Hong Kong

Hello

Once again, I must apologise for the delay in transmission. We had difficulty with internet connection (and finding time) to update the blog while we were there. We arrived home safely yesterday afternoon after the long and tiring trip back to Australia via Sydney. The journey through customs, Qantas transit lounge and on to Brisbane was frustrating - to put it mildly. Anyhow, back to Hong Kong - here's our 5 day stay in a nutshell. You can view all of the photo's, including the day trip to Macau, by clicking the picture link below.

Hong Kong

We arrived in Hong Kong early on our first day, but due to exhaustion from the flight didn't get to do very much during the day. We spent the afternoon and evening exploring the surrounding area and watching the laser light show which happens every night at 8pm. We were lucky enough to arrive on a night where they also had special fireworks in the lead up to handover celebrations on the 30th June.

The next day we went up to the Peak to look at the view and take some pictures. We had a lovely lunch at The Peak Lookout restaurant which has been there as long as Mum could remember. After lunch we went back down and caught a double decker tram to Causeway Bay, primarily to go to the Hong Kong Yacht Club however we were distracted by a huge sale they were having a Sogo (a large department store). We emerged several hours later and got to enjoy the laser light show from the other side of Hong Kong!

We organised ourselves to take a day trip to Macau. Unfortunately the weather was very rainy so we didn't get a chance to look at all the sites that Mum had recommended. I can tell you that the Bela Vista Hotel is now some kind of official building and closed to the public. We had lunch (late) at the Lisboa in the coffee shop. They are busy building a 2nd Lisboa behind the first including an (almost) life size version of the globe! By coincidence I happended to buy a watch from the watch shop where my grandfather bought all his watches!

We spent the next few days exploring the other sites of Hong Kong, including a trip to Kennedy Road, the playground where I first walked and the house where my family lived when I was born. It so happened that on this day a vising VIP meant that we were stuck in the Hong Kong gardens during a 4 hour rainstorm while the road was closed. It was an experience .... not very good for my shoes I'm afraid.

We left Hong Kong on the night of the handover clebrations. We heard there were plans for a fireworks show to rival that of Chinese New Year when the government invested 1.2 million dollars on fireworks! It was a bit of a shock to come back to winter as we'd been enjoying the balmy humid conditions in Hong Kong and European summer. As a result I'm all rugged up to write this final blog (except for the gloves ... not that cold yet!).

Bye for now.

Malga's Back in Oz :)