Day 29 Hong Kong - Shenzhen - Yangshou

We said farewell to Karl & his cat Mary who made us feel very at home and left firstly for the border crossing back in to China(Shenzhen) with a bus, two metros and a train. At the border we got in the mainland visitors queue with I'm guessing 1000 other people, arriving at the front of the queue a staff member finally decides to tell us wrong line but knowing our bus or train wasn't leaving till latter the only problem with wasting time was the heavy bags on our backs. Though border control our preference was for the bus to Yangshou so tried there and success, two tickets for today.
Rachel then got her McDonalds and we lazed about killing time till our 19:30 bus which didn't come so we and the only couple of others were put in taxis and taken to the main bus station. Imagine a 5 storey car parking building but this was for buses a massive operation. Our second attempt at leaving went at 21:30 and was a sleeper bus, not sure how safe it would be in a crash but besides the beds being a little short for me it was great comfort complete with duvet to use!

Day 28 Hong Kong

Had a lazy day today spent most of it playing the angry birds game on our various devices.
Had a nice dinner a steak(said to be from NZ but I've never seen meat like this anywhere) on an iron plate so you finish the cooking and it came with a seafood chowder(50HK$). Rachel just can't get enough of the rice so had rain drop sized bits of beef in her 'rice with beef' lovely! A string of poor meal choices has left Rachel desperate for guaranteed satisfaction which she will find in McDonalds tomorrow.

Day 27 Sai Kung

What a day! Glorious sunshine and warmth to go with it (20deg)for the first time of our trip we left home without our big coats. With a bus, the metro and another 25min bus we went to Sai Kung a seaside fishing town with beautiful islands, golden sand and clear waters. The main attraction is the huge array of seafood available. We walked the fresh seafood markets then paddled in the water, had lunch of spring rolls and rice rolls with pork inside at a water front table at the beach end of the bay. Dinner was the main event the restaurants of the town are what everyone comes for situated on the water front of the town with a waterfall of fish tanks displaying the huge range of seafood on offer at each place. We started by asking the price of the biggest crab in one of the tanks ($1200HK 120euro) now this crab was big it would have fed 5 people quite happily but for the three of us and only two seafood eaters it was a bit extravagant. We sat down at a big place with an outside table and as soon as we did the crowds came and a queue of people formed. Karl & I ordered a seafood feed for two with lobster, shrimps, crab, deep fried squid and some veg a great meal costing 20euro each with a beer. Rachel had a beef blackbean which she said was very nice but missing rice. Its amazing for a country we all think lives on rice they really dont think much of rice or serve it very often.

Day 24 Hong Kong

Very little achieved today, we stayed home and Rachel played with her new phone enjoying all the connectivity with home and the rest of the world.

I forgot to mention yesterday our supermarket trip, its always interesting to see whats available in the local and the items of note this time were loads of big live fish in tanks, Australian milk(which we had to buy since the regular milk Karl buys was sold out.) and black forest flavour cadburys chocolate which I introduced Rachel to in NZ last Christmas.
A quiet day.

Day 26 Aberdeen

Today we went over the hill of Hong Kong island to Aberdeen. A fishing town with a harbour protected by a small island. The harbour was jammed full of fishing boats meaning the town was pretty quiet none of the fish markets were running. The harbour has a huge floating barge housing the floating restaurants but this is probably an area for the summer season with beaches around the corner and one of Hong Kong's theme parks 'Ocean World' one end of the town.

Dinner was in a restaurant close to where we are staying in Smithfield, Karl & I got the beef hotpot a very tasty cook your own style meal with meat and a few token veges to cook in a broth. Rachel was very jealous!

Day 25 Hong Kong markets

Market day, after waiting a few days while the Chinese New Year closures were on Rachel was delighted to hit the markets. We took the subway to the furthest away Kowloon market at Sham Shui Po the second hand electronics market which is where Rachel's phone cover craze started. We walked from there down to the flower market which had plenty of empty stalls still setting up after the holiday but still for mid winter had plenty of flowers. Next was the bird market again only a dozen or so shops open but Rachel loved all the tropical birds for sale. Moving on down the road we got to the goldfish market with its pet shops selling tropical fish, turtles, chameleons, cats and dogs. The coral being sold for fish tanks was very cool and great colours, a samoyed a white fluffy husky like dog had Rachels attention.
The Ladies market was next which is a more typical market with a few tourist t-shirts, tea sets, paintings(which we brought) and phone accessories. This was the best of the markets covering a good few streets and really busy. From the Ladies market we walked down to the Jade market neither of being that keen on jade it was just a quick wonder through to look at the jewellery.
The last market on our tour down Nathan rd was the Temple st night market which is probably the most famous but we found it smaller than the others and very touristy.

After Karl finished work he met us for dinner and a few drinks in the famous English drinking area of Lan Kwai Fong on Hong Kong island.

