Even almost two months after my travels barely a moment goes by without thoughts of them going through my head.
I'm still in the middle of the process of getting all my photos printed, and creating a scrapbook and each and every time I go to work on something to do with my journey I think back with fond memories about what a wonderful experience I had, and also how lucky I was to be able to capitalise on such a fantastic experience.
Much like when I came back from Korea I've had the opportunity to go slowly through photos, videos, tickets and memories with different people, and I feel like I'm getting to a stage now where I can fully process what I went through over those five months.
It will probably take me forever to get to a position where I have sorted everything out relating to my travels, but I guess the longer it takes the more the happy memories will linger in my mind.
Since returning to England and finding some normalcy in my life it has been quite a difficult process to get through sorting out all my pictures and videos.
Thankfully after testing out my hard drive (which stopped working whilst I was away) I have discovered that everything was working as it should be so at least I didn't lose anything.
I feel like one thing I have realised, also, is that my phone became an extremely valuable tool for taking photos and videos on, and I wish that I'd have used it more early on as some of the countries at the beginning of my journey have left me only with photographic memories.
Whilst sorting through my videos I managed to sort out my Youtube Page... They are in kind of a random order because of the way I uploaded them, but I have created sequential playlists to make things a bit easier.
If you're interested in learning more about my journey then feel free to watch, enjoy and leave a comment. They aren't the most exciting, but it's a good alternative to writing down all of my thoughts and feelings:
For the first time in almost six months, I spent an entire day back in the familiar surroundings of York today.
My journey officially came to an end yesterday night at just after midnight when I came back home, and I'm not going to lie, it feels strange to be home.
Naturally there is going to be a period of adjustment as I try to acclimatise myself back in to the non-travelling ways of life where I don't get stared at for being different, and where everyone can now understand most of what I say.
I explained a little bit about my journey in yesterday's post, but as it was quite late when I eventually got to bed after writing it, who knows what I missed out.
It was a long journey back to York last night as we took a twelve hour flight from Hong Kong International to Amsterdam where we had a two hour stop over before continuing on to Manchester Airport where we eventually landed.
Unsurprisingly for Manchester, and England in general it wasn't a very warm evening with lots of wind around but at least the rain had decided to hold off. Making the adjustment from 30+ degree temperatures everyday in Hong Kong is probably going to take a while although I'm hoping to have timed my return perfectly as spring and summer sweep across this country.
I spent a lot of the flight drifting in and out of conciousness but had the time to make use of the on-board entertainment services in between times. Flying from Asia back to Europe is a bit of a strange one, especially at the time we left because your body clock has a natural inclination to gravitate towards the timezone it has just departed from, and in our case it was just coming up to lunchtime, and not too many sleepy feelings were sweeping over my body. Realistically, I doubt there are many people who would want to stay awake for an entire twelve hour flight, despite the time, but the cabin lights remained on throughout, and I think it was when I got to Amsterdam that I started to feel a bit more time.
The flight from the Dutch capital back to Manchester was only just over an hour so I didn't doze very much, instead looking out of the window at the brightly lit orange sky and the fluffy clouds that we soared above.
Coming back to my house this morning I had the unenjoyable task of unpacking my bag although it was pretty easy to organise as things were either going back into a box, staying in the bag itself or headed for the washing machine / dirty clothes basket.
I'm sure it won't take long before the whole trip becomes a distant memory, but I was delighted to discover today that the hard drive where I was originally storing photos hadn't been corrupted, and therefore the memories of the early part of my journey have been saved. Pre-Thailand things are particularly hazy, and I think that pretty soon I'm going to have to give myself a little reminder about the things I saw and did there so that I can rekindle those memories.
As well as pictures I have plenty of leaflets, receipts and other bits and pieces to arrange into several scrapbooks somehow, although I have a feeling that will be a rather long project considering how much there is. I brought back currency from each country that I visited and hope to make a collection of the coins and notes somewhere to.
