China Day 1, Walking Tour of Hong Kong

Monday June 27^th

I woke up early this morning and went and purchased the internet for the room. I spent the morning writing and catching up on the blog.

At noon my new room mate showed up. His name is Paul and he is from Sydney (last photo). We spent a bit of time talking and getting to know each other before Nicholas came at one to pick me up for lunch. We went for a walk around the area looking for a suitable place to eat. We stopped and had a wonton soup at a little local place and then walked some more until he found a restaurant that served the type of food he was looking for. We had a soup, some pork and chicken and rice. After that we took another form of Hong Kong Public Transport, the double decker bus. I forgot to say in the last post, that the government is the major funder of all the forms of public transport but they are run by private companies. We rode on the top floor, where there was a wide screen TV, for a few blocks and then got off to wander around. We walked through the 'goldfish market'. This is a street full of pet shops selling mostly fish - goldfish, koi, tropical fish and marine fish. Some of these shops sell fish in small plastic bags (see photo), which is really bizarre. There were lots of different types in these bags including marine fish which are notoriously hard to care for. Some beautiful specimen and it really reminded me of Tom, he would have loved it. We walked through another local street market that sold a lot of tourist stuff. Then, Nicholas had to leave and I had to get back to meet my new group. So, we sadly said our goodbyes. I really enjoyed reconnecting with him and we had a good couple of days. Thank you Nick!

Back at the hotel we met up in the lobby. There is eleven of us and this group is incredibly different from the last one. The average age has gone up by 30 years or more. Except for me and the guide, Allen who is Chinese, the rest are all Australians. There is Paul, a married couple and their two teenage children, another married retired couple, a woman travelling with her elderly mother, and another person we will meet tomorrow.

As a group we went for dinner and Allen ordered a number of Chinese dishes for us and we had a drink and talked to each other a bit. Then we went for a short walk through the night market, before Paul and I returned to the room for the night.