Saturday, 20 October 2012

The madness of Hong Kong


I have to split this entry into different parts and all I state is true.

10,000 Buddha's and me
Sightseeing we have not done a lot but we have managed some. We met up with the Exeter uni students from last year and went to watch the soap box red bull race in the new territories, however due to excess crowds we could not see it. Instead we decided to go visit the Buddha temple, this would have been fine if the temple had not been about 2000 steps up a mountain side. After taking some pictures me and Steve decided to take a rest and sit down. Quite quickly a man shouted at us to get up and we realised as hard as we had tried not to be we were being ignorant Brits abroad. 
In the following days we saw the light show at the harbour and looked down at the rest of society by going to the museum of art. It was very educational but in the middle of a quite amazing exhibition Steve cracks the joke 'What is the issue with the Chinese phone book... there are so many wongs and wings that someone might wing the wong number'. typical Steve.
If there is one place I love in Hong Kong its Mong Kok. The markets are amazing!!! Me and Steve finally treated ourselves to some luxurious night time dressing gowns. Steve has a black dragon dressing gown and mine a maroon one. However we were quite embarrassed when we waltzed down the hall in our gowns to be greeted by 4 guys coming out of the lift....needless to say we ran to our rooms with the stereotypical dragon gowns elegantly flowing behind us.  
Our food habits here have been terrible with us averaging at least one Big mac a day. Although it comes to about £1.50 so cheap food a big meal. 

Negotiations with a Tiger and saving Grace.
House hunting has been horrid. We looked at about 3 flats before deciding we wanted one at Diamond Hill Galaxia. It was built on top of a huge shopping mall, MTR station and cinema. With our pool being on top of the mall as well it was incredible. We managed to see a really decent flat for a good price and told the estate agents Windy and Tiger that we would ring Monday to confirm the purchase. Monday morning they e-mail to tell us we can have the flat and we can negotiate on the price. We arrive at the office ready to get the price down but whats this the flat is now sold and no others are available atm only smaller ones. We view a smaller one but it is terrible and we are fuming with Tiger now. We try 3 other estate agents to no success, we were supposed to secure a flat not lose it and continue looking at others. Windy and Tiger keep pestering us about other flats adding to out fury, then I receive a text off an estate agent named Grace. She tells us of a flat available on the 45th floor for a good price, we agree to view the flat the next day but me Steve and Chris have to be at work to view the department. Sarah bravely steps up to the plate and is willing to view it alone. I then secure two other potential flat viewings. Half way through the tour we meet our new boss who cant believe how young, tall and powerful we are (I think he was just referring to me young and powerful wise). We then have to quickly leave to secure the flat which sarah says is amazing. We taxi it to Galaxia, Sarah explains Grace had to leave...we desperately ring her and agree to meet up. We arrive and secure the flat without seeing it! We sign a few forms and agree to meet the landlord the next day to pay ect. We now try and move money across to HK to pay for this, my savings was taking a battering but I needed the cash. Halifax then blocked my transaction and blocked me out of my internet banking Fudge sake. I now had no money out here as it was all going to the flat deposit and no way of getting cash out here. I attempt to ring halifax but my credit runs out....I use sarahs phone but her credit runs out! On the point of hulking out I receive an email from my loving mother explaining that halifax rang home and my dad talked to them. My internet account was working again!!!! We sign the contract for the flat pay the money and make some cheques, also the flat was grand small but awesome with an amazing view. We move in next Friday as Ikea can't deliver the mattresses until then. When there I will upload the photos of everything and finally Skype my poor family. The flat dilemma was over maybe we could relax but then.....


Steve is an alien
When going to get our HK id cards we show our passports before filling out forms and being sent to people. However as Steve passed over his passport instead of a thank you take a seat response he got 'you have to leave the country'. Some bright spark at immigration had signed Steve in as a visitor and not stamped his visa. You would think surely they could stamp it now to say he has arrived but no they refuse and it dawns on us we will have to leave HK and come back before Monday else Steve cant work. The easiest and cheapest way to leave a 1 hour ferry trip to Macau. So now we are off to Macau for an 8 hour visit to make Steve legal.

Sometimes you have to say WHAT THE FUDGE!

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