Having spoken to several of my friends, and also some members of my family today, I think what I have accomplished might be starting to be fully appreciated somewhere deep inside my gut as I discuss some of the things that I have spent my time doing, as well as thinking about my favourite countries and cities to visit.
Even though the physical part of the journey is over, I have a feeling that this may be a long, slow and drawn out process before everything is acknowledged and I'm able to feel like I have totally achieved the goal I set out to in February. I'm already starting to feel a great sense of pride about the fact that I survived almost totally alone for a third of a year on a different continent, and even though I have just got back, I'm already looking forward to my next adventure.
It feels strange that a journey which I often thought would never begin has finally come to an end.
This evening at just before 10pm I touched back down into Manchester Airport, and breathed in English air for the first time since February.
I wouldn't like to analyse whether the feeling of returning home is a good or a bad one as yet, seems to me that it just one that exists and I'm not quite ready to decide yet which way it is leaning.
After four months away, one thing that I am pleased about is that I made it home safely, in one piece and without anything disastrous happening to me. In fact the most distressing thing about this journey might have been when I dropped my wallet at 6am on the morning as I was travelling from St Neots to Heathrow!
Returning to this country was much smoother, and fingers crossed I didn't suffer any misfortune in ensuring that I brought everything back.
Our journey from Hong Kong back to Manchester was extremely long and tiring but relatively event-less.
We left our hotel at about 9:15am this morning making our way to Hong Kong airport via the same route that we got here by taking the MTR to Central, and then picking up the Airport Express which got us back to the terminal in plenty of time.
I don't think I mentioned in the last couple of days that I had a bit of drama with the booking, then cancelling and then re-booking of my flight through KLM, but upon checking in we had to change our seats in order for us to be able to sit together (a problem we experienced yesterday and didn't fancy going back to again). Our flight was about 30 minutes late in departing Hong Kong and during most of the flight it won't be too much of a surprise to read that I mostly drifted in and out of sleep. Throughout this journey I have made waking up at crucial times a speciality of mine and I got up whenever the air hostess' brought food around. and did spend a little bit of time watching some of the many things which were available to view on the plane.
Despite setting off late we arrived perfectly on time in Amsterdam although that meant sitting around and waiting for just under two hours before being able to board our flight which was again late in leaving.
It was only an hour or so's journey to Manchester and I spent most of the time admiring what was an extremely beautiful sunset out of the window as we flew below the clouds to our eventual destination.
It's funny that in the last couple of months I have spent plenty of time queuing up at airports waiting to get through immigration to never have any issues, but get back to my own country to find out that the electronic face scanners apparently didn't want to recognise me and I had to wait in line at the counter instead. Thankfully it wasn't too busy and that also gave time for our bags to be there waiting for us when we arrived.
Sarah had parked her car at Manchester Airport over the last week so we didn't have to worry about getting the train back to York although we did have to take a twenty minute bus ride to get to the car park and find where she'd left her vehicle.
On the way home we stopped off at the services to get ourselves some food - a wide decision considering that air-plane food is probably equivalent to one full meal for me and we had been travelling for a rather long time.
We eventually arrived back to York just after midnight and it was odd to see familiar surroundings once again.
Over the next couple of days I will be experiencing the fun task of sorting through all of the clothes that I brought back - probably throwing most of them away because they have become threadbare or bleached by the sun. I'm well aware that when it comes to tasks like finishing off this blog, printing off all of my pictures and trying to create some form of scrapbook about my entire journey, I could be at it for a while so just because I am back home certainly doesn't mean that everything relating to this journey is instantly forgotten.
I feel like I will be in a bit of a strange place emotionally as I battle with the pleasure of being home, safe and in a familiar place, but also probably quite a lot of sadness when I consider everything that I have been through and the many magnificent things I have experienced since leaving to go travelling.
It is very easy to reflect on the latter part of my journey through Japan and Hong Kong as a success as I'm pretty sure that these were two of my favourite places to visit along the way. But in a strange way I am more looking forward to considering the beginning of the trip and also the whole thing in its entirety as I know there will be plenty of memorable moments which I have forgotten and fabulous sights which have slipped my mind.
