A couple of days in Hong Kong

Greetings my friends.

Just a few photo's to keep you up to date on what I have been up to.  Our first stopover was in Hong Kong for two nights as both of us have always wanted to go there.

We were staying on the Kowloon side of the harbour so had to get the ferry over. It cost all of 20p and is a great way to see some of the city and what is about on the water.     

 i was amazed at how much water traffic there was and in some parts there were hundreds of ships just sitting at anchor doing nothing. I seriously have never seen so many boats in my life.

It has the longest escalator in the world going through the city from the big shopping centre all the way up to the Mid levels 800 m  up. It was a great way to see the back streets and beat the long walk towards the peak tram.

The tram takes you up the mountain in the middle of the island where you get the most spectacular view in all directions.  Unfortunately they have a big problem with smog from China and visability was not good while we were there, still it was good enough for me.
The tower blocks were hugh and so close to together and as exciting as I found the city I couldn't live there.  Apart form anything else the smog played havoc with my eyes.

And at night the light show is as good as you'll see anywhere.

the people were so nice and friendly,they also all speak a certain amount of English which is handy as my Cantonese is a bit rusty. We had one old man come up and tell us we were honoured guests and had the right to go anywhere in the city as being British we had done so much to create it.  

The other thing I noticed was in general how clean the public areas were with road sweepers going around all the time but there did seemed to be a huge gap between rich and poor.

Shopping was good though if you like designer labels, didn't see any shops selling fabric unless of course you wanted a suit made up in 8 hours.

All in all a place I would recommend and with an exchange rate of 11HK$ to the pound it's fairly cheap as well.

We are now in New Zealand and are having a couple of days with friends in Te Awamuta. I have got a few funny tales to tell already and I'm sure there will be many more by the end of our time.

hope you are all well and I'll try and get back to you in a week or so.
Gillxxx