Hong Kong

Hong Kong is like the love-child of a Moroccan Souq and New York. It's all skyscrapers and every crevice has a shop to selling their wares. It is far more cosmopolitan then China and as a city, a lot greener then Chinese cities.

Finally made it after a mad-panic trying to get out of Xian, as no bugger can speak a word of English, including travel agents. Got onto the plane where I was served what looked like a kinder egg, I open it with a knife and inside it look like fudge, after a bite I realised that it was an egg...? The flight was a bit scary as the engines were making funny noises and I swear I could smell smoke half way through the flight, I held onto my St Christopher so tight I drew blood.

Hong Kong has become a journey of firsts. It's the first hostel I've stayed in that isn't the best (felt like I was sleeping in a prison cell and I could hear rats scurrying around outside at night time), had my first cold shower, my first English tea, first MacDonald's and first casualty...I lost my Kafka book I was reading that had a postcard of all the places I should visit in Japan. I'm really pissed off about it as I was enjoying the book :( I'm now reading The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, which is about a boy with asperger's. It started making me think that maybe I had aspergers (stop sniggering).

The hostel was called Lily Garden in Kowloon and in the heart of the tailoring district. The place was surrounded by clothes-making factories. Being the daughter of a dress-maker, it made me feel very at home with all the Singers and pins. There were an awful lot of curry stalls too, which served the most fantastic curry and samosas that nearly blew my head off.

The view from Victoria Harbour is superb and the weather was sunny and luke-warm, not warm enough to permanently ditch my horrid coat though. Looking out onto Hong Kong Island and watching the world go by, I was there for about 15 minutes and then I noticed that I had a tanline left by my t-shirt. So now I look like a Brit abroad with a builders tanline.

I love Hong Kong, so bright and vibrant. I'm a city girl, so I guess it's places like this that I feel most at home. Although, I felt slightly out of place against the well-dressed locals, who were all queuing to get into Louis Vitton and Chanel. Oh well, when I marry that Russian billionaire I won't have to queue, they will open the shop especially for me!