Although tonight marked the end of my journey, I feel like it is far from finished....
I've been having such a great time in Hong Kong that I've not really focussed on the fact that my journey through Asia is about to end. The last week or so has gone by really quickly, and it's difficult to contemplate the fact that after nearly four months of being on a different continent I will be returning to my own tomorrow.
I haven't had the chance to think about it too much (partly because I can't share the memories with myself because of a broken hard drive) but it really does seem as though this whole journey has gone by in a blur. It's one of those strange occasions where things feel like they happened an eternity ago, but also the memories of them are clear as day in my head.
I never remember exactly how many cities or countries that I have visited in my time here, but very soon it is going to be time to start contemplating the highs and lows from my trip as I try to collate everything that I have picked up on my travels.
Before leaving Asia however there was one more place that I needed to visit, another of this continent's islands which sits just off the mainland of China.
Macau may not be a heralded tourist hotspot for westerners, but over here it is extremely popular, in the same way that Jeju Island is popular with Koreans because it offers some diversity compared with many large cities in the country, Macau offers something different to many Chinese people from cross the border in rising numbers each year.
Where as Hong Kong and Taiwan are Chinese territories that you could spend a long time exploring, Macau is very different.
There are certainly elements of tourism, but most people travel to Macau in order to frequent the large number of casinos which borders the Guangdong Province. The Special Administrative Region of China was administered by Portugal and until just before the Millennium was the last remaining European colony in Asia before power was transferred back to the mainland. It is the most densely populated country in the world at 30.3 km squared, although having been in Hong Kong for almost a week now I'm not sure that we were going to be daunted by a few crowds.
I feel like over the last couple of days Sarah and I have done a great job of exploring Hong Kong and although it'd be nice to spend out last day in the city / country which has brought us so much joy our schedule meant getting up and heading to the ferry terminal this afternoon in order to travel to Macau.
We caught the tram from Causeway Bay and then rode it all the way to the Macau Ferry Terminal stop, although I think we got off a couple of stations early as we had to walk for a little while and then work out how we were going to get across the road. Eventually we came to a large pedestrian bridge which we were able to cross and then went inside the terminal which was heaving with people.
Ferries come and go from Hong Kong quite often, and as well as being a hub for Macau, this is also the place where you can get to mainland China from also. It took a while to navigate through a bit of a shopping centre-type area before we eventually came to the place where we could buy our tickets.
There was an automated ticketing machine which we tried to use but in the end we had to do it the old fashioned way and actually go up to the counter to buy our tickets.
Even though I'd read that it can get booked up quite early depending on when you travel we managed to get a seat on the next ferry going and in what felt like a rather strange move we had to go through passport control and essentially get 'stamped out' to leave Hong Kong. When we were walking down towards where the boat was going to be leaving from a lady asked to see our ticket and applied a sticker which I'm pretty sure was our seat number. There was some doubting from Sarah who wasn't impressed when she discovered that I was correct and she had to go and sit on the upstairs deck whilst I took my seat on the ground floor.
We did try and sit next to one another, but the boat was pretty much full so we spent the hour journey apart from one another finding each other eventually when we reached the other side.
We had to go through immigration in Macau which provided us with a 90 day stay in the country (the only people in the world who have that luxury - even Portuguese can only stay for 60) and then grabbed a guidebook and headed outside for some fresh as we were both feeling somewhat worse for wear after a fairly choppy journey.
I've never been a huge fan of boats, although can't say that I have experienced travelling on one too many times. When I was about eight or nine I went to Denmark on a ferry which was a miserable experience, not just because it rained for three days, but also because of the ridiculously choppy waters we encountered along the way which essentially meant that when I wasn't sleeping I spent my time either being sick or feeling like I was going to be sick.
My other experiences weren't quite as vomit-filled having taken the boat over to and from France on several occasions as part of a university trip, but even then I remember having to go outside for some fresh air as during a game of cards things started sliding around on the table a little bit too much for my liking,and I'm pretty sure there were a few moments that I thought I was going to have to jump off the boat and swim to France in order to avoid hurling all over the place.
