Saturday 21st June

Today is our last day in Hong Kong but our flight isn't until after 6 tonight so we have some time to fit in some last minute sightseeing. We grab our free breakfast and check out of the Ark....everyone was leaving two by two!

We head back to the train station and go a few stops to Tung Chung this is where we will catch the 360 cable car to the Big Buddha...or not...it is bucketing it down again and the cable car people are unsure if they will continue to run the cable car as there may be a storm coming, what joy...they advise us that there is a bus we can take so we head down to the luggage storage drop of our bags and grab a bus to the Big Buddha.

The 40 minute bus ride went pretty quick and in no time at all we are staring up at the highest outdoor Buddha in the world at 34 meters. We walk towards the stairs and begin climbing, we are climbing up behind a monk who stops after every set of stairs and prays...for which I am highly grateful, at least this means I don't need to pretend to look at the views everytime I'm exhausted. 268 steps later we reached the top, and no I didn't count I googled. The Buddha was pretty impressive and the views were amazing. We had a good look around and inside the Buddha was a mini museum that detailed the history of Buddha.

We made our way down and looked round the monastery that is located at the bottom and we decided to get the cable car back. It seemed we timed everything perfectly as the clouds started to come over and hide the Buddha from view and the crowds were starting to arrive. The cable car ride was pretty cool and we got some amazing views...defiantly worth forfeiting our return bus ticket!

We decided to head straight to the airport. We headed straight to the self check in machines and when our boarding passes printed out it said Premium Economy at the top....thinking it must have been a printing error as we used the machines on the business class side we checked in our bags and thought nothing more of it....4 hours later after food and a browse around duty free we began boarding and wondered if we really were in premium economy, as we got on the plane and walked through business class, I joked to Mark that those were our seats and as we walked into the next cabin I then realised we actually were in Premium Economy....what a result! We were excited, extra leg room, bigger seats, panda goody bag, drink before take off and steak for dinner!!!! Although we did both sat there with our seat belts undone waiting to be asked to move...

After a comfortably 8 hour flight we arrived in Doha tired and ready for bed...but first we had to go through immigration, collect our bags and find an ATM, which we did with the help of a man offering his car as a overprice taxi, tired and confused we accepted....not the best idea, he was friendly but he had no idea where our hotel was!!! After visiting all of the Souq Waqif hotels he final found ours and we headed to reception....our booking had been cancelled :( this was not what we expected....

The hotel informed us that they had sent an email notifying us that they had moved us to their boutique sister hotel Musheireb with an upgraded room to a suite....his cheered us up. They arranged a golf buggy transfer and when we arrived I could barely contain myself....it was defiantly the nicest place we had ever stayed....absolutely gorgeous!