It seems a little strange to be updating the blog backwards, but I want to try to do it day by day to give you a taste of each place I visit and all the highs and lows that go with them. My last day in Hong Kong was an overcast, moist day, but I did not let it stop me doing things. In the morning I went up to Victoria Peak to possibly get a look at Hong Kong from a height, sadly this was not to be, because the higher up we went, the thicker the fog and cloud became till visibility was down to about 10 mtrs.

So there I was on top of Victoria Peak on the observation deck surrounded by cloud and fog, now another person may have just admitted defeat at that point and gone back inside the shopping centre attached to the observation deck and had a hot drink at McDonalds, but not me, I was determined to get something out of my visit to Victoria Peak even if it meant I was going to catch my death doing it, it was moist and cold, but it was surprisingly peaceful standing on an observation deck with nobody else around surrounded by the clouds and mist, it was strangely cathartic. I felt very calm and comptemplative standing there in the mist, once again just going with the flow proved to be rewarding.

After about 30 minutes of staring out into the mist and just listening to the breeze, I did head inside and get that hot drink I mentioned earlier, I might be a bit zen at times, but I get cold like anyone else. After Victoria Peak, I grabbed my gear from where I had been staying and headed to the Nhong Ping 360, which is a cable car that traverses Lantau Island and goes to a themed park at the top of a peak on the island, on the peak is a hollywood style attraction as well as a buddhist monastary and the big buddha. They were interesting, but not really my thing, once at the top I had paid to join up with an excursion to a traditional fishing village with dinner at a revamped police station. The fishing village was really more my thing, it was rough around the edges and not polished at all, but it was real and gave you a sense of what life was like before we all went and got ourselves in such a damn big hurry. It showed what life in traditional China was like and was really charming in its own way. After the fishing village visit, we went on a fast boat ride in the South China Sea to do a bit of dolphin spotting, but it was a pretty slim hope that we would actually see any dolphins with the massive bridge being built from Hong Kong to the chinese mainland in that part of the sea, it would amaze me if there were any dolphins even left alive in the waters, so instead of seeing dolphins we got a fun boat ride in bouncy seas at a fast pace, we then went to the Old Tai O Police station which has been converted into a boutique hotel in an initiative between the people of the Tai O village and the Chinese Government to bring tourism into the area, it was very nice and the food and service were excellent.

After enjoying the meal, we were all driven back to the wharf port by our fast boat and taken to the Tung Chung train terminal by coach, where I caught a train to the airport to catch my flight that night to Paris. This was where the wheels came off a bit, when I went to check in, the attendant at the counter informed me that I did not have a connecting flight booked from Zurich to Paris, I was dumbstruck by this and had a sinking feeling in my gut that I was about to enter into a whole lot of stress that I did not need, so I quickly got on the phone and woke up my poor sister and brother back home to help me try to sort out this mess. The paperwork I needed to show that I had a connecting flight was back in Gladstone, so after a midnight call with my big brother, it was arranged to email me the documents in question so that I could give the right information to the Flight Centre 24hr emergency assistance operator that I had been talking with earlier, I was satisfied that I had the info I needed to sort this mess out, so getting back on the phone to the emergency operator I gave him the info and asked for their assistance in solving this problem before I landed in Zurich some 13 hrs later.

So there I was on a flight from Hong Kong to Zurich, not really certain about what was going to be waiting for me on the other end, it would either be heaven or hell.

It was hell..........As soon as I landed in Zurich, I was straight on the phone to the 24hr operator who was now not answering the phone, so now the problem started to deepen, so I rang the store in Gladstone that made my bookings, hoping that they would have all the info and help me sort the mess out, the person who made my bookings no longer worked at the Gladstone store, but the emergency operator assured me that the store manager should be able to help me, turned out that although the manager wanted to help me, she really did not have enough info to do so, so then I rang the person who made the original booking, who had transferred down to Canberra. By this time I was starting to feel pretty stressed, the original booking agent was very apologetic and did try to help resolve the problem, but could not confirm any connecting flight from Zurich because one had not been made, and that was when my foggy brain started to have recollections of conversations past and during one of those conversations, it was put to me that a connecting flight could not be made from Zurich to Paris on the fare that I had secured. In the course of this conversation, I said that I would take care of my connection to Paris from Zurich, but for whatever reason known only to God and the winds of forgetfullness, I did not do that, so I was the creator of my own nightmare, talk about a doh! moment. I had it in my mind that the quote documents for my flights, which had a conncting flight included on it, were what was being booked and even after saying that I would take care of my connection, I still went along thinking it had been done. I felt stupid for a little while, but then I sucked it up and got on with trying to get to Paris from Zurich, which was not going to be easy, because the day before I arrived in Zurich, the Brussels attack happened and the day before that there had been a strike at the Zurich Airport, so everyone was trying to rebook flights and travel on the same day, causing the prices of flights to be ridiculous. I could go on with a whole lot more drama that happened around my eventually getting a train ticket to Paris from Zurich, but I won't, I will tell all the details of that sad little tail to anyone who asks me when I get back home. Suffice it to say, my trip was now back on track and I was on my way to Paris, enough said.

I am really enjoying seeing these parts of the world and I have many things to share with you in the days to come, so stay tuned. I have to sign off now, because we have an early wake up call at 6.00am tomorrow, we are off to the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel and we have to get there early to beat the crowds. Arrividerci from Roma.