The weather in Macau didn't do much to soothe the struggles we had with humidity during our time in Hong Kong as if anything it was even warmer and more overcast here than where we'd come from.
Rather than having a plan of exactly where we were going to go we decided to head towards the city centre which is where much of the activity would be and after a while to get out bearings we began following the main road towards what we thought was the heat of Macau.
It took us ages to find the city centre and having grabbed some food along the way we walked past a couple of parks and started to feel like we were making progress as a few casinos sprung up from around it.
Like when I was in China, there were pretty much no western faces whatsoever, and it was a little off having come from Hong Kong where you see such a diverse mix of people
Although Hong Kong isn't exactly Singapore when it comes to cleanliness, Macau was perhaps a degree or so lower on the scale when it came to its appearance. Neither of us were very impressed by how it seemed to be fairly run-down and there wasn't the same 'atmosphere' that we'd experienced over our last couple of days. Macau might have as many casinos as Las Vegas but it certainly doesn't match up in other more noticable ways.
We passed a couple of impressive looking casinos, and some very narrow streets which looked as though they went on forever and eventually we came to a square which had a rather large structure in the middle.
All around us were casinos, but the huge one standing in front of which everybody was photographing was The Lisboa Grand which I think is the most popular one here:
Around this area there were another couple including the MGM Grand Macau, but this seemed to be where most of the attention was focussed and I have to say that pretty much entirely covered in gold I can see why there was a massive queue outside.
We followed the road past the casino figuring that it probably led to the city centre, and eventually we started to find the hub of people wandering round in what seemed to be where we'd been intending to head all along.
The Portuguese influence was clear at this point as we started to see some very European looking buildings, and for me this was what I'd expected rather than a run down area or pretty much nothing that we'd walked through.
Eventually we crossed the road and came to this area.....
....looking at the map we discovered that this was Senado Square which had lots of streets leading off it and reminded me a lot of places I'd been in other parts of Europe. We followed some signs through the windey streets which led off in different directions and eventually things opened out to Macau's main sight, St Paul's:
There aren't too many touristy type things to see in Macau, but this is certainly one of them and it was possible to see why as the impressive façade of the cathedral stood in front of us:
Walking up towards St Paul's it was very busy and we sat for a while just watching the people around us mill about.
Continuing on we walked to the right of the ruins where we came across Fortazela do Monte which sits at the top of the historic centre of the city:
It was pretty quiet walking around there and from the top you got a great view of everything that we'd just walked past including the casinos, and from here you could also see Macau Tower which is the next thing we decided to walk towards:
We walked back in the direction we'd just come from and then took a right turn towards a huge body of water which sat in front of the tower. It was relaxing just to sit for a while and watch the sun (what little of it there was) disappear as everything started to be lit up at night. The transformation was quite strange and seemed quite gradual:
After a while we decided that it was time to walk back through the now fully lit up streets of Macau and head back to the ferry terminal so we traipsed out way back a different route which led up past some of the casinos fully lit up at night....
.....before eventually arriving back at the boat.
We made sure to actually hand over our tickets together this time in order to get a seat next to one another, and it wasn't quite so busy on this occasion so we actually had nobody sitting behind us.
Sarah didn't really enjoy the journey which started out ridiculously choppy before eventually calming down as we came back to Hong Kong, went back through immigration and caught a tram back to Causeway Bay.
We went along the same street we'd frequented a couple of times, going above the restaurant where we'd eaten French Toast for our last night in the city and returning back to our hotel despite having a quieter day than some of the previous ones we'd experienced I felt like I was pretty tired.
It may have been a quiet day with not too many activities, but I'm glad that despite there not being much there that I made it to Macau - it adds another country to the list that I have now seen and realise that I don't need to go back to again!
It felt kind of sad this evening to be returning back to my hotel knowing that tomorrow morning I will have to wake up from this wonderful dream and start preparing for the fact that it is coming to an end.
