Just chillin' in Hangzhou :)

After a very scenic train ride through the country from Xi'an, we arrived wide eyed at the beautiful Hangzhou. After yet another small 'disaster' of getting on the wrong bus and heading in the wrong direction a kind young chinese guy helped us, with his electronic translator, in the right direction. Our hostel was pretty cool, set upon quite a steep hill, this was not ideal with our thousands of bags we had accumilated, but it had a pretty little pond in the middle that went through the resturant and cool little wooden swings around the courtyard. We dumped our stuff and took off for a stroll around the West Lake while the sun was setting. The West Lake was a huge lake set in a Chinese National Park, surrounded by temples and pagodas and so many ponds and forests. This was to be our 'home' for the next 6 days.

As we couldnt get a train straight to Shanghai from Xi'an, we thought it would be easier and so much cheaper for us to stay outside of the city and settled on Hangzhou. Our second day we set off at 5am for the big city, our aim for the day was to get our Vietnam visa...so after travelling by train for 2hours and racing through the city by taxi for 20 minutes, we arrived at a pretty empty embassy office!! Yeh..you've guessed it, it was closed! I was sooo mad, I grumbled to the guy behind the desk "I have been travelling since 5am this morning to get here, you better tell me this place isnt closed"...after a lot of Chinese talking to me, the guy took me up in the lift to show me the entrance to the embassy. The sign stated "Due to 'some' festival the embassy will be closed from 12th-16th June"...I stormed off...back into the lift, and shouted at the guy "You should put this on your website if your gonna close it!!" Stomped out of the building and parked myself down outside! I could have cried!

So 20 minutes pass where I blame Dom, stating it was his "stupid" fault that we had to come here and saying "right well lets just go back to Hangzhou, I hate Shanghai" Dom slowly talked me round, and bribed me with a McDonald's in order for me to stay in the city for the day!! Thank goodness he is so good at this, as Shanghai ended up being a pretty city. We did the usual and walked around for most of the day, sightseeing and photographing. The view from the Bund was amazing and the skyline looked amazing in the blue summer sky. The weather was so hot, so this especially cheered me up. We had definatley made the better decision to stay out of Shanghai, due to Expo and the huge amount of tourists, it was enough to handle for only one day.

The next few days in Hangzhou we chilled out around the lake, taking in the views of the surrounding forests and beautiful lakes. Chinese fishermen lined the lake on one side and bikers filled the small paths. Our days consisted of walking to the ice cream shop for this scrummy mango pot ice cream sorbet, mmm mmm! And then finishing that off with some popcorn, a great diet. The lake was so tranquil and serene, completely different from any of the places we had stayed in China so far.
Hangzhou was surrounded by tea fields and springs and wells everywhere. We went up to the famous Dragon Well, were Longjing tea was made. It was up in the moantains in a wooded area. There was a huge well where some superstitious tea thing happened, and it was so clear I just wanted to just in to relieve myself from the humidity. We were tempted to get bikes out for a cycle round but couldnt find the kiosk, haha! It was nice to get away from so much hustle and bustle, yet we still couldnt escape the red caps! They literally got a guided tour through a signposted park! I thought this was pretty strange but one thing we have learnt from 3 weeks in China is how crazy the Chinese were!!

Day 4 came quickly and we were due to leave, as we set off on the journey with our bags in tow, mistakingly getting on the right bus in the wrong direction, we arrived at the South station ready for a 23hour train to Guilin. 1 Hour later around 7:45pm, after our train was due to leave at 7pm, we found out this unfortunately wasnt going to be our night we would travel to Guilin :( We did, however, have the option of waiting at the station for 1-2days for the train to arrive. I personally wasnt really up for this option so decided to get a taxi back to our hostel and stay for 2 more nights!!

