Finally arrived in HK. 11 hour flight, not much to say about that really, watched a couple of movies, tried not to drink too much, Fiona tried harder than me though, the stewardess thought that the port to go with my cheese was best served by the half pint. Our bags were the very first off the plane, immigration was very quick, walked straight through customs and were met by our driver. Easier to get in here than it will be to get back into Manchester. Normally we mix and match the luggage in case a bag goes astray, so if we get at least one bag we are both guaranteed something to wear. It did happen to us once and we were left in a small resort with no clothes shops for a couple of days until they turned up. This time we threw caution to the wind, funnily enough both bags were within 0.1 kg of each other. Back in Manchester security seemed extra vigiliant, bags were being searched as well as x-rayed, lots of people being patted down as well as scanned.

The journey from the airport was about 25 minutes, roads were quiet as it 07. 30 on Sunday morning. Whats immediately apparent is that the infrastructure here has had and is getting serious investment, huge bridges and flyovers, puts our roads to shame. Quick check in at the hotel, our room is on the 10th floor overlooking the harbour. We decided on a quick shower and then several hours of sleep before venturing out.

We walked along the promenade ending up at the Star Ferry terminal, it was pretty busy there and by this time we needed some food and coffee which meant a quick trip to Starbucks. We then caught the ferry over to HK island and walked along the overhead walkway to Queens Street and hopped on a tram heading east. Very busy, packed like sardines. I am under 6ft and my head was touching the ceiling on the upper deck, there are a lot of short people here, even Fiona looks tall. On the streets there were a lot of Filipinas sitting in groups in small cardboard rooms, we were told these were maids on their day off. It is very common for households to have Filipina or Indonesian maids and by law they must have 1 day off a week and this is what they do to socialise with their friends given they may have a room less than 60 square feet to live in in the main household.

We got off at Victoria Park which was a huge disappointment, we were expecting a nice green open space but they must have had some event on recently and it hadn't been cleared away. So it was back on the tram heading west and then the ferry back across to Kowloon. Public transport is cheap, the ferry journey was about 25p each way and a one way tram ride is a maximum of 25p. We made our way back to the hotel and dumped our back packs and decided to head out to the night market as it was nearly 18.00. So we walked to the subway about 800 metres away (Jayne/David - next to the Shangri La), you have to walk another 80 metres if not more underground before getting to the actual trains. The 3 stop 10 minute or so journey cost 55p, trains are modern and clean but again very busy. The night market is the same as markets everywhere, fake goods galore and tat. By now we decided to have something to eat. We had to leave the first place we went into as Fiona wasn't happy ordering food from a picture menu, by this time I was ready to eat the actual menu. The second place we walked out of as she wasn't happy when we were shown to our table as the floor was sticky. By now I would have eaten my food off the floor. These were street food type dives on side streets as she was keen on eating somewhere local. So that idea was abandoned and it was back on the train and we eventually ate in a Japanese restaurant in a mall.