that did not just happen!

I am pretty sure that a lot of people in Hong Kong have never really seen a sky filled with stars, galaxies and planets. The city is so bright that only the very strongest of celestial lights can penetrate the neon and flourescent blanket. It truly is a shoppers paradise with malls upon malls upon malls. As far as cities go though, Hong Kong is a pretty nice one, with parks through the city, surrounded my green hills and its super easy to get around. The moment I got off the airport bus, I remembered what it was to 'travel', and not 'holiday.' No real plans means no airport pickup and no idea what you're looking for when the directions say 'go straight ahead through the crossing and we are just there.' Well 'just there' means nothing to me when all the buildings look the same and I'm expecting a sign of somesort...nope, just a small sticker on the wall once you get to the right floor. Here we go, off into the unknown, wandering aimlessly through unfamiliar streets with a very vague idea of how to get from A to B. Somehow though, it all comes together and I get there in the end.

Once I made it to the hostel it was all pretty smooth sailing from there. Made some friends and ventured out into the glitz of Honkers, hitting most of the stuff from the tourist brochures. On one occasion we wandered near the Jade Market, and when we left a great screech and bang sounded just out of the corner of my eye. An old lady had been hit by a car coming arond the corner. The whole world stopped for a second while everyone took stock of what ahd just happened. Then all at once people started rushing in to help. It was luckily just a bump on the bum that sent her skidding across the road, there was no blood, nothing appeared to be broken, just bruised and shocked. The girl I was with, Rebecca, was covering her mouth is shock "That didn't just happen right in front of us!" The police ran up to help, the lady driving the car got out to help and it all dissolved onto the sidewalk and the crowd faded away, us with it.

Once we sort of got back to our own circle of life, and had a quick sit-down and gross coffee, we realised that once you've seen a few of the city sights and don't want to shop, you start running out of options to do anything. So it was beer'o'clock and we sat back on the docks with cheap 7-11 beers and took in the 8PM night light show. Pretty good really. Mike, the friend in Hong Kong, managed to play tour guide for a few hours and took us to a couple of really cool bars in the city that unless you live there or know someone who does, it'd be tough or just dumb luck to find.

Alas after a few days the road calls so off to Guangzhou by bus for a few days and see what old Canton has to offer.