Eventually, after 6 days in Hangzhou we were more than ready to be on our way. We got the girl on reception to ring the train company to check our train was running...which to our delight it was! So we got the right bus in the right direction and got there with, what we thought would be, minutes to spare. We had met a guy Andy who was also travelling on the same train at our hostel, so he now joined us for a few days around Guilin and Yangshuo. He is probably one of the coolest guys we had met on our trip, it was definately going to be emotional when we would part ways. Me and Dom would shed many tears...(haha, he told me to write this haha) So 7pm came and went, luckily Andy could understand Chinese, and had found out our train was delayed for 2-3hours!! GREAT! The temptation for food, other than pot noodles, crept upon us, and after Andy suggested KFC, which was 'outside' the station, he set off with our order written down to purchase tea. He returned EMPTY HANDED!! We were gutted, BUT as we knew our train was delayed for another 2hours we thought a KFC taxi run would be a great alternative!! Off we trotted in our taxi to the kernel, returning this time full of goodies :) just as we sat down, spread the mayonnaise over the tasty looking fries, our train arrived and everyone started boarding!! Great timing or what...Guilin here we come.

Xi'An - A city of warriors, another Great Wall and a mullet named Karl

So we couldn't get a sleeper bed for the 11 hour train ride to Xi'An from Beijing so reluctantly settled for a hard seat. The train was an overnight train so we were in for a comfortable sleep
From India I had visions of a hard seat being literally a wooden bench from the cattle class but it was a seat similar to those on English trains....luxury!!!
It turns out they seat all the foreigners together so we were sat opposite an English couple, so we sat and chatted about each of our travels around India, played a bit of cards and then attempted to sleep!...Sarie managed to get around 6 hours and I managed to get 1 and a half hours..
Anyways we arrived at half 8 and were welcomed by a 'Sarah Wain' board for our free pickup. Vicky and Lee decided at £2 each a night they will join in. As well as the fact it said, 'Free Beer' on their website!! In the taxi to the hostel we were planning that if we drank about 8 beers each a day then we would get our beds for free in theory!!!
Who were we kidding, as we arrived we checked and it turned out that you only get 1 free beer when you check in...dammm!

We were welcomed to our room by an american named Karl and he had the best Mullet I've ever seen, it was epic! a nice short back and sides and then he turns round and there it was, a massive curly mullet...very erm....cool!! the first words we exchanged were the mullet saying "if you're gonna leave the room, can you shut the door"...jeez, hello and good day to you too sir it certainly is a pleasure to meet you....Little did we know that this guy turned out to be a cool guy! giving us his 3 chinese phone numbers as well as his email so we can meet up in Nanning, as well as multiple lectures about the history and politics of China....what a guy!!

That night the 4 of us decided to head to the Muslim Quarter to the street stalls to get some food. Night markets everywhere and we found a little Chinese restaurant serving noodles and bbq kebabs with various meat, for a ridiculous price. We filled our boots and got a large beer each and it came to £4 for the 4 of us!!



We had planned to visit the terracotta warriors on our second day in Xi'an and after an early wake up and a sleepy bus ride to the Warriors we bagan our 4hour exploration of each individual pit. We had heard that it was best to see the short film on the history of which dynasty the warriors had originated from and when they had been discovered, this gave us a great insight to what we were about to see. We thought it would be best to start at the 'least' exciting pit, so entered Pit 3 first. It was pretty impressive still with a few warriors and then pit 2 was the tomb of Emperor Qin, showing the grounds of where he had built his terracotta warriors, which didn't have as many warriors this time but was a huge area, it had the odd warrior missing a limb or just a head but no full warriors. Then we went to the last and final pit 1....The biggest and by far the most impressive!! there were around 6,000 warriors and horses!! each one had a different face and there were the soldiers, the generals and the infantries all lined up to supposedly protect Qin even when he was dead.
We then caught the local bus back, again falling asleep and headed to the main bus station to catch the bus back to the Hostel. On our way we found a little shop ran by a fat little kid! seemed a bit strange, so out of curiosity we asked how much a 600ml bottle of beer was....25p!! bargains so we took every bottle he had and made our way back to the hostel, me and Lee sharing a beer for the bus journey! this is the life!!