Day 23 Hong Kong

Time flies! Its nearly 10 years since I sailed in to Hong Kong and spent a few days here, so today we went over to Kowloon on the classic star ferry and walked Nathan road but with the Chinese New Year it was quieter than normal all the shops were open but there were none of the usual markets were running.
After lunch I took us on a bit of a detour hoping we were heading back to the waterfront but between raised pedestrian walkways a mountain of construction and underpasses it took a number of dead ends to get back down town Nathan rd. We did come across a bamboo theatre, it was as the name suggests a theatre made out of bamboo inside a movie was running and on exiting the news crew reporting on it came running Rachel & I made a smooth exit but Karl got caught and was asked a few questions on what he thought of the theatre.
Knowing the fireworks were on at 8pm we hung around Nathan road and got dinner coming out all the roads were closed and the masses of people were being directed by police. By completing a massive loop with the crowd we got as far as the bottom of Nathan road the crowd stopped and the awesome fireworks display started  The news latter said they spent 8.8million HK$ and the show lasting 23 minutes. Looking behind us back up Nathan rd it was packed full with people and when we came to leave expecting a slow trip we were home in no time.

Day 22 Arriving Hong Kong

Overnight we had a decent sleep onboard when the lights went out the Chinese chatter died away. We arrived in Shenzhen this morning and crossed the boarder to Hong Kong without issue and the lines were very small due to the public holiday.
In Hong Kong we met with a friend Karl who is generously putting us up while we stay here.
Today we had a short walk of the shops and went up Victoria Peak for a day and a night view over the city.

Day 21 leaving Shanghai

After a short stay in Shanghai we wondered out to grab food for the 20hour train trip to Shenzhen and outside it had started snowing we had brought the cold with us bloody freezing again!
On the train we had the Hard Sleeper option see the pic it's was fine all we needed and having selected the two bottom beds (2 more beds above each side)we had somewhere to sit and use of the table to eat our noodles.
Being Chinese new year people were home and letting off fireworks so from 2pm when we left the station till at least 8 at night as far as we could see out our window were fireworks loads of fireworks!

Day 20 Shanghai

Free breakfast in the hostel of juice cereals and toast then out to roam the city.
An empty city it is, the subway had seats available, foot & road traffic was there but definitely quiet.
We had a wonder about, walked the famous architecture of 'The Bund' and had a very dodgy lunch from a restaurant in a mall. We had to chase down live escapees from our salad plate.
Next stop was a cuppa we were happy to sit and have a drink since outside was cold(which we are both very very over) and the shops all seem the same. Check out the size of the regular latte (see pic) that I was served up!
We took the bund sightseeing tunnel to the other side of the river. For those of you who have been here and didn't warn us including mr LonelyPlanet Shame on you! It's a 100mtr stretch of subway with a few neon lights 60yuan or take the regular subway from anywhere in the city for 4yuan! Anyway on this now sacred side of the river the high rises are a plenty including the famous tv tower with its 3 ball shapes, the new financial tower of 100 storeys shaped like a bottle bag with a handle and the tower we went up Jinmao 88 stories. We went at dusk so got photos of both the day & night shanghai skyline before retiring to the hostel bar for the evening.
One photo below is looking down inside the tower a cool shot considering it looks down to only the 53rd floor(it's office space from there down).
We are 20 days in to this trip but I've been to a few cities certainly in Europe in recent times and I am always amazed at the places New Zealand pops up, we had no Internet for a few days here & we were watching the english version of the China news a NZ earthquake was reported on but barely made mention in NZ. Mainly though what I'm getting to is we have a couple of marketing geniuses in NZ who get both the country & a couple of its products out there very very well (see pic) NZ ice-cream for sale at the top of the tower we were up today.

Day 19 Qinghua to Shanghai

Up at a reasonable time and on the local bus back to Wuyuan at 8am to get the bus to Shanghai.
On arrival in the hostel at 4pm it was Internet time since we had been starved of it for a few days.
The hostel is nice, newish, clean they had a dumpling party lastnight where you could make & eat your own dumplings and this is the 1st one to offer free breakfast on our trip so far.

Day 18 Qinghua

It's another rainy day out and Rachel is still under with the flu so we stayed in and watched a few hours of the Ozzy tennis open. Latter in the day the owner of the hostel brought up some food I had seen her preparing this morning. It was pork in rice, wrapped in a leaf and steamed.
For dinner we went back to the same place as last night, nice again piled on the chillies this time.

Day 17 Day trip to Sixi & Yancun villages

Flu update...Rachel has a solid cough, it's got hold of her but I'm on the mend!
We debated venturing out in the rain with colds but all went well. The hostel owner escorted us to the right bus, a taxi met us after the bus which took us the last bit to the village entrance since these are off the main road.
Again mostly due to it being low season but also it was pissing rain we were the only tourists there today.
Both were nice small villages beside the river one had a 14th century wooden bridge which is holding up well. In each village the were in the process of butchering a pig in bath tubs on the street and a couple of chickens too. Possibly for the family arriving home for Chinese new year.
Back in Qinghua we were looking for somewhere to eat when we meet our hostel owner who took us to a place and out to the kitchen where we chose our ingredients, sat down in the restaurant & received our finest meal yet. Cost €5(40yuan).
Sorry if the picture quality isn't great on these blog photos, in most cases they are taken on one of our cameras during the day then to get it on the blog I take a photo of the photo on the cameras display screen with the iPhone & attach it.