Sleep is magic. I felt so good after a nice, long sleep last night, that this morning I took a stroll up a nearby hill to see the local Catholic Church. It was a long, grey building – almost indistinguishable from the apartment blocks around it - and the church itself was on the second floor. They had a kindergarten downstairs, and just down the road was a Methodist Church and Primary School. Further along was the Zion Lutheran Pre-School. It's strange to see these kinds of buildings sitting so peacefully in among all the cheap laundry booths and electronics shops, especially after the rigid concrete blandness that is mainland China. What’s more, the religious buildings are actually in use here, not just photo opportunities for hordes of tourists or waif-like models.

Back down the hill, I walked the few blocks down to the water to take a few photos . Hong Kong is like Hong Kong Disneyland: it’s so small that you’ve reached your destination on the map long before you think you could possibly have covered all that distance. The exception is the MTR, but we’ll get to that later. On the way to Kowloon Bay, I passed the magnificent Harbour Grand Hotel, where there were soaring marble columns, dazzling chandeliers and porters in little white hats that put me in mind of the muslims in Tibet, and I thought "Now that’s where I’m going to stay the next time I come to Hong Kong."

On my way to Hung Hom station, I realised that I could actually travel there by MTR, but I decided to take the Star Ferry from North Point for the craic. For some reason it was in a fish market, but more surprisingly, you just slotted your coins ($4.50 – that’s like, 30c in Euro...) into the turnstile, and hopped on the ferry when it pulled in. I had to teach a woman in a 7/11 to count to 50 to get the right small change, but we worked it out and I got my ferry. There were nice views of both Kowloon and Hong Kong Island (henceforth known as HKI), but it was rather hazy, so my photos don’t do it justice.

I had planned to take a taxi to Hung Hom station, since it seemed quite a distance from Hung Hom ferry port, but the taxi drivers had all abandoned their cars (they must have been the ones who were fishing there, come to think of it), so I decided to walk . As I said earlier, distances are deceptive here, and I was there in less than 20 minutes, despite having no real idea where I was going. A lot of the route was in pedestrian overpasses too, which made it slightly more entertaining, especially when you got a good view into someone’s bedroom window along the way.

I got my ticket for Guangzhou, after teaching this clerk the difference between “first” and “third” – in Chinglish they sound the same. Go on, try it. I hadn’t really had breakfast, and it was now late afternoon, so I took an MTR and a stroll to Nathan Road. NOT the place to go on an empty stomach.

“Meeeesss, you want tailor dresssuitjacket?”

“Hello lady mas-aj?”

“Yes, hello you want handbagwatchdvd?”

I have got to find a way of disguising myself as an Asian. Come on people . Think of something beyond surgical masks, hats and brown contacts. This nose has got to go. Actually, speaking of Asians, a lot of the Chinese here actually look more Filipino than the Chinese I saw in Beijing and Shanghai. I think they’re still Han, but it’s something I must look up.

Nathan road was too much for me, so, as it was getting late, I decided to take in sunset on The Peak. This would have been achieved quite nicely, I believe, had I not become involved in a Gay Rally and a Citibank Protest, one after the other. However, I’ve never been involved in either before, so I didn’t really mind too much. The queue for the Peak Tram was quite large and pushy, so who’s to say I’d have made it in time anyway. Somehow, once I got there, I managed to be the FIRST ONE on the tram. I even took a picture. I was at the very back, but the difference is I chose to be there. Hurrah me! Once we stopped, I got shunted up a pile of escalators to the top of the Peak Tower, which had a view that was totally worth it . I stayed up there until it was dark enough for all the important lights to be on, and took so many photos that they’re bound to cancel most of each other out when it comes to picking favourites. I had decided to see the lightshow from Kowloon at 8, but I figured I had enough time for a posh dinner, recommended by my guidebook, before that. The dinner was lovely, but of course the queue for the return tram was simply enormous. When I got on, I decided to stay standing at the back, and was one of the first ones out, so I hurried along to Tsim Sha Tsui East to get to Avenue of the Stars before it was all over.

This is where the opposite distance thing starts to work. The MTR (and Peak Tram for that matter) always spills you out into a mall of some sort. And since you’re dressed like a smelly backpacker, the Gucci, Hilfiger and Chanel ladies always turn their noses up at you, when all you wanted to do was to see some famous landmark. But you’re not meant to get out of there. There are no exits marked (or if they are marked, it’s so small you’d need a magnifying glass to read it). You wander around in circles for ages, somehow managing to emerge in several other malls – some of which may be in another country, judging by your map – and you STILL can’t find an exit. This all meant that I was too late to see the light show, so I took a few grumpy pictures of the normal lights, and made my way back to the hostel.

Or at least I tried to. I ended up spending an hour in all those mall basements – and a few hotels too – despite the fact that I went back in exactly the way I came out. It was as if the underground had rearranged itself while I was gone. When I finally figured it all out, I walked all the way back again, just to check how I could have possibly become so awfully lost in the first place. The main problem turned out to be a hidden and unlabelled entrance to a different MTR station. Ah-ha.

So, clearly, I’ve made it back, had a shower in the toilet, and am trying to decide what to do with myself tomorrow.

But first... sleep. :)