The next day we rented out tandem bikes and cycled round the wall that outlined the Xi'an city. Biking on a tandem was a struggle! but we eventually got the hang of it! It was ridiculously hot too which made it all the more harder, and the fact that we were given 100minutes to get around the wall which is supposedly 30km!! that was never gonna happen! me and sarie could hardly go straight!! Lee and Vicky seemed to be naturals with the bikes but we gave it a good shot, in all fairness they had adjustable seats, whereas ours was a bike for midgets...my knees were up by my chin!...after stopping many times for tea breaks, we managed to get round the wall in 105minutes...and the bike renting company charged us an extra £1 for being 5 mins late!! We were not too impressed!!



Xi'an was soo much fun, it was a complete change to the fast hustle and bustle of Beijing. We also visited the great mosque which was pretty unique and completely different, set in a garden..we spent most of the afternoon there when we were hungover after the England game...the fact that it was on at 2.30am ourtime was bad enough and then playing drinking games before didn't help and then the rice wine found itself involved in the game which then ruined the night...after having it in Nepal, I should have known better! it's leathel and should be used to fuel cars, not to be consumed in our bodies!!...lucky I didn't go blind!!
That evening we went to the Wild goose pagoda and watched the fountain/light show which was very impressive!! dragged on a bit but was still a great way to end our time in Xi'An...then we parted our ways with Vicky and Lee, they were heading off to Chengdu whilst we headed the opposite way to Hangzhou and we should bump into one another when we get to Guilin.

As for the Mullet, well we may bump into him somewhere along the line, although we think we may have walked in on him laying on his bed having phone sex so maybe we'll try not to distub him anymore!

Beijing...temples, markets, scorpions and prison cells!!

So China was to be our 4th adventure in our trip, we were excited and not sure what to expect. It seemed such a huge place we werent entireley sure where we wanted to visit and after hearing lots of 'China's rubbish' stories about the place we decided to give it a go and see what all the fuss was about. After spending so long in Hong Kong and not wanting to leave all our friends and the city behind, we set off on the 24hour train journey to Beijing. It was luxury compared to our Indian train journeys, we got a duvet, pillow and our own bed. One we didnt have about 4 other Indians sleeping on it with us.
Once we had arrived in Beijing we had the issue of finding our hostel, we thought that this would be pretty easy but 4hours later we found out that is definately was not. It all went pear shaped at the station really...we had read somewhere that the train station had its own subway station, it didnt...and we were adamant that it was there, we just werent looking properly...so 1hour later, we were sat on the underground floor, bags spread out all around us...our luggage now included a football, a food cooling bag, two packs of chinese tea, lots of chinese medicine (thank you Nova) and all our original 5 bags of baggage. The laptop was out, Lonely Planet (aka 'The Bible') was open and we had 4 locals trying to understand our English!! It didnt really work...but they managed to write us some Chinese down so we could get to Dongcheng (the area we wanted to go). So off we went again, our bags were back on our raw shouldered backs and we trekked through the 35'c heat to wherever they pointed for us to go. We had our peice of paper out showing anyone and everyone on the way, just to check we were going the right way...yes...we looked like tourists, but we didnt care, we just wanted to find our hostel! So one bus ride later, which lasted around 1hour we jumped off hoping we would be there! We wandered some more, then wandered some more and eventually we couldnt take it anymore. We stopped outside a delicious cake shop, although we were NOT in the mood to be eating yummy cakes at this point, we wanted to leave!!! haha. The man in the cake shop was very helpful though, well he seemed it, he may have been cursing us in Chinese for all we know, he seemed very pleasant though. He rang our hostel and wrote down the address so we could 'easily' find it. haha...so again we set off, eventually grabbing a cab, the taxi driver then rang the hostel, again, as he didnt know where it was. Eventually at 7:30pm, after initially arriving in Beijing at 3pm, we found our hostel. Yayy!!

