Hong Kong

Well, I FINALLY made it out of Canada. Christ knows I needed too; when I left South America my ass was the size of a pea and my bank balance was as fat as Jo Brand. By the time I managed to drag myself out of Vancouver the two had worryingly changed places... It's with a heavy heart that I leave. As if leaving the city I adore wasn't hard enough, falling in love made the difficult tragic. I know now where I want to be... and who I want to be with. I have never been so sure of anything in my life. I still plan to travel Asia and Australia, but the goalposts have changed now and my aim is to be back in Vancouver by March. Watch this space...

Anyhoo, Hong Kong. Fabulous, fabulous FABULOUS! What an incredible city. A brain-frying assualt on the senses, and a crazy mish-mash of tradition and modernity. I have been here for just 18 hours and I am infected with the buzz. I have already travelled extensively on the many different types of public transport (read: got hopelessly lost and spent the best part of four hours whizzing around aimlessly on subways, buses and trams - all because I wanted to save money and make my own way into the city from the airport rather than spend big bucks on a taxi). The flight from Vancouver was an ass-numbing 13 hours - combine that with a 15 hour time-zone jump and the result is one extremely tired, bearded and washed-out looking Brit. Body clock completely screwed so was up at 4.30am; watched the sun rise over the harbour, which was amazing. Decided to forego the lure of McDonalds and found me a local congee house for breakfast. No, I don't know what congee is either... Noone spoke English and the menu was in Cantonese - so I pointed at the only picture that looked vaguely familiar - what looked like a bowl of porride - and was rewarded with what turned out to be fish balls in fish stock with noodles. Just the ticket at 7am... Everything here is neon, and everything flashes. It's an incredible sight but is rather like being in a permanant state of epilepsy. Also, trying to sleep when your whole room is lit up like the Blackpool illuminations is a bit of a non-starter... The other mad thing is the sheer scale and grandeur - for example, I am currently in the 'public library'. Now, anyone reading this in England will obviously be picturing a shabby, sad sand-blasted 60's building with a couple of hundred books (most with the pages missing) and a 90 year old hunch-backed librarian. The Hong Kong version is a 12 storey glass and marble uber-structure with all-glass lifts that play tv commercials on the walls. I just went for a wee and the speaking-toilet (for it did indeed speak!) reminded to to flush - in three languages! Bizarre... Anyways, got five days here and plan to counter-attack the Canada flab by doing some serious hiking. That is, if I can resist the lure of Hong Kong Disneyland...

Juan xx

PS) Oooooh, almost forgot - there is a new 'girl' joining the party! My dear friend and Bombay Sapphire-drinking buddy Wayne (aka 'Wayne Wonder' or just 'The Wonder' to friends) is jetting out to meet me in Bangkok next week. Marvelous! 'Why the name Wonder?' I hear you ask? I don't know. The only wonder to me is how that old priss is going to cope living out of a backpack... This should be TRES amusing!