So after 30 wonderful days spent in China we crossed the border to its very modern neighbour, Hong Kong. 

We headed directly to Kowloon where our hotel was booked. We didn’t want to risk turning up in a very expensive city a couple days away from Chinese New Year without a booking. £23 got us a clean but minuscule room with wardrobe sized ensuite where one could shit, shower and shave in unison. Like a lot of Hong Kong’s budget hotels it was in a ‘mansion’ which meant a massive high story filled with various hotels, flats, internet cafes and even visa offices. 

On street level were bazaars with souvenirs, clothes, money change shops and bakery’s, and on every street corner were Indian men. We’ve missed their lovely accents and head wobbles, but it’s funny how they have touting in their blood. “You want watch sir??” And they’d swing out their wrist to emphasise the point…yet they wouldn’t be wearing a watch. I particularly liked it when we caught them off guard, all of a sudden they’d see a white face and panic “watch, suit, hash, weed…something?”

Everything in Hong Kong is built in height not width, almost every building was a high rise and even the trams were narrow double deckers. 

We headed out to Temple Street market said to be bustling and it was rather anti-climatic just selling tourist tat. It was a bit of a shock to see the expensive meals on all the menus and we found McDonalds to be the cheapest place to eat – and judging by the crowd so did a lot of the locals.
All the cars cruising around were of top range; BMW’s lined the roads and we saw two Maserati’s within 5 minutes. It’s like they have too much money.

There were westerners everywhere; for once we weren’t the black sheep. So many western business men and women in suits, it was an odd sight after China. Also most of the locals spoke superb English which makes traveling so much easier.
It’s all very clean here, minus the used condom we saw swimming past us in the clear sea. And we don’t feel like we’re being spied on like we were in China which had cctv cameras everywhere, even on hikes!! Here we hardly saw any. 

The locals hate the Chinese, I can understand why, but it’s unfair to judge a whole nation because of a few bad beans. One guy we chatted to in a tiny eatery was so anti China and absolutely shocked that we said we loved it and that the people were so friendly, he literally couldn’t believe us! 
And in a complete contrast to China, the phlegm-ball nation, Hong Kong had signs saying ‘no spitting, offenders will be prosecuted!’ Hooray!!