"Breakfast" was a sort of omelette, sort of tomato, sort of mushrooms, sort of food really. Was eating it and wondering whether it was better or worse (or closer to real food than) McDonalds. I *think* I decided that McDonalds was better but it was a close-run thing.

I was actually kind of reminded of a "Not the Nine O'Clock News" sketch, a skit of the aeroplane that crashed into the jungle and people had to eat each other to stay alive; the sketch actually had the two survivors confessing that they had to break into the airline food as they'd already eaten the passengers!

We landed in Hong Kong in bright sunshine, pretty much on time at 2.15pm local time, some seven hours ahead of UK time. Getting through immigration and customs was pretty much a breeze! After checking where my rucksack would arrive, I went to the correct carousel, and picked it up fine, no problems.

The only trouble I had was making my way through the airport - I couldn't find a flippin' cashpoint at first!! Ended up going into the departures lounge where I found a branch of HSBC bank. I got lost *again* when I tried to make my way out! I had bought a bus ticket from the relevant stall in the airport and I got simple directions to the bus stop, which were also repeated on the back of the bus ticket. Course, silly me, forgot to look at the ticket!! Spent fifteen minutes wandering around the airport before I finally read it!! Anyway I quickly made my way in the correct direction and caught the bus, which came pretty soon after I reached the stop.

It was very hot and humid, so I was glad the bus was air-conditioned. It was a pretty clear ride into Hong Kong centre from the airport, took about maybe 40 minutes, nice scenery, mountains, water, roads and railways, well designed bridges etc. From the edges of Hong Kong there were more tower-block structures, some looked quite poorly maintained and even a bit 'slummish'.

We glided onto Nathan Street and hit some traffic. The bus guide listed bus stops by number but it seemed that the numbers were one out from the truth, but both the rolling electronic signpost indicator inside the bus and the in-bus announcements gave local hotels as well as the bus stop name and number so there was no danger of missing the stop. After slowly inching our way down the road we finally arrived at Kimberly Road, where I got off, and walked the short distance to the hotel.

It was quite a plush place, air-conditioning (of course), well-dressed doormen, and the like. It was down a street full of restaurants, in fact the smell in the road was kind of odd, a sort of mixture between Chinese food and smog! Anyway I checked in, went to the room, and flaked out! I needed it, I was hot and quite tired from the journey, but at least I'd arrived!

My room was quite nice, double bed, nice bathroom, TV with two Chinese channels, one English channel, and one part-English channel which were all local to Hong Kong, and, for whatever reason, the one and only satellite channel they had was the French channel TV5 Asie!

Nathan Street, Kowloon

After a bit of a rest, and a wander round the local streets, smelling the atmosphere (and buying lots of water!), I went to the hotel bar for a drink, and to wait for this bloke called Andy. He'd posted a message on the forum board of the Imaginative Traveller website, to which I responded. I wasn't sure he'd turn up; the last message I'd posted agreeing to meet him was on the morning of my departure! Anyway I'd almost finished my beer (San Miguel, for some reason) when he turned up. Have to say he wasn't at all how I expected him to be; I had imagined him to be a short, half-Chinese bloke but what I got was a big bloke from Barnet, England!!

We had another beer then set out into town to try to find somewhere to eat. This wasn't as easy as it sounded; back-street places with English menus tended to be more expensive and rather unimaginative, to the extent that you started to believe that the Chinese tended to eat Spaghetti Bolognaise rather than native Chinese food!!! We did eventually find a place though, "Wing Wah" just down the road from the hotel. The set menu of soup and main course was HK$43, cold drink an extra HK$7, which wasn't too expensive. And it was pretty nice food too!

We then had a wander through the town centre, ended up by the water's edge overlooking Hong Kong central. All along the waterfront the night sky was lit with bright neon lights on the buildings. Looked kinda cool! The only odd thing was that all the office buildings had the name of the firms on them in big neon letters; only one of them was Chinese! The other signs were all in the English alphabet (even if they weren't English firms).

Andy's hotel was on the opposite side of the water so he took the Star Ferry back and I walked back to my hotel.

I noticed something about the TV broadcasts. On the English channels, there were an exceptionally large number of public service information adverts; warnings of legislation, and regulations at workplaces, etc etc. There weren't so many true adverts.