, the heat was once again unbearable, i think it was 32 C at ten in the morning!! no water either, not a good idea. about half way through our jaunt up the mountain a stick fell on the floor about five metres infront of us, but hold on, its moving! This huge (well four foot) snake slithered past us and into the shrubs, the whole time we were in Oz we didnt see a single wild snake and we get here and we see one on our fisrt day. When we finsihed our round trip we went to get a much needed bottle of water, 22Hk a bottle and 88 for a 1 1/2 litre bottle!!! in the 7/11 it was 12 for a big one, cheeky swines!! We also went to see the Golden Bauhinia which is stated as one of THE attractions to go to, anticlimax isn't even suitable! we then got the star ferry back over to Kowloon and it cost us, wait for it... 10 pence! great stuff. When we got onto the island we saw lots of people fishing over the harbour ledge with just a hook and line, on old fellow was casually dangling his maggot down a drain! he was doing it as if it was the most ordinary thing to do, quite funny. Went to a food hall and had noodles with beef, and chicken for Jade, cheapest meal yet at 2 pound for the both of us, with a drink included. We decided to go and watch the light show, that is all ov the buildings light up in time to the music, sounds great in principle but the music is the cheesiest thing you have ever heard, although the light show itself was very good. They have daily Bird, Fish and flower markets so we headed to them today, and they love all trhee more than there own children sometimes! We got some cherries from a market stall which were lovely and fresh. Once the venders see your skin colour they are all over you like a rash, we ventured into a butchers market sort of thing, it is just like the films show, live chickens being chopped up, flies all over the meat, live fish having there sides chopped off, livers on the floor,you no the usual! A machete wielding butcher whilst sharping his weapon cheerfully waved and spoke to us whilst wiping his knife on his blood stained apron. interesting, like something out of a horror film, lol. We headed to temple st. market which is very touristy and a lot of tat. you are scared to express interest in something, for fear of being harrassed, and although i warned Jade of the consequences, she decided to ask the price of something she wasn't really interested in, only to be shouted at by a little angry chinese woman who was smaller than my mom! that was very funny. A little thing we noticed aswell, you never have to press a button to cross the road, they automatically come on because there is so many people, that they assume someone will be at the crossing anyway. The next adventure was to Lantau Island, with the big seated Buddha, once agian scorching heat, and it took us two hours to get there. Wer went to the adjacent Po Lin monestary aswell and had a vegaterian meal, very nice. When i had finished, i picked up a toothpick and started absent mindedly toothpicking, i was looking around at my surroundings, pondering what it all meant, as you do in a monestary, when i look up to the ceiling and what was there? Hundreds and Hundreds of swazstikas!! all over the ceiling panels, it couldnt of been more of a contrast. Now i know that it started as a peacefull sign and all, but i just found it hilarious that they were scattered about a place like this! We went to the Jade market the day after and Jade spewnt alot of money well 20 quid, on a three string pearl necklace, a pearl bracelet, and pearl earings, a Jade pair of earings for her mother and a multistone bracelet for herself. On the way back to the room, it rained for the first time, and it rained alot! All these asian peopl ewalking round with there brollies , and becuase they are all small there brollies are at eye level for us, so that was fun, beating them away, lol. We went to see the kung fu corner the day after, but the weather was still poor so not alot of participants, so we headed for some dim sum instead, its what the chinese usually eat for breakfast, very nice. steamed dumplings and what not. Although there was more to see we were running low on funds allotted to Hong Kong, so we spent the next couple of days plotting our route through Thailand and such. On leaving Hong Kong, we got to the airport went to check in at 9:30 for our flight at 10:30 to be told by the man that our flight left at 4 in the afternoon, so once again Qantas had screwed up our flights, i'm staring to lose confidence I must say!! we were told that we would be put on standby incase someone never turned up. Unbelivably someone didnt so we got the flight anyway, problem solved. Untill we were told we had to get to the gate in ten minutes, and its a twenty minute journey!! So once again a mad dash to the plane, its getting more like James Bond every day... Jade will be writing the next issue in a few days so stay tuned xxxxx