Hong Kong has been everything I hoped it would be and more. Having the company of Sarah was a pleasure and I'm glad that we was able to make this trip and we were able to finish off my journey together.
Even though I've taken nearly 10,000 photos whilst being in Asia, there are some images which I don't need printing out in order for them to remain with me forever.
When I think about places that I have been, or countries that I have visited, I have still images in my mind of certain things (probably which I do have photos of) but these are clearer than anything that the shutters of my camera captured. I'm not sure why these are so vivid above the others, but I hope that they remain sharp and clear long into the future.
Some of the pictures I have in my mind are probably related to photographs I have taken, but I feel like there have been some moments on this journey when only what my eyes have actually seen could do it justice.
It frequently warrants mentioning that I have seen a collection of some of the most spectacular sights in the world on this journey, all of which will remain with me forever. It might take a while before I can appreciate what I have seen, but even when I look back and think about places that I have visited and sights I have been fortunate enough to see, I realise how exceptionally lucky I am.
Everywhere that I have visited has lived up to expectations, and in totality I feel like spending four months on this continent will turn out to be one of the best and most life defining choices I have ever made. There are moments when things have been very difficult, and times when I thought that things seemed almost impossibly overwhelming, but I feel like looking back in a few months it will all seem totally worth it for the incredibly amazing things that I have done.
There is no question that these four months have been totally unique, and even if I were to go away again under the same conditions there'd be no chance that things would play out the same way. Even as time passes and I get closer to the end of my journey I feel like there are chances to enjoy unique experiences and I look forward to each and every one.
A bit like trying to think about the most spectacular or memorable thing I have seen whilst I have been on my journey is impossible, it's also going to be very difficult for me to just pick out one thing that I will miss about being in Asia when I return home.
Seeing incredible things and the potential to have new experiences every day is definitely close towards the top of the list, and I know that I am going to thoroughly enjoy any opportunity I get to relive some of it with other people.
The beauty of staying in one city for so long is that if you don't quite manage to squeeze everything in when you initially intend to is there'll always be another day to come back and fit it in.
We started off today by taking advantage of that as last night we'd found the Jade Market but discovered that it was closed when we arrived. I think it's one of the many notable markets in Hong Kong, and because it sells jade, a popular stone synonymous with this part of the world, it's something pretty unique that I probably wouldn't be able to see quite as authentically as in Hong Kong.
It's quite funny the amount of markets and shops and that I've been to during my stay in Asia without actually buying anything. I've never really been a big shopper on my own continent, and it's very rare that I will see something walking through the market that I definitely thing I need to have, but one of the best things about being in Asia is walking through them, no matter what they sell, as I always find it a great experience. When I was in Vietnam I walked back through the market to the hotel pretty much every night and that's something I don't think I would have ever got bored of.
That was going to be where we started today, and on the way we were going to tick off another few boxes for things that we wanted to do whilst we were in the country.
We took the bus towards Yau Ma Tei and carefully navigated our way from there to where we had been last night. It was quite a difficult job as we were coming from the opposite direction, and I think we also got off the bus a stop too late which meant walking further than I'd anticipated.
Eventually though, after some careful navigation, and working out where we were from last night, we came upon the entrance to the Jade Market which was pretty much entirely undercover.
It was totally different to many of the markets I'd been to before in Asia, as it was like a small area of shops in an arcade. It lived up to its name though, as every little shop and stand they were sold jewellery and items which were connected with jade.
Sarah wanted to buy something from there so we did a couple of laps before she eventually found a stall where she brought a green jade ring from. It took some careful negotiations, but Sarah managed to get it for around £12 or so which was actually pretty good value.
From there we were headed back towards Victoria Harbour where we'd spent out second day walking along the pier and watching the Symphony of Lights. Once again, my navigational sense and ability to recall where we'd been before came in to its own as we walked down several of the streets we'd gone down in order to get to the night market from the harbour, and eventually we found ourselves back in the area of the city where we'd spent Thursday night.
