20th September (Hong Kong)

For my final day, I planned something purely to do what everyone should do when in China. The day trip was to Ocean world, a theme park right at the back of Hong Kong Island. It had rides and roller coasters, sea lions, dolphins doing back flips, Chinese crocs, a huge aquarium with sharks and rays and dragon seahorses, but these were all passing time before I got to see what I'd really come for. The park was split into two sections, joined by a scenic cablecar over the mountains. The second home was home to two adult giant pandas and their cubs, Le Le and Ying Yin. The cubs are two years old now, so are quite large now, but still around half the size of their parents. They were so cute. I had all day to burn, so I sat and watched them all for a while. It is well worth hanging about and waiting. I got to see all kinds of interaction between the bears and they really were very cute. Eventually it was time to go home though, and I returned to my hostel and cooled myself under my long awaited aircon.

Hong Kong is an interesting place, but five days is more than enough time to see it. I get the feeling this is the business man/ wealthy couples perfect get away for a short while as it boasts some amazing places to eat and shop, especially shop, but even then 5 days is all you would need. I had heard it was cheap in Hong Kong but not so, it is the same as NZ except for the night markets. Everyone has told me to buy electronics here, and yes, the choices are incredible with the greatest array of phones and cameras I have every seen, but at exactly the same price as in England. The Chinese are obsessed with their cameras though, completely smitten. Everywhere you go they have huge SLRs with amazing lenses, and all attached to tripods. Even for pictures of standard simple things they set up the tripod. They're also partial to preparing the tripod, setting a timer and taking pictures of themselves. It all looks very odd. Another thing I noticed was that anyone old than twenty refused to smile in a photo. It could be in a theme park or by the water front, they would stand in a line, hands by their sides and look bored for the camera. You'll be glad to hear that in none of my photos do I look bored... maybe a few, and if you're interested I'll be more than happy to show you them once I'm back home!

Well this is the end, hope you've enjoyed hearing the stories, I've tried my best to portray them as fully as possible but my writing skills aren't exactly the best, and when you're typing away like a mad man trying to save money in an Internet cafe they're bound to be full of repetitions and horrendous spelling mistakes. But if you look past that you'll see a series of amazing moments that I feel have shaped my life for years to come and have definitely set ablaze a passion for travelling that I believe will never go out.