Thursday 8 November – The last day of our holiday, we fly home tonight leaving Hong Kong at 11.30pm and getting into Heathrow tomorrow morning at 4.45am!!

We have had a wonderful time, seen some amazing things and met some wonderful people but we are ready to return home.

Its been a long and tiring holiday. We have stopped in 7 different places, done lots and lots of walking a lot of it up very steep hills, biked on the main roads in Hong Kong, back streets of Beijing and Shanghai, in the beautiful Yangshuo countryside and in the New Territories in Hong Kong. We now need to get home to recover!!

Lucky with the weather: We have not had any rain which is amazing.  We were expecting it to be cool Autumn type weather in Beijing but it was sunny and warm and as we moved south, to Shanghai, then to Guilin & Yangshou and finally to Hong Kong it got hotter and hotter with lots of very bright sunny days in the upper 70s low 80s Fahrenheit.

Awards:

Best City: Yangshuo

Best hotel: Old Manor House, Xiatang Village

Best place we visited: Rice Terraces, Longji Zhuang Village

Best Airbnb: Hong Kong

Worst Airbnb: Beijing

Best tour Guide: They were all excellent impossible to choose one above the others: Ryan in Beijing: Miki and Zoe in Shanghai: Emma in Guilin & Yangshuo: Apple in Hong Kong

Best place we visited: The Great wall of China

Best show: “Impression 3rd Sister Liu” Music and Light show

Best bike ride: In Shanghai with Miranda, especially going into the park and seeing all the retired people dancing, chatting and debating, playing badminton, writing slogans on the floor with large brushes and water.

Best meal in a restaurant: In a very crowded small basic place in Shanghai, dry noodles in a peanut sauce with a pork chop, delicious!

Best other meal: The one cooked by Ryan (Beijing tour guide) when he invited us to his apartment

Best view: From the top of Cuiping Hill look out over the lush green countryside and amazing Karst Hills and the view of Hong Kong from Victoria Peak

Most shocking thing: hundreds of Filipino and Indonesian maids spending their days off sat on concrete bridges and in the entrances to the Metro in Hong Kong

Most shocking thing 2: Average size of an apartment for 4 to 5 people in Hong Kong 400 to 500 sq ft

People we will remember: Mr and Mrs Li: Grandma Hou: Mr Zhou – all very poor elderly people, living in extremely basic bare homes with few facilities, but they welcomed us into their homes and they were full of character and smiles.  Plus all our Tour Guides who looked after us so well.

Smog – We were expecting to have some problems with smog but we didn’t.  To be truthful we would not have noticed it except for two things.  First you can rarely see into the distance, Beijing is surrounded by mountains but we never once saw them in the 5 days we spent there.  Secondly the smog leaves a covering of fine grey dust everywhere.

WePay – Seeing how the Chinese pay for everything with WeChat Pay just made us realise how far we are behind the Chinese with this.  Every shop from the largest department store to a small back street shop, every restaurant, market stall holders, even some beggars have Q Card readers, its amazing.

Crazy things: Drivers in Beijing and Shanghai who don’t appear to follow any rules: and an old man in a motorised wheel chair going across a very busy large Shanghai traffic junction eating his breakfast while cars, scooters, cycles flew past him in all directions: adults driving along with two occasionally three children sat on their scooters: rickety old carts and cycles carrying huge loads on busy roads; scooters flying past you on the pavement with no lights on at night.

Things that we expected but did not see: Lots of spitting; people being rude pushing into queues; lots of smoking.

Things we did not expect – How clean the streets are, you never see any litter and hardly any leaves, we even had a cleaner on the Bullet Train and saw one on the Great Wall.

Our overwhelming impression China – an amazing country, so huge and diverse, so many contrasts; the Chinese are a very hard working proud people who still have very hard lives despite the improvements to living standards in the 30 years; no litter in the main streets, side streets, countryside even on the Great Wall you are surprised if you see a piece of litter on the floor; the amazing array of fresh vegetables and fish on sale in markets and supermarkets everywhere you go in China.

The End!!

Wednesday 7 November- Today we travelled by bus out into the New Territories a region of wetlands, parks, forests  and mountains north of Kowloon for a cycling and hiking tour.  Our guide was a very tall Aussie who has lived in Hong Kong for many years, called Alex.

It was a another very hot day with the sun beating down, so plenty of sun cream needed.  We cycled out to Plover Clove, chained up the bikes and hiked on narrow trails through thick vegetation and trees to an area of lush green vegetation, steep sided hills covered by trees and isolated water falls.

Unfortunately at the first water fall we found a large party of college students.  So we hiked a little further along the trail until we came to second waterfall which we had all to ourselves.  I had planned to go swimming, but the water was not that deep and the floor was covered with stones and boulders, so I decided to give it a miss.  But it was lovely just sitting there listening to the water cascading down the mountain.

Whats amazing is that the New Territories is part of Hong Kong.  A place so full of greenery, so quiet and peaceful, not what most people envisage when they think of Hong Kong.

Our Scott did not travel with us as he was meeting with officers from the Hong Kong Police force at their headquarters on Hong Kong Island.

Tonight is our last evening in Hong Kong and the last evening of our holiday.  Late tomorrow evening (Thursday) we fly home, a 13.5 hour flight getting into Heathrow at 4.45am on Friday morning.  On our bike ride today the it was bright sunshine all day and a temperature which rose to 82f, the forecast for when we arrive back in Sheffield on Friday morning is 48f and for rain, some contrast.

Tuesday 6 November – Another very hot and sunny day and very clear so we took a taxi to the top of Victoria Peak to look at the amazing views of Hong Kong – see below.

It is very rarely clear weather in Hong Kong so we could not have picked a better day to see the amazing views. We travelled back down on the Peak Tram, a funicular railway – a railway which uses a cable traction to go up and down very steep inclined slopes.

New Territories – We then travelled by bus to the New Territories. The New Territories is a region of wetlands, parks and mountains in Hong Kong, north of Kowloon up to the border with China. The new territories also encompasses over 200 outlying islands.

We visited our Tour Guides apartment in Tai Po. She lives with her parents and her younger sister in a 450 square foot apartment.  This is the average size of family apartments in Hong Kong.  When her older sister lived with them, they had 5 people living there. It was minute, if there had been one or two people living there you would have said it was very small but for a family of 4 it makes you wonder how they manage.

We had lunch at the Royal China Aqua Garden Restaurant in Tai Po. We over ordered but the food was delicious.

Floating Fish Farm – After lunch we were picked up in an old wooden boat by Mrs Ng and went out to visit her floating fish farm where she lives with her husband. The ‘ house’ is in the middle of an inlet that leads out to the sea.  There was a group of these ‘houses’ which have electricity and water, provided through under water pipes.  The people who live in these ‘water homes’ used to be fisherman providing fish to local markets but they can no longer compete with the the big trawlers, so now they catch fish for their own use.

The floating houses are basic but they have kitchen, fridge, toilet and small shower, living area with TV and a small bedroom. Unfortunately the community is getting smaller as there is no longer any money to be made and children go off to the city to make money in more traditional jobs.