Third day and hotel in Hong Kong

After breakfast on the 14th floor Xixi and I checked out and got a taxi to the hotel I booked yesterday. This was much nicer, if not so central, and around 30 quid a night. I imagine it had seen better business when the airport was in use, but it was clean, and much quieter than our previous one.

One thing I've noticed here is that pretty much everyone selling something speaks Mandarin. I daresay that wasn't the case just a few years ago. This makes life a lot easier. After getting dressed I realised I had no clean clothes left. No problem, there were plenty of local shops near our hotel and we went to these and did a little bargaining. One shop gave a free pair of pants when they heard our story of the chickenpox!

We met my friend Mr Kam from last year. Unfortunately his wife couldn't make it as she had an exam or something. He took us to a vibrant restaurant in a shopping centre not 10 minutes walk from our hotel. The food was excellent but Xixi's behaviour wasn't. She was extremely excitable and kept running off among the other tables. While this was acceptable, even amusing behaviour in China, it wasn't appreciated quite so much here, so I was on an endless quest to find her and bring her back, in between taking her to the loo. I think that may have given Mr Kam an idea of what it's like to have young kids and I hope he doesn't rush into it too soon. Anyway, what food I ate I enjoyed, and of course he insisted on paying.

After bidding 88, Xixi and I went for a walk again. We saw a really cool orange Lotus before the heavens opened as I'd predicted. Luckily, most buildings overhang the pavements so you can get some cover as you walk back. Xixi had her nap and I checked her spots...not really crusty yet so I booked another night. In the evening we decided to take a bus to downtown Kowloon where we paid another visit to the geek street and I bought a couple of tripods (one for Andge), 5 electric adapters from anywhere to UK, and a pair of tracksuit bottoms. Err, and a bottle of wine that was on offer.


A pretty girl with a pretty car


The not-too-inspiring view from our East Kowloon hotel (the old airport)


The view from the hotel looks a bit better at night (with a long exposure)

When we got back we went online and had a nice webcam chat with Leilei, mama and Waipo. It's these aspects of modern technology that make setbacks such as our experience a lot easier to manage.

Xixi reaching out to Leilei 5000 miles away


Xixi happy, if still chickenpoxy

Xixi was particularly excited and wouldn't sleep till 11pm so I didn't get much chance to appreciate my bottle of wine though.