Hong Kong

Lok Fu Park?
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I really liked Hong Kong! Full of life, cheap, loads to see and do, a good transport system, great food, good pubs, free internet access, English speakers, nice hotel - frickin excellent!

Up early on our third day for a tour of the Hong Kong Wetlands Park, and of the oyster fisheries at Hau Hoi Wan (Deep Bay), Yuen Long. The wetlands tour would've been excellent at a different time of year, but nobody bothered to tell us that all the birds had already migrated, and that when the tide was in, which it was, that none of the crabs and crustaceans there were visible! We did manage to see a few fish and some dragonflies and damselflies, but we couldn't help feeling a bit disappointed. That was nothing though, we went to the oyster fisheries, only for the guide to tell us that nobody would be working at that time because they'd all packed up and gone home several hours earlier. Great! Maybe you should've told us that before you took our money. All we got from this 5 minute detour was photos of lots and lots of empty shells and a few crabs and fish in buckets in the stalls!

We took the scenic cable car over the top of one of the mountains and descended onto the Buddha.

Fruit stall near Lok Fu Park?
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After our mishap on the wetlands tour (that was ok), we went to Lantau Island to visit the biggest bronze Buddha in the world. What a beautiful place this was. We took the scenic cable car over the top of one of the mountains and descended onto the Buddha. My camera's battery was already as dead as a dodo, and unfortunately for us, Nathan's ran out after one picture of the Buddha - can !? All of which is irrelevant now anyway because one of the memory cards has developed a fault, so we've lost 1gb worth of images! We took the bus back down to a little fishing village called Pui O, where the houses were all built on stilts. This would have been ace to take pictures of, but...oh well! This was one of the best touristy things we did in Hong Kong. Really interesting to see how the people lived right on the water's edge. We took a boat ride through the stilts of the houses and out into open water to look for the infamous pink dolphin. Unfortunately we didn't see any, not for a lack of trying, but enjoyed the ride thouroughly anyway.

Wong Tai Sin Temple - Kowloon.
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We did spend a lot of time drinking in Hong Kong, just because it was so lively. There were some good pubs on Lockhart Road and the surrounding area in Wan Chai on Hong Kong Island. Some of them were a bit pricey, but compared to England they were still dead cheap.