I arrived in Hong Kong via the Kowloon - Canton Railway which crosses the border from Schenzhen on the mainland. It was a pretty horrendous bus journey from Yangshou lasting 18 hours due to a 6 standstill traffic jam in the middle of the night. I was staying at a friend of mine from my ICL days, Chris, who was currently in London but had kindly left his keys with a mate for me to pick up.

After the negotiating the very easy metro system to Central Hong Kong, I thought I'd walk the odd 600 metres to pick up the keys. Little did I know that Hong Kong is effectively built on a very steep hill, and after nearly putting myself in a coranary hiking it with my rucksack I gave up after 200 metres and got a cab. Total cost $2, but a valuable lesson learned. I later found out that there is an escalator that takes you from Central to the Mid level appartments where I was staying, Doh!

When I got to Chris' place it was seriously like an oasis in a desert. After a month hiking around China I was ready for some home comforts. Chris has a top pad with a great view of HK, there were cold beers were in the fridge, an extensive DVD collection beckoned, and there was a pizza menu by the telly. If Carlberg did homecomings this would be right up there!

Chris wasn't back from London until Tuesday, but I'd arranged to meet Andrew (who had the keys) after the Dragon Boat racing festival on Sunday. This is quite a big deal in these parts and an excellent excuse for everyone to beer up all day in the vague name of sport. There is a massive expat community in HK and most converged in Stanley for this event for a great day out. Needless to say I got in the spirit of things in no time! And Chris' mates were all sound even if some of them thought I was Australian??

I'm not going to bore you all with details of everything I did in HK but to summarise I did plenty of eating, drinking and socialising and it was fantastic, and I had the best time. Everything was on the doorstep and there is a real buzz about the place. There's not loads of tourist stuff to do so I didn't feel I had to see all the sights, as there weren't that many to see.

I did go up the peak tram to get some great night scenery shots of the city and had a superb meal at the top. I hooked up a Korean friend who I'd met in China, Hongjun and we all went horse racing with some of Chris' friends one night which was good fun but that was as touristy as it got. The rest of my time was spent in Lan Kwai Fong and Wan Chai which is where all the bars and restaurants are.

I was meant to go on a junk boat trip on the following Saturday, but there was some horrendous rain on the Friday night. It was so bad that I thought we would get locked in that bar we were in all night but you'll be glad to know we all made it out safely! Anyway the boat trip was rained off, but even then the England v New Zealand rugby match was on, so we just had to go down the pub and watch that all day and then discuss all night. It was just like being at home

Anyway after 9 days I had to get out of there otherwise I would have stayed indefinitely, I'm serious! Next stop it's ........Good morning Vietnam!!!!!!!!

Chris, thanks for being a top host. I don't have too many regrets in life, but one will now be that I didn't come and visit you years earlier mate. Hay-la, Gavin and Stacey will never be the same again, tidy ;-) And thanks to Andrew, Caroline et al for a top week.