Our hostel used to be an ex-weapons, a factory and an old Chinese prison....sure!! The common room had been completely changed and barely resembled a prison, and then we were taken to what would be our room for the next few nights!..It was just like a prison!! the dark eerie corridor with all the different 'cells' off the dark alley!! lovely place!
Still though it would do us just fine! The location was perfect for what we needed; right in the middle of the old hutong villages and next door to one of the main temples in Beijing and 2 mins walk from a subway station. Not expecting it to take us 4 hours to find the place, that took up most of our day so we were just pleased to be at the hostel, chilled out and had some noodles...yummy!!
Throughout our time in Beijing we had visited sooooo many places! We finally found the local bus for the Great Wall! which took a while to work out but in the end we were well chuffed with ourselves! and we didn't need to waste our money doing it on a tour and no doubt sharing the wall with 50 other people, wearing red hats and following a woman with a megaphone and a flag!! the 1hour bus journey was pretty cool, being the only non-chinese people and nobody speaking a word of English!we found a way of communicating with people...whilst they're busy looking at us, either thinking 'what are these guys doing on 'our' bus', or 'why hasn't she got black hair the freak' or probably thinking 'the guns on that guy are insane!' we would just reply with a smile and then they'd give us a huge grin back and they seemed to kind of respect us and accept that we were on their bus and we weren't going anywhere...and if they did have a problem with it, well I don't need to spell out what the guns would've done do i!

We got dropped off by the bus and then had to get an 'illegal' taxi to take us the last part to the wall, and at first having an argument with the guy thinking he was trying to con us, we took his word for it and he took us directly to the wall, and told us he would wait for us to come down and then take us back to the bus stop! He looked on drugs, and had a nervous twitch in his head which was a bit offputting when speaking to him, not to mention a little bit drangerous...twitching whilst driving!!...that would explain why he didn't have a real taxi! He also had a very square head, the kind of haircut that seems ludicrous but has caught on a lot out here, where their head is already pretty much a square but they get their hair cut which only compliments that square a bit too well!! nevertheless he was a good guy...

The Great Wall of China...what more can I say...One of the most amazing constructions in the world! with each wall strategically placed around the mountains as a lookout as well as a shield to prevent the oncoming invaders from entering. 1 of the 7 Ancient wonders of the world and it was easy to see how. Climbing up to the wall was a mission, we must have climbed 200 steps atleast, Sarah in her sandals and I was in my walking boots (converse) and they conquered the wall just fine!!
Every steep drop in the wall was then joined with an even steeper uphill part! with 22 watch towers and on the 23rd, the wall was covered and being torn apart by the roots of trees and all sorts growing from within the wall! I think it's fair to say that it was exhausting work, especially as it was ridiculously hot! it made each step that bit harder!!
The best part was the fact that there was literally nobody on the wall!! it was paradise, me, Sarie and the wall, all on our own...the exact reason why we didn't get a tour.

We also visited the Forbidden city which we got in at the 2nd attempt! the first time we arrived we missed the closing time by about 10 mins. When we got in, it was soo impressive!! typical Chinese style buildings, with the corners of each pavillion curling up. After 5 massive areas, all seperated with a massive gate we got to the prettiest area where these beautiful buildings were set in a garden. The only thing that ruined it was the tourists or should I say the tours! why do you need a tour to take you to the forbidden city!!?its in the middle of the city!!..red caps everywhere and flags slowly filling the areas! We started to play escape from the tours as they were like stampeeds. To fully appreciate the size of the Forbidden city and the number of buildings there are in the complex, we climbed the hills in JingShan park where you can see over the whole of the city and the view is impressive...WOAH!! were our words!!...along with more exhaustion from yet more steps!

In the evening we also had a list of things to visit, the first night we went to the Night market, firstly the food market, which sold scorpions, seahorses, octopus and starfish.
After trying Pig's ear, Chicken foot and pig skin in Hong Kong I gave scorpion a go and it wasn't as bad as you would think!! They fry it first so the tail is nice and crispy and then you bite the main body, and you get a really warm goo, just like a soother...and if you keep the image of a soother in your head and not the guts of a scorpion, its all good!...for a moment I felt like me and Bear Grylls had something in common!! Eating strange things and staying at an ex prison...just how travelling is supposed to be!!
One evening we caught the subway to the 2008 Beijing Olympics Birds nest stadium and the Aqua cube. The whole park was full at 9pm with people flying kites etc and the stadiums were sweeeeeeett!!! easily the best stadium I've been to, all the more impressive at night too when lit up