It was bustling as busy as ever, and there were plenty of people walking around looking in the shopping centres and designer boutiques which lined the streets - I guess this is why Hong Kong is so popular with people who unlike me, do love shopping.
We carried on until we got to the harbour, and then we had to figured out the way we wanted to get across it.
The other night when we were watching the Symphony of Lights we'd seen plenty of boats crossing the harbour, presumably coming from Hong Kong Island. Boats are a pretty popular way to cross the harbour, but we hadn't taken that opportunity as yet as we'd made every journey in one direction or another using either the bus or the MTR.
To mix it up a little I thought it might be a good experience to use something called the Starferry which is perhaps the most common boat you see shuttling people backwards and forwards.
We found the Starferry terminal which is very close to where we'd walked past the other day. It's actually a bit like a MTR stop as you can use your travel card to board the boat and there are three different stops (including the Kowloon one we were at) which you can get off the boat at.
Heading in the direction of another of Hong Kong's major tourist attractions we were only riding to the first stop on the boat, and it didn't take long before we were heading in that direction as the boat arrived and let us board.
Although not quite as large, or serving the same purpose, it reminded me of when I was in Malaysia and caught the boat to Georgetown from Penang. It wasn't a long journey across the water in Hong Kong and after about five minutes or so we arrived at the harbour where we'd walked on our first day. It was an enjoyable journey across the water though and allowed me to take some pictures as we travelled along:
After getting our feet back on dry land we followed the path which leads from the harbour past the Hong Kong Observation Wheel and through Tamar Park. Although it is quite a small and quiet place just on the water, it was much busier today than when we walked through it the other day. There seemed to be lots of females of Filippino or Thai descent sitting with their friends, eating lunch and taking selfies as we walked through towards Hong Kong Park which is a much larger public park which opened in 1991 and set about giving people an open space to spend their time in a city that was increasingly being dominated by skyscrapers.
It actually took us quite a while to find the park as it has several entrances, and surprisingly there aren't too many signs pointing directly to any of them but eventually we made our way to the main entrance which led us through one of the most unique spaces there is in the city.
When I was in New York I was fascinated by Central Park and how it literlly seemed to spring from nowhere in the middle of the concrete jungle. Although not quite to the same extreme, Hong Kong Park does the same and it's amazing how even though surrounded by plenty of skyscrapers there is room for so much greenery and wild life.
The first thing that amazed us both was a fountain which sat at the entrance to the park, it was basically like a waterfall although there was a gap so that you could get into the middle of it so that the water went all the way around you:
With all the humidity that there has been in Hong Kong you wouldn't have had to ask me more than once to jump into the middle of the whole thing, but carefully we both made our way to the middle where you felt like you were standing behind a waterfall which came down in front of your eyes.
There were another couple of fountains which people were sitting around eating their lunch, but we continued on to a much larger open space where there was a pond which had some benches that we took a perch upon:
It not only allowed us to relax from what had a been a busy day of walking already, but also provided us with some excellent views of the things that were around us:
As much as I have been busy and on the go since arriving in Asia in February, I think one thing I have always done a very good job is making sure that I take time to appreciate my surroundings. I often do this by taking pictures rather than sitting and taking everything in as I've had the opportunity to do in Hong Kong with another person, but I think it would be very easy to rush around and see all these fantastic things without taking them in properly.
If you do that, then for me you are simply ticking boxes on a checklist rather than being capable of enjoying and appreciating the experience for what it is.
As well as the green spaces, there was plenty more to take in as we wandered around. I think I've been here long enough to get used to the many hills which Hong Kong has but in some ways it was odd being in a park which has such extreme gradients to it.
We walked up to the top of the path where there was a couple of waterfalls....
...and then from there we continued on to an exhibition which had lots of plants and flowers inside which are native to Hong Kong. It reminded me of the butterfly gardens that you can walk through, just without the butterflies:
From there we walked up a very steep hill which took is towards a Tai Chi Garden before we eventually arrived at an open air aviary. It was very similar to the one I'd walked through in Kuala Lumpur although there weren't quite as many birds in this one:
Still, it was impressive, especially considering it was free to walk through and I guess just being that close to nature in itself is a unique opportunity.
