Happy Birthday Emmie-Lou!

Happy Birthday to you!

Happy Birthday to you!
Happy Birthday dear Emmie-Lou,
Happy Birthday to you!
Hope you have an amazing day and that all your wishes come true! We all hope to make you feel special on your birthday, from all corners of the globe.

Lots of love from all you friends and family!

t

So Long, Hong Kong!

First things first:

Happy Birthday Neil!

To add to the already large amounts of Hong-Konganese appeal, this place also has a number of large public park areas. One worth noting, is the Zoological and Botanical Gardens on the hill.
Not sure if that many people get awfully excited about botanical gardens (although they make an excellent get away from the hustle and bustle of Asian streets), but the fact they have a bunch of monkeys here is just so rock-n-roll. Check out this bored little guy!
They also had Lemurs and a bunch of other little rascals playing keep away with a food bowl. Solid. The view wasn't half bad, either.
Oh. Did we mention this Zoo-type experience was free? No? Well it was. Technically, anyway. You pay in body fatigue because if you walk the way we did from central, the mountainous terrain dwarfs the physical and emotional strain of even a hike to the peak of Everest. Either that or I'm really out of shape.

Our last day in HK's city was nice and relaxing. After a wander around the park, a nice lunch at a cinema bookshop/cafe (called Kubrick and was reminscient of the relaxing type of cafes back home - such as everyone's favourite: Gus') it was back to the hotel to relax, have a crack at packing and attempt to tackle this giant beer.
Yeah, that's a litre of Asahi. In a can. From the supermarket. Ace. That brings us to dinnertime. Hong Kong Island, not Kowloon (where we were staying), has a pretty neat bar district.
Full of tourists, but hey, so are we. Any excuse for more giant beer will do.
That's about it for our stay in Honkers. Although we're spending the next couple of nights at a mystery location within HK, it's not really in the city. Speaking of the mystery location, we caught this cryptic train here today:
Anyway, stay tuned for more clues as to our location tomorrow, when it's also someone really special's birthday...
t+e

Why, Whiskers of Course

Let's have a round of applause for Ocean Park. We managed to spend a whole day there yesterday and loved every minute of it.
The place was particularly neat because they had a bunch of pandas. A bunch being 4, but the point is Emma loves pandas. Who doesn't? They've got to be about the most lovable creature on earth - they eat for about 14 hours a day, sleep and otherwise generally harass their buddies.
They also had a dolphin show. We won't dwell on that though, because the real deal-clencher was these awesome seals. Or Sea Lions. I'm pretty sure there was a plaque explaining the difference, but I didn't read it. We were too busy being entertained by the little cheeky one picking on the big lazy ones.
Oh, and Emmie-Lou got to feed them.
And, I got to taste one.
Whiskers didn't taste all that good. For what Ocean Park lacked in mascot-tastiness, they made up for in Jellyfish Spectaculars. This place would have been intense should you be silly enough to pay it a visit after taking a hit of acid (kids, don't do drugs).
And, like any self respecting theme park should, they also had rides. Although I near soiled myself on the 65 metre drop known as The Abyss, on the whole (while still entertaining) the rides fell slightly short of "thrilling". Personally, I've taken wilder chair-lifts at Perisher Blue, but they scare me at the best of times (no comments about being a blouse, please).
So kids, that's Ocean Park. Definitely worth the visit if you've got the time here in Honkers. Speaking of things worth visiting in HK, check out HK island from Kowloon at night. Amazing. Ben, I don't care how awesome a lighting designer you are, I bet you can't make Canberra look this good (yes, I AM ignoring our local architecture. So what?).
Then, it was time for dinner. In case you hadn't noticed by now, dinner also means beer.
That was yesterday. Today quickly developed into shopping day. For all you shopaholics back home, HK is pretty awesome for shopping. Not necerssarily that cheap, but not expensive either. Note, I'm generally not allowed to enter places like Versace, Louis Vuitton and Gucci. So, if you're the type of person who's willing to spend a third world country's defecit on a handbag, yes, HK probably is expensive.

In addition to "regular" shopping (that is, malls, streets and the like), there's always markets. We are in Asia, after all. Worth a look is the goldfish market, which isn't so much of a market but is super interesting nonetheless. You can buy fishies by the bag, or pick one or multiple turtles off the pile. The selection of pets was substantially more exotic than back home, anyway. I was reasonably tempted to by a python for the low low price of about $1,800 HKD. That's about $300. Awesome.
They also have markets for more consumer appropriate items. Clothes, luggage, watches, crap you'll buy but never use and basically anything you can think of is for sale.
We scored some bargains and probably paid too much for other items. I, for one, can't be bothered arguing with some bloke over the equivilant of $2 or $3 Australian dollars. I'm more likely to talk a guy down from $20 to $12, give hime a $20 and tell him to keep the change. I'm seriously that lazy.

Oh, wow. It must be dinner time. Do yourself a favour and visit a small eatery called Good Satay. Guess what they serve? Yeah, Satay. How do you reckon it was? Got it in one: Good.
And all for less than about AUD$20. Score. After dinner, there's always time for more shopping and markets.
You've probably guess by now that HK is awesome. In fact, our whole holiday has been awesome. Slowly it draws to an end, which we're really not thinking about too much because we're having such a great time. Missing you all back home - keep checking for another few updates before you all have to put up with our lengthy and boring story and photo sessions.

