Hong Kong proper

Arriving at the Hotel, I had some hours to fill in before the room was ready.  With the Botanical gardens just across the road that was my first stop, there were some interesting trees I hadn't seen before and different bright coloured birds.  When I finished there I headed down hill to Central Hong Kong, and found that the shop I wanted was closed as were a lot of other shops as it was new year's day holiday. Even so there was plenty to see before I headed uphill to check in to the hotel and then head down hill again to meet the family after their day at Disney World.  The place we wanted to have dinner was also closed but we found great Egyptian food in a street close by, and as Oskar said, 'the food is amazing'.  Next day first up we went on the Peak tramway to the top, and of course there were 2013 signs everywhere and while it was not sunny the pollution was all to evident.

then it was down to Central again to do some shopping, I wanted a new camera, but they didn't have the one I wanted (turned out later that was a good omen). We went to a different San Francisco style veg cafe and this sign was just where we were sitting, I've made the don't worry idea my new years resolution.  Later we got the ferry across to Koowloon, more shopping and more shopping and fell exhausted into bed.

 The boys loved walking past the little stalls, just nearby was false boobs and bums, which caused some merriment, I developed a very sore throat, think it was the pollution and with lots of people wearing masks I had to be careful I didn't look too sick. Luckily a few packets of Strepsils and lots of water made a difference

 The last day Alex took the boys to Ocean World, more fast rides, while Chris and I went fabric shopping. That was an eyeopener with streets of shops with fabric swatches and all things related to clothing manufacture. We did find one shop which sold fabric by the yard and had to get our minds non-metric to see how much to buy.  We were getting worried our suitcases may be getting too full so had to exercise restraint. We decided we need to return to HK for a serious fabric buying trip.  Later we met up with the boys and went to the Nunnery in Kowloon by metro, such good trains and all the platforms fenced off with gates that open when the trains stop.  Everyone loved the beautiful rocks and gardens at the Nunnery, such a peaceful placed but overshadowed by high rise.  We had a magical dinner at the Nunnery, such good vego food. 

 and we then hurried back to pier 9 for a junk cruise of the harbour to see the light and sound show.  Our train trip back from the nunnery took longer than we thought  and we were sure we had missed the Junk, but luckily the man had not totally understood our accent and had told us the time to board at Kowloon, we arrived at the pier just as the junk was pulling in.  That was a great lesson for the boys to never give up. The end of a great day and our time in HK, and then it was packing for a 3 hour flight to Tokyo