Heat, Crowds and Noodles

Well after a pretty uneventful 16 hour flight we arrived in Hong Kong, and my god it was hot! 35 degrees and almost 100% humidity and it was properly sunny (which it turns out doesn't happen too often). Anyhoo we got straight into the van and headed through the city to our new  home.

The centre is in the New Territories of Hong Kong, so it's not actually in the city. Instead it's in the lush and hilly Sai Kung country park. The centre runs a lot of land based courses and kayaking, but the best thing is the   70ft ex BT Global Challenge yacht moored out the front! :-)

For our first meal in Hong Kong our host took us out for a Thai..... Not quite what I was expecting, but when it arrived it was the nicest meal I have ever eaten. The flavours were explosive! There were about 10 different dishes for us to try and each one was stunning! It only cost about $15 for a main as well!

Despite the distance it only took us an hour to get into central, the MTR was pretty amazing and it only cost us 2 pounds. Well heading up the peak to get a first view over the city seemed like a good idea at the time. This was the view.....

Pretty amazing, but I think we'll try and go back up on a clear day to get the full view. Well it wasn't the last blunder of the day either we thought we'd try and walk down to the mid levels escalator. Rather than building a tram or another subway line they thought they'd just build a huge escalator to go up to the flats in the foreground. Well it turns out the escalator only goes down in the morning, and comes back up for the rest of the day. So we had to walk all the way down to the city in the heat and humidity. Wat A Fiasco!

Once we actually got down the city looked pretty amazing, as you'd guess it's very very busy but its so different from Edinburgh or London. For a start there's no litter, and the other thing I really noticed is the air quality is much better , there's no smoky buses, and certainly far fewer lines of traffic than in Edinburgh. The whole city runs like clockwork, the Chinese are very impatient but it's fine because they never have to wait for anything.

Last night we headed into Wan Chai, Hong Kong's famous rowdy party district, for my 18th. I decided it best not to take the camera for obvious reasons ;-) but the city really does look stunning at night. Even for a Thursday night the place was buzzing and most places were open all through the night. Every bar we went into was full of rich expats, and as I was wearing my kilt I certainly got a lot of attention. Best bit was we only had to buy 2 drinks for ourselves for the whole night :-) Just as well to be honest with a pint costing $60! (thats 6 pounds!)  It's amazing, wherever you go, you always meet another crazy Scotsman! This one was a rich architect called Angus, he saw me passing in my kilt and dragged us into his local and him and his Thai bride ;-)  bought us a lot of drinks. All in all a pretty amazing 18th! :-)

Today.. well it was a long lie in ;-) and well jet lag has truly destroyed my body clock, I really have no concept of what time it is and I'm really struggling to sleep at night. Hopefully I'll get there over the next few days. Anyhoo the one amazing thing we saw today was a local seafood restaurant. This was the front....

We decided not to, and instead went for a Chinese with the locals. It was very nice and only cost $16 for a main, but they do huge portions here and I do feel quite guilty when I can only manage half the plate. It rained like crazy today, which was pretty good cos it's much cooler now and for the first time since I arrived we can sit outside without sweating! Might even turn off the air con in the room tonight.... maybe not tho ;-) it is still 25.

Tomorrow we're going to head into Mong Kok the famous shopping district, and there should be lots of photos.

Night.

Kenneth