Finally, the lesson for the day. China food is poison. Don't buy is clever.
WTF?

t+e

There's Trouble Afoot at the Circle K

That one's for you Bill and Ted (and their excellent adventures and bogus journeys) fans out there.

Welcome to Hong Kong!
Honkers is cool. Firstly, I love it because I can finally walk around and not get stared at by EVERYONE. I know I draw attention to myself as it is (err I should probably eat less, and have a slightly smaller tattoo) but seriously, I was like a rock in a stream through crowds everywhere so far. Not here though. Just a regular bozo who's money is as good as anyone else's. Sweet.

Right. We had a feed at the local Aussie pub - Ned Kelly's last stand.
This place was off to a good start when we asked the waitress for some menus and she walked to the bar, picked up her bag and went home. Cheers, love. And, we learned very quickly that Honkers is not really as cheap as everywhere else we've been.
Anyway, last night was an early one. Today was a MTR ride (HK's underground train system) to Lantau island, where we rocked this super awesome gondola. The line was lengthy, and we had to leave our livestock at the base terminal. Poor Daisy.
The gondola took us to check out the giant Tian Tan Buddha. The view was pretty awesome the whole way, too.
At the top of the moutain (which is coincidentally at the base of the Buddha) there's a quaint little traditional Chinese village.
Built sometime in the early 21st century, it includes such ancient wonders as a 2-storey elevator...
...and a Starbucks.
Early life here would've been tough. Anyway, onto the Buddha. This sucker is like 27m high, weighs about 200 tonnes and is made entirely out of bronze. Neat!
There's also a monestary. There's a table where people place offerings for Buddha, and while I'm sure the photo doesn't really show it, some good samiritan left a box of Ferrero Rochers.
After a late lunch, we rolled in the Peak Tram for a bird's eye view of HK. The Peak Tram was actually used as a form of transport way back when and goes from a gradient of 4 to 27 degrees. Yeah, that's pretty steep.
Pretty solid effort for a first day if you ask me. Oh, we also hit up some markets, a ridiculously large (and expensive) shopping centre, and took note of the super awesome double-decker trams.
Woo! Tomorrow: Ocean Park. Yep, seals, pandas, rollercoasters and fishies.

P.s; Yes, I had a shave. Yes, I look ridiculous without a beard.

t+e

Hotel d'Ho Chi Minh

Check out our 5-star accommodation for our last night in Vietnam.
Warm, cosy and comfy.

t+e

You Ain't Much If You Ain't Dutch

We're back in Hanoi. Quick note here: Hanoi is cool. After arriving late in the afternoon from Halong, there was little else to do but go out for a feed and a few beers. We had an ever-so-average feed at a place with a great view, then wandered back into the Old Quarter to pay a visit to Hanoi's finest jazz establishment.
Jazz wasn't really cranking everyone's tractor, so after a wander through the "drinking" streets of the Old Quarter (and spying Toronto at one of them and cheesing it out of there quick smart) we basically turned in early in anticipation of an adventurous day of sight seeing on the morrow. That said, we did walk into another one of these backpacker graffiti type bars (refer to the Angkor What? bar of a previous post) where the best line in the world was scrawled: You ain't much if you ain't Dutch. Amen.

The morning started with a rainy wander around Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum. This place was neat because his body is actually there. Like, totally embalmed, put on ice and available for the viewing pleasure of Joe Sixpack. Kind of weird, but interesting nonetheless.
Following a wander around the surrounding grounds, including visiting Ho Chi Minh's houses and the presidential palace, our tour guide Minh (they really like Uncle Ho in Vietnam) took us to the museum of Ethnology (I think). All sorts of info about the sub-cultures and ethnic people of vietnam, and this fish-trap sellers bike, loaded with over 800 fishing traps. The dude totally rolled like this on a daily basis, too.
The outside area of the museum had a bunch of traditional houses - actually bought and transported from their native villages. Check out thise crazy shack:
They also had these cheeky little devils. Hahaha, hilarious. By the way, this is a funeral tomb.
We checked out this temple dedicated to Confucius. It actually used to be a university, and these days scholars come here to pray for good luck. They have these stone tablets inscribed with the names of honor students (from the university days - like, 1000 years ago) which are perched on the backs of turtles. Apparently during the war they buried all these suckers in the sand to avoid the Americans bombing the bejesus out of them.
The afternoon brought us a leisurely cyclo ride around Hanoi which was pretty rad. The dudes pedal slower than you could walk, but considering my chauffeur weighed about as much as my shoes (and would've been about 70), I don't really blame him.
Finally, the afternoon ended at a pagoda on the lake where the monster turtles live. Remember us talking about that in a previous post? Yeah, check this sucker out. He's like 250kgs.
Anyway, it's goodbye Hanoi and goodbye Vietnam. After a night at the airport, it's off to Hong Kong. Stay tuned, race fans.

t+e