230am is never a good time, irrelevant of country, weather or company but Puri Gangga made it slightly better, providing us with packed lunches before waving our taxi off to the airport. Whilst I (apparently) snored my head off, Bob made polite conversation with the driver and we arrived in excellent time to check in. I investigated the breakfast parcels and, after finishing the pastries, failed to find a socially acceptable way to eat an entirely encapsulated passionfruit.

We boarded the plane which yet again had minimal entertainment so I listened to my new pretentious book, Charles Darwin's 'On the origin of species'. I fell asleep almost immediately without the pictures to keep my enthusiasm, being woken from my dribbling state to try and eat curried chicken for second breakfast. My issue was not with the highly spiced flavour, more with the tactical elbow warfare which ensued with my ridiculously wide shouldered neighbour. As soon as the no-man's-land of the armrest became available his knobbly elbows were there and making a bid for my flank. I therefore outwitted him by feining dropping my fork, whilst staking my claim on the arm rest with a solid forearm and eating one handed from then on. #winning.

I persevered with Darwin's ground breaking observations of the natural world, as we landed in Brunei and changed planes for Hong Kong. The second leg of our journey was showing the new Paddington movie which did tear me away, briefly, from the sexual dimorphism of the finches of the Galapagos but before we knew it we were descending into Hong Kong. Skyscrapers loomed from the archipelago below us and after touching down we disembarked into the heat.

When Bob had got over the disappointment that this was yet another country which wasn't going to actually stamp her passport we tackled the public transport system, starting with the train to Tsing Yi and then hailing a cronky old Toyota 'Comfort' (ha ha ha) cab and waving a photo of Sam's address in Chinese under the sceptical drivers nose. The doors slammed home, threatening to fall off the battered green workhorse, and we set off, whining our way through the suburbs of Sha Tin, heading towards the racecourse.

Sha Tin appeared to be on a small island and no space was wasted as we reverberated past countless skyscrapers, through tunnels and under more washing than I have ever seen eventually came to rest by what we recognised as the opulent parade ring for the Hong Kong Jockey Club's racecourse. Our ancient, battered cab, and driver, who had burped constantly for the 20 minute journey, pulled into a parking space next to a Lamborghini, opposite a Bentley, where we unloaded the bags, before he took his money and squeaked off back towards the highway. We had arrived and Bob was bouncing up and down with excitement.

Sam was busy with an emergency, so we let ourselves into his flat, and settled down with a cup of tea. It was in this calm, cool and clean oasis, whilst debating exactly how many cleaners Sam required to keep the place as spotless as it was, that we were attacked.

The crazy flat cat, who we now know to be called Nibbles, had stalked us and now struck, pouncing on my flip flops and having a mad 5 minutes doing laps of the lounge, in between squirming all over our bags and shoes. We could happily have watched it all afternoon but having fulfilled all of his daily duties, Sam triumphantly appeared!

It was great to see him and we heard all about his new position and lifestyle and in return he dutifully listened to our travelling tales, though I suspect he knew it all already as an avid blog fan... We showered and changed, ready to go out for a 'fish heavy supper', and were introduced to the rest of the flat, Leah, Jess and the Spartan Gregorious.

When Sam had finally mustered us all we jumped in another utilitarian cab and headed to the district of what sounded like 'Psy Chung' but Sam's Cantonese was quite advanced so I may have got the inflection wrong... The old cabby would occasionally rant at his array of smart phones stuck to the dash and was constantly flicking through different lurid screens, occasionally watching the road as we bumped and rattled our way over the water and past countless, mesmerising towers of lights and an eclectic neon jungle of restaurants.

We arrived wherever we were supposed to be and wandered to the waters edge which was when we realised what the evening had in store for us. Each of the illuminated and bustling quayside restaurant's shop front was made up of huge bubbling water tanks, stuffed full of aquatic life. The mind blowing collection included every size of prawns, lobster, horseshoe crabs, spider crabs, conger eels, all sorts of molluscs, a whole coral reef of fish from small schools of whitebait up to 2m long leviathans at the bottom of the central tank which, like everything else, were all on the menu. With our eyes out on stalks we met up the the the rest of our table. Joe, another HKJC vet, his Aussie aunt and uncle and William, a Hong Kongese assistant trainer who was chaperoning 2 more local ladies.

Fortunately William did the rounds of the tanks and ordered for the table whilst conversation, beer, wine and tiny but intensely flavoured fried krill all flowed. Feeling in very good company it was not long before the lazy Susan was groaning under platters of spider crab, sea urchin, assorted molluscs, shasimi squid, prawns, saucy fish, cheesy noodle crab with soy, wasabi and plenty of Tsingtao beer. Following Williams lead it was an incredible experience from trying to dig reluctant snails out of their ornate shells, and remembering not to eat their feet, to dismembering the huge shoulders of spider crab whilst trying to avoid the sea urchin platter as it span past.

Very full of a novel assortment of sea life, and with most of Camelot's embarrassing stories told, we thanked William and his companions before setting off home, our stomachs not quite sure what they'd signed up for. To help our digestion Sam took us on a brief midnight tour of the hospital to check his in-patients. It was very swanky and Bob was in her element as we checked, tubed and hung more fluids for their isolation case before returning for a Moscow Mule before settling into Sam's room, which he generously gave up in favour of the sofa. A true friend and one who yet again appears to have fallen on his feet, half way around the world.