Finding feet in Hong Kong

We treated Hong Kong, our first stop in Asia, as something of a China starter pack. It's basically Chinese now, but with plenty of assistance for China virgins such as ourselves - most people speak English, all signs have English on them, and so on. Not only that, but thanks to Faye's mum, we had a contact there. And not just any contact, but a senior doctor in a posh private hospital. On our first day in Hong Kong, we were whisked away into the New Territories (just outside the city but still part of what used to be British-owned), shown how to play Mah Jong, fed some tasty dim sum, and taken to a temple. And I had my still-sore ankle massaged, rubbed and generally attacked by a 90-year-old grandma armed with tiger balm and surprisingly powerful hands. A good start all in all...

(Actually we'd got off to a fairly bad start the night we arrived in Hong Kong. The hostel we were supposed to be staying in for three nights was being refurbished, so we were led round the corner to a poky little room in another hostel. This didn't seem too bad, until we realised that we'd have to vacate the room during the day the next day as Sundays were the busiest day for renting out hotel rooms by the hour... The following day, with Steven the doctor's help, we got back into the original hostel, which as far as we could tell only accommodates couples who know each other's names.)

On the second night, Steven took us for a big pre-New Year family meal. Most of what we ate was unusual, but delicious nevertheless. We were also given stewed goose feet, which were... unusual.



Steven and Monica, and their sons and their girlfriends. And tea and Budweiser.


Every day in Hong Kong, we made an effort to get some kind of view. Then we'd generally go back to our room and collapse. We're hoping it's just the change in humidity after Australia that's made us so lethargic so far. This is the view down onto Hong Kong Island from The Peak.


Looking at Hong Kong Island again, this time from across the harbour in Kowloon.


Junk

Or so Faye said anyway...

(I'm afraid making bad jokes out of Asian English may become a bit of a theme. My apologies in advance.)

We really liked Hong Kong. It certainly helped being shown around by locals, and also where we were staying - Causeway Bay on Hong Kong Island - was incredibly full of life. The ferry trip across the harbour, which costs about 15p, was probably our favourite pastime. We ate pretty well (no surprise there) and managed to limit our visits to the familiar comforts of McDonalds and a Japanese fast food chain called Yoshinoya which we'd grown to love in Sydney. We even managed to order quite a few meals of dim sum from Chinese-only menus.

I felt caught up in the locals' excitement in the build up to the Lunar New Year, which seemed much like our build up to Christmas. New Year itself meant: visiting a fair very near our hostel where you could buy giant inflatable versions of almost anything, from the inevitable pigs (it's the year of the pig) to meat cleavers to dog turds(?!); trying to catch glimpses of the New Year parade from behind several thousand locals and some irate policemen, which was all a bit of a letdown; and then a superb fireworks display over the harbour in front of the brightly lit up skyscrapers.

So now for the real thing, starting in Guangzhou - a city of 5 million people in the south of China that used to be known as Canton in the West, hence Cantonese. As long as we get across the border - hopefully our all-singing, all-dancing six-month multiple entry visas are not fakes...