Goodbye NZ! Auckland - Hong Kong

After a day of hanging around, fiddling with packing and carry-on, we made it away from Napier. My bag weighed about 28kg... As Kelly said, excess baggage is allowed when you're going for 7 months. Sadly, the airline still made me pay. ;p Had a good farewell crew of whanau and Marj, our awesome travel agent!

By the time we got to Auckland and ate tea, Mum and I were ready to go to sleep. Unfortunately, we still had about 3 hours before we could board our next flight (to Hong Kong). Flight was pretty good, and I tried to make the most of the last bits of Kiwi-ness by listening to Crowded House and Gin Wigmore, and watching some Outrageous Fortune.

Arrived in HK and had about 45min bus ride to our hotel, which gave us a chance to take in some sights. Don't really know what I was expecting from Hong Kong, but I thought it was quite random that it's so industrial/high-rise, and then has surrounding bush-covered mountains. The apartment buildings are so huge; just can't get my head around it! There were also some huge bridges that reminded me a bit of San Fransisco, and a massive port.
We've been doing a lot of wandering around, not really knowing where we are or (really) where we're going. However, I quite like just wandering the streets because it gives you a feel for the place. And it's so different- for me, at least, since I've never been to Asia before.

Thanks to an extremely helpful and friendly woman (who was keen to practise her English) we managed to get the train down to the Ferry terminal, where we eventually got tickets for the Big Bus Tour. This was definitely a good idea, especially after all the walking we'd been doing. So nice to just sit back and be driven around, while getting some history and info about buildings/districts around us.

Every time we want to eat, we end up going for quite a wander to find somewhere either with English or pictures on the menu, but both meals so far have been great. We felt like we were really being watched last night, though, as I think we were the only non-locals in the restaurant. They brought out spoons & forks for us so, clearly, we looked like we couldn't use chopsticks.

Some of the things which have stood out so far:

• great service/eager to sell!



• cheap



• lots of tall, tall (and kinda grotty) apartment buildings



• huge neon signs hanging over the street



• people walk slowly



• umbrellas (not jackets!) are the business here. They are everywhere in the streets and, when you go into a shop, they give you a little plastic bag for your wet umbrella. When you come out the door again, there's an obligatory pause as everyone puts up their umbrellas again.