Arriving in Hong Kong

Having arrived at 7 o'clock in the morning last Saturday I spent the majority of my first day in Hong Kong trying to stay awake. Having met D at the door to the apartments, she then gave me the Grand Tour of our 'studio' flat. That took all of about 30 seconds, and although it is relatively modern, we will have to get used to living in each others pockets for a while. The maid cleans it everyday, but that does have to mean you've got to be on your toes and get up quickly in the mornings. The kitchen is as wide as a microwave and included the luxury of 1 plate, bowl, fork, knife and spoon when D first arrived. Luckily the Swedish have invaded HK as well as the rest of the World and a quick trip to IKEA sorted us out for a few essentials.

The flat is supposed to be 300 square feet, but I reckon its unlikely that it is more than 170! After dumping all of my stuff off in the room we went for a wonder around Causeway Bay.

This was a real introduction to life in HK with 100s of people at every road junction and every building a neck-breaking height! There were neon signs aplenty and smells of all descriptions (most disgusting but the odd nice odour). We had a look around some of the malls and shopping centres of Causeway Bay, there seems to be a mall around every corner which all seem to be full of top-end, way-out-of-our-price-range shops from Bvulgari to Burberry.

We also had a look around a couple of supermarkets which were interesting to say the least and again full of 'interesting' smells. The prices seem reasonable, but there are plenty of products which are inexplicably more expensive than in the UK. A pot of Elmlee cream for example (about 80p in the UK), for some absolutely unknown reason costs £4.80 in HK.

After a wonder around the streets we headed back to the flat to have some dinner and after a couple more hours of trying to stay awake, finally went to bed for the first time in what was theoretically 29 hours.