Arrived in Hong Kong on Monday, staying in Mong Kok on Kowloon. The place buzzes with people every hour of the day and its a bit of a shoppers paradise. So far we have been across to Hong Kong island on the Star Ferry, about 20p it costs and the views onto Hong Kong Island are fantastic (check out out photos). We went up the Peak overlooking Hong Kong Island on the tram yesterday, but unfortunately could see nothing but cloud. Last night we went to Happy Valley racecourse, as shown on the photos the setting is unbelievable. Me and Rich are exceptional gamblers as we won hk$200 (actually about 15 quid) which almost covered our bets. Today we took the train up into the new territories, to near the chinese border. I was expecting an arid grassland landscape but actually it is covered in lush forest. We visited apparently the most traditional chinese town in Hong Kong in preparation for our journey into china on saturday. The place was quite a bit different to Hong Kong and I am looking forward to experiencing the chinese lifestyle next week. On our journey we also took in a few of the newly built satellite towns.