The Summer Palace was pretty special, set on a huge lake in a massive park, we could have spent a whole day there, the weather was boiling and it was so relaxed, a bit like the hutong villages in the way that you could escape the fast tempo of the city, although not lucky enough to get away from the red caps, however we did manage to get away from them for the majority of the time! so far the Chinese have lived up to my expectations, where I thought they were crazy little people, literally little where me and even Sarie were probably one of the tallest!...that hasn't happened since primary school!
To confirm that they lived up to our expectations, it wasn't until we got to the park where the Temple of Heaven was, in the 'long corridor' where it was full of lunatics!! dancing around to a recorder...horrible noise, and then a woman would suddenly jump up and start singing, shreiking like a dying cat it was horrific!! me and sarie just turned to each other and thought "crazy chinese!" also they sold the most pointless things you could ever want, such as a bird whistle that even the old men buy and walk around trying to make bird noises. On the other hand I have seen 1 thing so far that I was so close to buying!...some funny glasses with a nose attached to them, and a moustache attached to the nose. And when you blow out of the nose, the moustache then got bigger like those whistles you have a parties! pure genius!!
The Temple of Heaven itself was awesome, a huge cone shaped building in the middle of a square. The structure didn't use any cement to build it which was pretty impressive, and the temple is still being used, hence why it has all been restored, another great place to visit.

One thing we weren't sure about was the fact that all the babies wore trousers which had a huge slit in the middle for their waddler to hang out of as well as their bum! it was a bit strange...Apparently it's so they can go to the toilet whenever they like, but this still didn't add up for us....we thought if they're sitting on their mother's lap or in her arm, and they decide to either wee or poo, surely these trousers would make the whole thing a worse scenario!! not to mention the mess it would make on the mother! yeah the kid would be ok but wouldn't a nappy solve all problems!? On the bus a lady had a kid with his waddler hanging out, me and sarah start sniggering like the mature adults we are, and the mother cups her hand over it to cover it!...what if he then went for a wee!!!? honestly....only the chinese hey!

We could have spent ages in Beijing as there was just so much to see as well as beer being 18p a can!! But it was time we moved on to the next City so we booked our train tickets to Xi'An...Our first impression of China is a positive one. Pretty amazing, very modern but still very cheap!

I Love Hong Kong

After 2 flights (having to fly back to Delhi, to then catch our flight to Hong Kong) we arrived at 7am. Mind you we were quite happy to be on those flights and wouldn't have complained if they had lasted longer. Our first flight to Delhi was faultless and possibly the best 1 hour flight we've ever been on. Our ticket said we got an inflight snack. Thinking this would be a tiny pack of peanuts like usual where after about 2 mouthfuls they're gone; we were hit back with a big surprise! The flight attendants start handing out chicken tikka and malai kofta for Sarah!...and as if that wasn't enough they were handing out free beer! Chicken Tikka washed down with a can of ice cold Kingfisher! heaven. After our "snack" we looked out of the window to be greeted by Mount Everest, and before we knew it our empty beer cans had been taken and replaced with full ones!...'3 free beers each' apparently!...Sweet!! We had our own televisions, with cable tv, so I sat and watched the Championship play-off final whilst Sarah watched Friends....what an awesome flight.
The second was just as impressive and you still got your 3 free beers, or you could trade the beer in for a whiskey and coke for example or as Sarah opted for; a glass of white wine! real wine...not local wine!! real white wine!

