Last entry from Asia
So it’s fairwell to Asia today after two and a half months. It seems like years ago that we set off in our fleeces on a dark morning bound for Glasgow airport. And after thousands of miles on trains, buses and boats we are about to take our second flight of the trip this afternoon. We have bought our Lonely Planet guide for Oz and NZ: Katie has inherited the planning gene from me so I tend to leave it to her really to sort out the itinerary. She has booked us a hostel in Darwin which is described in the book as being full of young people in cool threads so I don’t know how well I will fit in!
We have continued to enjoy our time in Hong Kong over the past few days. One of the highlights has been the Tai Chi classes in the mornings. These are put on free by the Tourist Board and take place most mornings between 8 and 9am. I am ashamed to say that I overslept yesterday and we missed the class! The problem is that our room has no windows so the light doesn’t wake you up and with earplugs in neither does anything else – including Katie. But the classes were excellent and were run by a tiny little man in white silk pyjamas. We did some very basic moves and breathing exercises. It looks very graceful when the experts do it but it is difficult to put all the elements of the moves together as the position of your hands and fingers and feet are very important. It would be good to take some more classes when we get home. But you couldn’t beat the setting for it here on the harbour wall in Kowloon with the skyscrapers of Hong Kong island in the background. We have also visited some more museums including the Science Museum which is all hands-on exhibits, I suppose mainly aimed at children but we enjoyed them too. And we went back to the History Museum so now we are very knowledgeable about the Opium Wars and the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong during the war amongst other things. I have found exploring the history of all the places we have been fascinating and we are looking forward to more museums in Oz. The Museum of Medicine was a bit disappointing as it was very old-fashioned compared to the others (no buttons to press!) but it dealt with both Chinese and Western medicine, comparing the two and showing how they fit together. Yesterday we rounded off our Hong Kong experience by another trip to the beach, this time to Shek O on Hong Kong island. It is a lovely beach with good waves – people even had surf boards so it was a kind of transition to Australia I suppose. The water was nice and warm but we got a bit sunburnt despite our best efforts with a beach umbrella and the factor 35. Have to be more careful. We had booked a free trip on a junk round the harbour when we arrived in HK and so we had to abandon the beach and head back to the pier for 5pm. The trip lasted an hour and the water was quite rough so we plunged up and down. But we didn’t get seasick. For our last meal with chopsticks we splashed out a bit and went to somewhere more upmarket but still cheap by HK standards. They did lovely cold fruit cocktails (kumquat and lemon and lots of other flavours). You can spend a fortune on a meal here if you have a mind to. The cost of living seems comparable to the UK in many respects: we checked out an outdoor shop (well you have to, don’t you) and the prices were the same as in the UK. In mainland China you could get cheap North Face gear but the quality was a bit suspect so we didn’t bother.
Anyway, that’s all for now. Except to ask if there is anybody out there reading all this stuff that I am painstakingly typing up? We have had a bit of feedback from a few people (thanks for that) but it would be nice to know what the rest of you are up to and what you all got up to over the summer. We are heading for the Spring now down under although Katie tells me it is 35 deg in Darwin today. Catch up with you from Oz…..
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