James Little

Using the MTR, we headed off to Admiralty station and then tried to find the peak tram station. We found Hong kong park, which had some water features containing fish and turtles; the park had lots of stuff to see, even a wedding reception and an avairy – which was amazing – over 600 species of birds? Lots to see.

The tram to the peak was not very busy when we got on. And there wasn’t really much to see at the peak. We ate at a little place on the peak, can’t remember the name. I had some yuanyang and a baked pork chop and rice dish and Tracey had noodle soup. We shared some toast with condensed milk! There were many tourist places at the peak.

When we got to the bottom again the queue for the tram was enormous – we jumped on an open roofed bus to go to hong kong station – no change is given on hong kong buses. We were taken to a central pier bus terminal, where we were hoping to find bus 70 or 75, which would take us to Aberdeen to see the Jumbo floating restaurant. Instead we found bus 7, which took a scenic route around Hong Kong to Aberdeen.

By the time we got there we decided not to take a free ferry to the restaurant and many ladies tried to sell a ferry ride to my girlfriend. One of my favourite things about Hong Kong is that I can buy a beer at the diary, not a 6 pack of beer, just a can of beer. I’m not sure if I am allowed to drink it ouside on the street, but a can of beer looks about the same as a can of anything else and it only costs about HK$7. Fantastic! Comparitively, going to a bar the same beer will cost HK$50, which is about the same as NZ$11!

We got the 70 bus back to town, which was much faster. Then watched a little of the Kung fu performance, by this stage I was completely exhausted, very tired feet and just wanted to sit down. At Kowloon park there were a lot of people just sitting around; there is a Mosque and Islamic cultural centre beside the park and I think many of the people sitting around are Malaysian maids on their day off. It looks like fun, some of the girls were dancing together; they are all in little groups, so it seems that it would be a little like lunch break at high school.

We met with Tracey’s dad and went across to a lane of bars, that was near Kowloon park, but Tracey’s dad led the way and then we had a few beers. The crazy thing is that a couple rounds of beer in Hong kong will usually set you back more than a large meal for 3! Coffee is also a budget killer here.

After some drinks we went to the New World centre for dinner; trying black pepper duck, sweat and sour pork, tofu and fish stomach with XO sauce, and a tofu, mushroom and fungus dish – quite interesting! Finishing just in time for the symphony of lights display – which is amazing.

They light up several of the buildings on both sides of the harbour and put on a display for about 15 minutes in time to music. We watched from the avenue of stars.