Day 2 - Hong Kong

A slow-ish start to our first morning in HK was a result of our exhaustion from the excitement and stress of packing. We went down the street for a Chinese breakfast of rather tasteless pork and good chicken with rice and toast. It continues to surprise us how the people here cook every meal, rather than having cold, raw ingredients. Breads and cakes are pretty rare to see in shops, except for the occasional branded outlet, but noodles and rice are an integral part of almost every dish. As a result of our high intake of these, we haven't had tea because we're just not hungry.

After breakfast we decided to sample the public transport system. A HK$55 (AU$11) card got us unlimited access to the trains for a day, which suited us very well. Public transport here is inescapable and puts Melbourne to shame. The trains ran every 2-3 mins on our line all day, and they have incorporated an electronic ticketing system (similar to MyKi will be in Melb) which works brilliantly. Trains are clean, pretty spacious (due to the large amount of standing room and small number of seats) and fast. Although they have to be – almost everyone travels by public transport here. Buses and taxis rule the streets; private cars are the exception. I don't recall seeing a single petrol station the whole time.

Anyway, we went up to see a relic of the old public transport in HK – the Peak Tram. This cable tram operates up the hill on Hong Kong island connected the city proper to the settlements on the mountain sides and ridges (collectively know as the Peak). The tram gets to an insane angle (at least 45°) in some places, and terminates at an iconic HK building with a roof platform that offers a 360-degree view of the island. The view over the city is stunning, and again reminded us how comparatively flat and spread out Melbourne is.

After our tram ride, we decided to head to one of the many street markets that populate the city. A short train ride to the Sham Shui Po district gave us a huge culture shock. We had thought the Kowloon district where we were staying was pretty busy, but this was something else. Stalls lined the streets in every direction, selling everything from iPods to fresh fish, and by fresh, we mean still swimming in the bucket!! It seems that "fresh" here means you have to see it get killed and filleted, which we did. Our lunch experience was interesting, where we came across a café where nobody spoke any English for the first time. There wasn't even any English translations on the menu, so flying in blind, we managed to order some pork and fried rice. On our third attempt since our arrival, the pork finally had a flavour, and the fried rice has yet again put Keeley in a bad mood because the Noodle Box at home just can't live up to it.

We looked around for a bit longer, before heading to the "Ladies Market" in the Mong Kok district. This was slightly more organised than the last one, and had a generally higher quality of stuff on offer, mainly clothing. It would be fun to come back and spend some time shopping, because there was a lot of value to be had. Some of the more interesting items on show included an elephant-themed g-string complete with trunk… guess what that's for boys… We also headed over to the Mens Market at Jordan, which was very similar to the Ladies Market but with obviously more mens clothes and some DVDs etc.

Our HK stopover is now over. I'm sitting in the airport now actually, waiting for check-in to open. It's a pity we only spent 36 hours here… you could easily spend a couple of weeks here shopping and exploring the culture. It's an exciting city and one that we'd definitely like to come back to. However, we're not too sad as this has been an excellent entrée to our real adventure. Bring on Europe!