"Fireworks, Extreme Humidity, an Old Friend and a Couple of Wet Lousies!"

We arrived in Hong Kong on Saturday afternoon after a long flight from Koh Samui (at 6am....only just missing the 20th anniversary Full Moon Party at Koh Pangnan...doh!) and weren't too suprised to literally drop through the heavy raincloud straight onto the runway (ok, Nick was a little scared)! After all, it is monsoon season now this side of the world and so we expect to see some rain over the next few weeks. The temperatures are however very tropical, around 30 degrees and so there is alot of humidity about. It's quite funny in the centre of Hong Kong as there are people everywhere in shorts, flip flops, strappy tops etc all armed with a brolly just in case.

We checked in at the nice Majestic hotel in Kowloon, which had been booked as part of our China tour. A nice suprise was to realise that we were spending quite a special weekend in Hong Kong - actually it is the 10th anniversary of the handover of rule to China and so there was plenty going on over the weekend and Monday would also be a designated bank holiday.

weren't too suprised to literally drop through the heavy raincloud straight onto the runway (ok, Nick was a little scared)!

For our first evening we met up with Luke who is now working in Hong Kong and he showed us the town - until we could no longer keep our eyes open, which was a rather poor midnight! Getting old. We tried to find a bar to catch up with the Motogp, ut this was easier said than done in the torrential rain and we finally found a bar just as the podium presentation was being done - sorry Sylvain! It was a little shock to the system (and the wallet) to be back in a city where $6 US for a beer was the norm, when we had been used to around $1 US in Indochina but thanks to Luke's hospitality and knowledge of good Turkish tapas bars then we had a good night and filled our bellies.

Filling our bellies seemed to be a theme for the weekend (it normally does when meeting up with friends!) as we met up again on Sunday and went to a fabulous Dim Sum restaurant and admired great views of the harbour around 17 floors up and then the boys went off for a few drinks before we all met up again in the evening to hunt for a spot to watch the fireworks over the harbour - easier said than done when the whole of Hong Kong has the same idea and the Chinese 'ultra-efficiency' meant that police were cordoning off areas nearly everywhere as soon as the crowd were in a 50 m radius of ach other! We finally found somewhere over on Hong Kong island and settled there afterwards for some post-firewrok drinks at a nice bar in the IFC.

Today we took the tram up to the 'peak' on Hong Kong island and certainly picked the right day for it as the weather and visibility were great, so we got some fab photos of the surrounding islands, harbour and famous skyline in 'central'. Lunch with Lke and then we said our goodbyes and headed for the airport (from where I write this) to take our flight into China to Guilin in the Guangxi province (South China). Cheers Lukey for showing us the city.

For those wondering...well what's Hong Kong like....I would summarise like this; shopping (although bring your credit card as on every corner is Louis Vuitton, Chanel etc) and no I haven't bankrupted us....no room in the backpacks (!), bright lights especially at night, which is great to see, and famous lazor shows, good variety of nice bars and restaurants, an amazing skyline. All in all a great place to spend a few days...and alot of cash...maybe next time!