Now it was time to move on the major thing that we had planned today which, like yesterday, involved us using a unique method of transport in order to get up to a great height and look down upon everything below.
Another of Hong Kong's major tourist attractions is simply known as "The Peak". It is set upon Victoria Peak which is a on the western section of Hong Kong Island and is actually known as Mount Austin. With elevation about 500m it provides spectacular views down upon the rest of the city, and is a must for anyone visiting.
In order to get up to the top of "The Peak" you have to board the Peak Tram....
...... which has been in operation since 1888. It runs just over a kilometre in length and takes you to the top of the hill in style. A bit like how you could get to the top of the peak in Lantau on foot, you can walk up to the top of The Peak, but really this was part of what the tram is designed to do so we waited in line until it was our turn to board.
The tram may be running on more advanced technology than it was at the end of the nineteenth century, but it probably has the same capacity as it did then, and this authentic feel made for a unique ride to the summit:
On the way up there are gaps in the trees where you can see out, but the most spectacular view comes when you get to the top and you have the opportunity to see just how far you've come up the diagonal route:
It's not just views at the top of The Peak which are to be had as very quickly I realised that this was yet another shopping opportunity for people as you essentially end up on a miniature shopping mall filled with cafes and restaurants. We walked through some of the shops before heading to a similar complex opposite (which also had some great views......)
.... but eventually settled on getting a drink and a cake somewhere in the original place where we had arrived:
As part of our ticket we'd paid to go up to the top of the observation tower which sits at the top of The Peak....
....but if you hadn't wanted to do that then there were other opportunities where you could look out upon the city for free. We found a spot which was near a small pagoda where there were definitely plenty of good views:
As the sun started to set (and unfortunately the weather made a turn for the worse) we headed up to the observation tower where we handed over our ticket and made our way to the top where it seemed as though we were completely up on the clouds again:
Although I admit that these sights would certainly have been better on a sunny clear night, I feel like the fact that it looks as though there is a huge cloud hanging over us is also an interesting addition to the pictures:
Whilst we were up there, there were a couple of moments when it look as if we might have to scarper for cover, but eventually the rain decided to stop threatening us and the light eventually disappeared giving way to the now familiar LEDs of Victoria Harbour:
We were eventually shuffling our way closer and closer to the corner of the observation deck as people gradually moved out of the way and night completely fell:
You can see from the photos that the clouds had lowered so much that they were now actually obscuring the view and making things blurry. It was quite cool when at one point a tram came up to The Peak and then departed again, and it seemed strange to thing that we'd made the same journey so far below where we were currently standing:
After about an hour or so of standing and looking out over at the exceptional view, we decided to head back to the bottom of the observation tower and then take the tram down to street level. On the way down I experienced what is known as 'The Peak Tram Illusion' where by it seems as though you are travelling in a straight line and all the buildings are diagonal when in fact the opposite is true. It's hard to describe unless you witness it for yourself, but it's a bit like one of those magic eye pictures where if you blink or move too much then you lose that feel.
Once at the bottom we decided to add another method of transport to our travels during our stay as we decided to swap The Peak Tram for a Ding Ding Tram which flows through the streets of Hong Kong alongside buses, cars and taxis:
We caught a Ding Ding from close to where we'd in Hong Kong Park and sitting on the top of there we were treated to a delightful journey home through the well lit, still bustling streets of the city.
Once we arrived back at our hotel we had a bit of a rest before deciding to go out and get some dinner. We decided to go somewhere differently from the usual street where we ate, but this almost ended in disasterous results when we ended up trapped in an elevator with a woman who had someone managed to convince us to eat at a restaurant she was promoting.
We decided to look at the menu, but then on the way back down and out had to carefully avoid her gaze as we snuck onto another street and ate somewhere else!
With the views of The Peak in our head as we went to sleep we began to contemplate just what the last day of our stay might hold in store for us....