Anyways as we collected our bags, we made way for the phone to wake Nick up and let him know that we had arrived and were going straight to the 'hotel' to get some sleep but would meet up with him and the others later that evening.
We got to our hotel, the 8th floor with a window overlooking the main Nathan Road so we couldn't complain, it was hot, humid and dry. Once we stepped out of the building into the main street, it was chaos, and that's when it hit me...."Shit"...I had that feeling I got when I first went to Manchester...All the buildings are really tall, everyone seems to know where they're going and then there was me, feeling way too small for this big city, not having a clue which way to go, too busy dodging to get out of everyone's path....I felt lost and wished I was back in India or Nepal where over the past 2 months I had felt in my comfort zone. I guess Hong Kong was like stepping back in the modern world again, so as we stood in the middle of the path taking it all in, we decided to walk down towards the harbour. Everywhere we walked, it always seemed that we typically were walking against the grain, making each step that bit harder trying not to walk into anybody!

Over the 10 days of being in Hong Kong we had got the hang of it and slowly started walking with the grain....so much easier!! We headed down to the Harbour where we walked along the avenue of stars, also giving you the amazing view of the famous Hong kong Skyline, and it really was AMAZING!! Then we had the fun of looking for a cheap chinese restaurant down a few backstreets where none of the menus were in English so we had to quickly learn cantonese to get some noodles! Luckily a lady came out and showed us what each one was with a picture! so as soon as she pointed to the noodles, we nodded and our order was placed.

After we had settled in to Hong Kong we rang around to see when we would meet up with our old disney friends. I got through to Fred and he told us that a table was booked for tea and everyone was meeting at 7. The restaurant was a bit swanky! but surprisngly the price was right! We ordered all kinds of things, that I can't remember the name of, and the others ordered dishes of typical chinese food so we could try. Jellyfish was one of them, which tasted a bit strange! and then I found out I had ordered pig's skin, Vicky decided to tell me this AFTER i had eaten it!!
We had an amazing evening, and had arranged with to meet them all on the weekend where, on saturday we planned to go to a traditional chinese lunch in central and then meet up with everyone else and go to the peak before heading for some tea. and sunday we had been invited to go to a beach BBQ on the beach of Shek O on Hong kong Island. We couldn't wait!

The following day we decided to catch a ferry and head to Lantau Island and see the largest outdoor buddha in the world as well as the Po Lin monastery before heading to Tai O, (Venice as Fred reffered to it haha) a little fishing village, where all the houses lined a river, on stilts around a market full of seafood. It was amazing and so was the weather, really really hot. As we arrived to Tai O we were stopped by a lady who wanted us to help with her daughter's English homework assignment. We checked over the grammar and changed it so in theory she should get 100%... hah yeah right.
As the lady thanked us for our help she then told us she didn't think we were English and thought we were German!!!! if she had said that before we had helped her I would have chucked the assignment back at her and told her where to shove it!

The weekend came and we had been looking forward to it! So we met with everyone and they took us to a traditional restaurant for lunch. It was heaving!! so we had to share a table with some others! Me and Sarah thought this was a bit weird, opting to wait until they had finished but they just laughed! it's not a problem to share tables apparently, that's what they do over here!! The menu was also an experience!...trolleys go round, each trolley containing a different dish to the other and when that trolley passes your table you either let it pass if you don't want that dish or you call out for it to stop if you do want it. Exchanged with a stamp on your bill with what dish you had!
It was pretty cool! a pretty awesome experience we would never have known about if it wasn't for our friends! They then showed us around Hollywood road, where we found Man Mo Temple which we stopped in. After learning about their prayers, the sticks in the jar and how to do it, we lit some incense and gave it a go! It was good fun!
We headed to Times Square and then decided we would head towards the peak. The rain had come unfortunately so we turned back and went to the space museum before heading to the hotpot restaurant! When they mentioned a hotpot I was expecting a nice english lamb hotpot! instead we got a stove in the middle of the table full of soup, then on a trolley they bring all your ingredients, such as chicken, pork, meat as well as all your vegetables which you put in the soup and cook it yourself! We had one bowl of Fish soup, another of chilli soup for those who were feeling a bit wild! and then a tomato soup to add all the ingredients to! We were there until 11.30 and ate the whole time we were there so I'd say we got our moneys worth!

