We woke up around 5am, I guess our body clocks are in tune with 7am Adelaide time. I watched some telly and went to the Gym at 6am downstairs on the 9th floor (ground floor was the 7th). This was a habbit I was determined to stick to.

I met kylie back in the room at 7am and we went for breakfast, it was a very relaxed traditional western breaky, with a chef cooking fresh golden eggs the way you liked them. I had about 10 rashers of bacon, 3 slices of toast, some hash browns, 2 small round waffles, a small croisant and finished off with some fruit (geez I was wondering how I put on so much weight!), I think I hit my high score of 90kgs!!!

After Breakfast we met with the hotel provided tailor, he had some really nice fabrics and I later found out that he did a really good job. Unfortunately the slumping Aussie dollar didn’t justify a purchase.

We scuttled onto the hotel shuttle bus to head into Nathan street (a main shopping district for Kowloon), we tagged along with Tim and Renata Elliott (we didn’t know anyone!) to have a browse and check out prices of a few electrical items, I really wanted a video camera, and they wanted a new camera.

There were heaps of shifty retailers that scam the tourists, loads of the other retailers told us about them and even showed us newspaper clippings to prove what they were saying, it was very reassuring once we knew what to look for, as the Hong Kong tourism bizo gave stickers with registered numbers to those that sold legit goods.

It was daunting to come across so many Indian hawkers on each corner and everywhere inbetween following us (mostly Timmy, I guess they thought he needed to scrub-up a little) and trying to get us to come and check out their copy watches, copy handbags, or tailored suits. After getting harassed for a couple of hours we found the shuttle bus and made it back to the hotel before lunch.

NEXT STOP THE PEAK TRAM -

Peak Tram Shield

By now we were tired and somewhat sleepy just from Nathan Street. I was nearly asleep from my workout.

We made it to the Peak Tram on Hong Kong Island, it was amazing! - sometimes it felt as if we were going up the mountain on a 45degree angle. The view when we made it to the top was amazing.

From the top

We all piled back into the bus to head onto the Stanley Markets, we weren’t impressed, there were hundreds of of people down a tiny little alleyway of no more than 1.5m wide. It was really hot, silly us forgot to get some money changed, so we couldn’t even buy a bottle of water.

Stanley Markets

The guides finally found us and threw us back on the bus and headed for Repulse Bay & Deep Water Bay, then to Aberdeen - the floating village for fisherman. We jumped onto a Sampan and cruised the harbour, it was amazing the way the fishermen lived on their boats or a tiny little niche that they cut into the bank and created a dock/house for themselves.

Fisherman Docks

OMG this day was packed, we went to a factory/sweatshop to view how they created fine gold and Jade jewellery. It was ridicuously priced and the salespeople were obviously on commission, they kept following us around pulling everything that our eyes paused on for more than 2 seconds - it was really hard to not be rude, when they are so nice, it really gives another word to ‘hard-sell’.

We finally got back to the Hotel & died on the rock hard bed that felt like heaven, before waking a half hour later to jump back on the bus and head back down to Aberdeen to the Jumbo Floating Restaurant, where we had a welcome dinner on the top deck - with drinks, and dragon/tigerman thing, and heaps of drinks to keep us awake! - I’m pretty sure I fell asleep and somehow drifted back to my rock hard heaven bed. 

Jumbo as we were approaching

Tiger Dragon Man

Welcome to Hong Kong