Survived the bus ride and it was a couple hours shorter than we expected. All night we were stopping at toll booths or swerving and braking around other vehicles – not really conducive to sleep. A short hop in a taxi to Guangzhou’s main train station :gps:(GPS)::23.15054::113.25344:gps: and into the chaos of the queues once more. This time we were lucky enough to get a guy who spoke a bit of English and were able to book tickets to our next destination, Guilin (for when we are done in Hong Kong) – good thing too – any later and it would have been another overnight bus! There is nothing like the feeling of having a confirmed ticket in your hand, accommodation arranged and a solid plan – it’s the simple things when you travel that make life enjoyable!

We grabbed the next train from Guangzhou to the Hong Kong border at Shenzen – only 1.5 hours next to an old lady who hadn’t read the signs in the new trains that say ‘no spitting’ and in front of a kid who fragrantly lost his lunch. Walking across the border was more like walking through a shopping mall. Onto another waiting train/tube the price for which gave us a shock – we are used to paying about 20p for a tube ride, this one was £3.60, but it is some distance.

It didn’t take long to find our hostel (Lee Garden Hostel) in the terrible looking ‘Fook Kiu Mansion’ 8 floors above the bustling streets that are straight out of ‘Blade Runner’ (but less dingy) and exactly what we pictured. The hostel is clean, our room tiny and the Internet speed rocks with YouTube and Facebook back sans censorship. We sucked up a good few hundred megs (possibly gigs) of news and entertainment while relaxing and recovering from the last 24 hours on the road.

In the evening we headed out in search of a recommended camera shop and food. You don’t need to go far here. The place is packed with shops selling everything that shines and flashes (from 10+ carat diamond rings to iPhone 4’s) – it’s shopping paradise.

Hong Kong is great:
– People detour to throw garbage into bins.
– There are public ‘pay as you go’ wifi booths on the street.
– Traffic lights are respected by cars and pedestrians.
– They drive on the left (rest of China on the right)
– UK standard plugs in the rooms.
– You can flush toilet paper instead of depositing it in a bin.
– It’s FAR less crowded and feels calm and quite in comparison.
– You can get anything you want (food to fashion) as long as you are willing to pay.
– Ribena in the shops, definately a British influence.
– HSBC & Standard Chartered logos on the bank notes.
– Way more visible security ( cameras and deadbolts) – but feels very safe.

What a place ! Need to sleep now. Sightseeing to tomorrow. This one would be good for a LOL Full sized replica of Noah’s Ark

[Pictures: Walking accross the border – ‘Please leave the country by lift’ – should be fun :), Our Cameron Street neons]

– Posted from my iPhone via Wifi