Last days in Hong Kong

Above is the name of my brother's local MTR (mass transit railway) station, which he lives about 2 minutes walk from. The metro is pretty impressive in Hong Kong. All the stations are huge & super clean, & despite the huge numbers passing through them, they never seemed to feel THAT busy. He lives in a pretty interesting area of Hong Kong Island, above a local restaurant, & next to a fish market. It probably explains why his apartment building always smells of fish! I was heading out for the day on Wednesday when I happened to bump into Warren's landlady Wendy who lives on the 3rd floor of his building. She said that she was heading over to Shenzhen , China, & did I want to come? I had 1 China entry left on my visa, so thought I might as well...

Wendy is a pretty amazing woman, she is in her 60's & is a total bundle of energy. She dances several nights a week, sings, & is heavily involved in the Girl Guides association. She has put her 3 boys through private school in England & is very widely travelled herself. She was heading to Shenzhen as that is where her dance studio is & she has a performance coming up soon. Shenzhen is a pretty wild west frontier type town. People in Hong Kong go there to shop because lots are things are much cheaper in China than Hong Kong. You get the feeling that you could buy anything you wanted there, no matter how illicit... It took about an hour on the metro to get to the border. You then cross the border on foot, & there are huge big shopping malls literally right at the Shenzhen side of the border. Wendy showed me where her dance studio was, suggested that I meet her there at 5pm, & then left me to a few hours of fantastic shopping. I love my bartering, & managed to net myself a few bargains... I met Wendy at 5 & she treated me (as well as her very young & handsome dance instructor) to a lovely Chinese meal. I then returned to Hong Kong by myself as she had another couple of hours of lessons that evening.Thursday was my last day in Hong Kong, & Wendy met me at 9am & gave me bit of a guided tour of a few sights in her car. She then dropped me off at the Stanley market for some more shopping... Next I caught the tram up to the peak, for the iconic vista over Hong Kong. The air quality wasn't great, so my photos weren't as good as they might have been. As you can tell from my mad hair, it was pretty windy up on the sky terrace viewing platform!

Next on the agenda was a return trip to the Citygate outlet malls where I knocked off the last of my shopping. I then, totally by coincidence, happened to be at the waterfront for the 8pm 'symphony of lights' show put on by the Hong Kong tourist board. Essentially it was a few lasers being shot from some of the tallest skyscrapers. It wasn't the best light show I've ever seen, but the skyline speaks for itself really...

On Friday I was up nice & early & caught a 6:10am airport bus that very conveniently left from nearly right outside warren's building. My flight back to the UK was good, but I was disappointed that the same movies from the outbound flight were showing. I had to resort to High School Musical 3! From Heathrow I caught the air-rail bus back to Reading where my lovely husband was waiting to meet me :-) Tomorrow just happens to be our one year wedding anniversary. I can't believe how quickly the year has gone!