Travels part 1 (there is too much to write in one go)

The train journey & Hong Kong

18th
This morning i got up and went to uni to get my exam results. Managed to pass all of them which was good, but not great. We went to the train station and waited for our train to arrive. While we were waiting a man attempted to make conversation with me to practise his english, but he couldnt say very much so luckily it was a short conversation.

We got on the train and found our beds and managed to get our bags onto the racks. There wasnt much space in the train. In our little bit there were 6 beds and 2 little fold down seats by the windows, and I had managed to pick the beds with the least space which william was really pleased about, we couldnt even sit up properly, but william managed to get one of the seats which was good for him. We played cards for a bit and i read my book for a while but i got bored after about an hour and a half.

I went to sleep quite early because there was nothing to do and we were arriving at shenzhen at 6.30am so i would have to get up early.

19th
Didnt sleep well last night at all. The bed was so uncomfortable. And then man beneath me was snoring a lot, and there was a baby a bit further down the carriage that was crying a lot. We got off the train and went to find the ticket office to get tickets for Shenzhen to Guilin. However because everyone is buying tickets at the moment for spring festival, there were about 2000 people queuing for tickets. Even if we joined the queue it would be very unlikely that we would be able to get tickets. So I phoned ctrip and booked us some flights. We went through passport control and entered Hong Kong, it was very exciting. We got the metro to kowloon near to our hostel. The hostel was nice, and you got exactly what you paid for! The room was tiny, but it had everything you needed (apart from a window)

We went to get some food but ended up at McDo because it was the cheapest thing we could find - food was a lot lot more expensive in hong kong than in china. We had a walk around the harbour and then we went to the space museum and art gallery which were good. On the waterfront they had one of those hollywood star things where it has names of famous people on the floor and some of them had handprints. We only recognised three people tho, Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee and Jet Li.
In the evening we went to the markets - there was a flower market and a bird market. The bird market was disappointing because a lot of the cages were covered up and it smelt. We went to some of the other markets after that just sold general crap, I got a really cool t-shirt which says I love HK.

Then the most exciting thing happened - I found some ribena!! I've been looking for some for ages in Shanghai, i even emailed ribena to found out it they sold any in shanghai but they never replied.

We went to a really cool sushi restaurant for tea that had the food going round on a conveyor thing. William ate loads of wierd and random food, and I was really exciting and had smoked salmon.

20th
This mornng we got up early and went to one of the nice bakerys for breakfast, and then we went to see a little temple just up the road. We went to get the metro to Hong Kong island which was really nice. There were loads of huge buildings, and lots of hills and nice scenery too. We got the tram up to victoria peak and then went up to the sky terrace. From there you could see views all around Hong Kong, and it was a nice clear day too. We went and had a nice lunch on one of the terraces, and I got sunburnt which was very exciting. I dont think ive ever been sunburnt in January before.

We went for a walk around the peak and then got the tram back down. We had a walk around Hong Kong park which was cool and then just wandered around the island for a bit. In the evening we went to the harbour because they had a really cool light show and all of the majoy buildings had set up a coreographed light and sound display.

We went back to the hostel after this because we had been walking for miles and my feet were really hurting.