Friday 2 July

Vital Stats - Time, 2 hours behind Brisbane; temperature about 32 Max, humidity around 85%; pop'n approx 7 million and the most densly populated city on the planet. Public transport cheap. Infrastructure amazing- subways under the harbour; bridge to airport island that makes the new Redcliffe Bridge look like a toy bridge, generally clean city and attractive city. Well organised.

Huge day! Needed a big sleep after the travel yesterday. We headed out about 10am in search of the world outside and food. Discovered yummy bakery on the corner and had bread buns for breaky. Meandered around the bustling streets of Kawloon looking at shops and headed towards the infamous Nathan Road.

Well, Nathan Road, isn't that a treat for your standard Aussie who can't stand those over annoying, pain in the ass hawkers strategically placed at every 10 paces. As Mel said they seemed to just 'apparate' out of thin air and attack us! We soon got sick of being told we were crazy to pass up getting our own suits made, buying rolex watches and fake designer hand bags. Mel was about to go 'postal', she was ready to hit someone. So we did the only thing an 'over it' Aussie can do and headed to the closest safe house, Starbucks. After a refreshing drink, normal people and aircon (it was dang hot out there today) we girded our loins and got into super tourist mode. Adopting our new personas, Gertrude (me) and Wendy (Mel) we played a game of piss off the hawkers and have a fun day. It worked.

We headed to the Ferry Terminal and when approached by very annoying hawkers (very much like loud, annoying commuters only 10 times worse) we would avoid eye contact and engaging with them by going into character mode to fend them off. We now have a repetoire of pretend rows, emotive convos and canned laughter perfected which act as a force field for hawkers.

We caught a ferry over to Hong Kong Island (50 cents each), a bus to Victoria Peak ($1 each) and then headed up the mountain to the Peak by cable car (about $15 each) (Thanks Hillsy great tip to go there loved it!). The ride up in the cable car was steep and it was worth the trip as the view was magic. We stayed up there a couple of hours looking at more shops, taking in the view, chatting to other tourists and then having a cool drinks and a snack overlooking the harbour. We both agreed that it is a beautiful city as cities go, but neither of us is fussed by the built environment of skyscraper cities. We are looking forward to seeing Paris and London and comparing the difference.

Dinner tonight was a delish local joint for Ramen, dumplings and beef rice. We wandered around all the glittery neon streets for another hour or two before heading back to the room at about 11pm. Did we buy anything in this shopping mecca today? Not much, A bag for Mel, some trinkets for others, really we figure this type of shopping is not our thing lots of cheap crap, or really the good stuff is no cheaper than home. Stick to DFO everyone!