The next day was the beach BBQ!! :) We met at the station next to Wing's home, went to buy the meat and vegetable and then caught a bus to the beach. Although it was spitting with rain, our bbq was covered so we didn't get wet. We got the charcoal, lit the fire and the started preparing the food! It was like being at a campfire. You each have a BBQ fork and put whatever you want to eat on the end, and then hold it in the fire to cook it! once its ready you then paste it with honey and then eat it...SO SO YUMMY!!! Pork chops were beautiful! The beach itself was really cool, not to mention I could actually play football for the first time since we left, and had someone to play with! what more could I ask for!! It was great! We stayed at the beach until around 9 o clock before we had all eaten too much and were ready to head back.
We had had such an amazing weekend, but all our friends had to get back to work the next morning.
Wing and Nova thought I looked like David Beckham which was a compliment considering the day before Sarah was calling me jimmy Neutron!! Jimmy to Beckham overnight can't be bad!!....Although Fred and Nick explained why they thought this...."They think you look like Beckham, like when you see chinese people from the back, you probably think we all look like Jackie Chan!?"......I replied..."noooo!...not at all!!!" hahah he'd nailed it!

We picked up our Chinese visas from the embassy the next day after booking our tickets to Beijing for friday! (we decided to stay longer as we were lovin it here, and didn't want to leave any sooner than we had to!) The next few days we met Bonnie every evening who would take us to different places for tea, as well as order for us! We were slowly getting the hang of chopsticks and were verging on being pro's when it came to eating dry noodles! not those in a soup though, that was a different kettle of fish!
On wednesday everyone had rung in sick for the afternoon so we could continue to play in Hong Kong! We met in Mong Kok, where they informed us, was the best place for markets and shopping in general so we headed to the famous Fa Yuen street, the Ladies market and the goldfish market! Sarah was in heaven! grabbing a bargain in Fa Yuen and the Ladies Market, and then looking at all the different fish tied in plastic bags and hung up for you to pick which one you wanted to buy! It was pretty impressive!
We then got some noodles from the street, where i could try pig's ear and headed to a mall to take some sticker photo's with us and our friends!!..some of the poses were a work of art!! We finished off another great day in another rather swanky restaurant!

On our last day we went back to Mong Kok as Sarah had fallen in love with it the day before to walk around, and also found the Tim Ho Wan restaurant which was the cheapest michelin star restaurant in the world! When we got there, there wasn't as many people queing outside as we had expected, so we went for a closer look, and found a sign on the door; 'Register closed until 4pm'. Those people waiting had already got their tickets, number 63 was in having their meal and these were number 107!! and if we wanted to get a meal there we would have to wait an hour and a half just to get a ticket and then probably wait a few hours more before we even got in! so we were happy to take a menu for our diary and get a picture outside of it, before heading back to the markets and having a cup of tea with honey chips!! We then made our way back to Tsim Sha Tsui (TST) to get ready for a last meal with our friends. We went back to the swanky reataurant from the first night and this time we could use our chopsticks!! without them waiting on us, taking hours to eat our meal! We also picked up some cantonese so we could join in...a little bit!! We had taught them some english slang! and we could also order food and know what we were getting....a bit different to that, 10 days ago. I decided to go for chicken's feet to give that a try...not too bad!! if you forget you're eating a foot and tell yourself its just chicken, you get through it!! The evening was a great laugh and we didn't want to leave.

To end our time in Hong kong we all went down to the 1881 heritage and got a 'pro' photographer to take a picture of us all, which took a long time until we had perfected it!! Then we said goodbye as everyone parted their own way home. We will miss our Hong Kong friends a lot and had an amazing 10 days.

P.S. We are currently writing this on our train to Beijing, which i must say is a step up from those in India! similar as there were still 6 beds per cabin and sadly back to the squat and drop toilets!! On the other hand we got probably the comfiest bed we've had in all 11 weeks, with an actual duvet!!! Our first impression of the chinese people is a good one, after the lady stayin in the same compartment as us bought us each tea, and the people in the compartment next to us gave us some of their orange!! We had deja vu from the trains in India where everyone would go out of their way to make sure we were having a good journey and weren't going without anything.