A new kind of Mansion

A brief update since we are so far behind and flying through Asian countries like they are bowls of chocolate ice cream (pints of 75 cents beer if you are Amy)...we currently sit in Sihanouk Ville in Cambodia watching the anorexic cows and storm clouds pass by. We have landed here for a few days to escape city life and maybe sit on a beach for a few hours...improve the shade of pale that we already are!

So back to China! The flight was non eventful to say the least and a lot less painful than some of the journeys we had previously taken. At the aiport we found a very helpful information desk that tells us how to get to hong kong island and it all looks pretty simple. The lady even showed us where to wait for the free bus (this is where the cheapness ends in Hong Kong). Outside we find some not so helpful taxi drivers who ply us with scare tactics about how the bus isnt going to show up and how we will miss the last ferry to the island. Luckily there is a kindly Chinese gentleman who tells us to stand fast and not listen to him. In the end the bus was cutting it a bit fine but showed up and off we went to the harbour.

The ferry ride took about an hour and dropped us nowhere near where we thought we were going to be dropped (professional map readers r us)! Useful! Amy felt a little worse for wear on the boat - which was also good since that was going to be our likely form of transport for the next few days!

We arrived at 9pm and grabbed a taxi to go to Kowloon (the cheaper yet not so cheap side of town). And went in search of some hostels...these hostels are situated in what appears to be run down shopping arcades with only one lift serving 16 floors...as you can imagine, me and Ayms were flavour of the moment when we got in the lift with our rucksacks on, leaving only enough room for a small child. The first one we come to..."there's no room at the inn" so off we trot back to the lift. And then to the second place...Chungqing Mansions (imagine a mansion, scrap that and picture a 16 storey pile of bricks with some windows and dodgy characters hanging about outside)..."there's no room at the inn", dóh, it's not looking too good for us and since we suddenly decided to get lapse at booking hostels in advance in the one of the busiest city's in China, it's our own fault!

The guy mentions that he might have some beds in the stable AKA the boys dorm and we jump at the idea...cheapest rooms in Hong Kong, we are expecting to get what we pay for. It turns out to be not so bad, so we take our bags in (wake some people up in the process) and the guy Calvin, promises us the girls dorm will be available tomorrow. Sold! Then a couple in the next room say we can share in their room (they wanted some privacy me thinks but the prospect of paying less money is appealing). We go and pick our bags back up (waking those people up once again!) and settle into our new home.