To split the long trip to Australia up in two, and not the least to visit our french friend, Loan (who since the last time we saw her has married Carl and had two beautiful kids (Elisabeth and Philip), we decided that the first stop on our trip should be Hong Kong. It turned out to be a great first adventure. You feel like you are walking around in at Blade Runner movie with giant high rise towering over you, neon signs, and this crazy mix of ekstreme wealth and poverty. Ferraries and old chinese women with overloaded wagons struggling side by side in traffic. Sitting in one of the beautiful old trams looking out the open window was an adventure in it self! We were lucky with the winter weather and had sunshine and 20 degrees for the whole stay.

After landing around 10 am local time we took the train into the city and went to the hotel where we chilled out for the rest of the day - except from venturing out for a lovely dinner (and drinks!) at Jamie Oliver's restaurant. The next day we met up with Loan and Elisabeth and went to Ocean Park, where we had a great time seeing Pandas, huge sharks and manta rays, giant salamanders (Storm was over the moon on that one, as we had read about these) and enjoyed the rides including a finicular with a spectacular view over the south coast. In the evening we went out for local chinese food at a place Loan recommended. It was great trying all the different wantons, dumplings, and noodles. Storm and Astrid had white rice and coca colas ;)


The next day we went for a trip on the star ferry across the bay and visited to another small tivoli at the harbour, before going back to the hotel for a much needed siesta. In the evening we went to dinner at Carl and Loans place and saw the horses race at the race track, which the apartment had a great view of (despite chinese scaffolding). Apart from some lovely Malbec, Carl and Loan also gave a us a unique insight in how family life plays out in a city like Hong Kong - lets just say that the working hours are a bit different from a government employees' in Denmark, but otherwise our lives seem similar.


On the third day we took a taxi out of the city heading to Disneyland Hong Kong Hotel, but because we already had gone to Ocean World and another tivoli we didn't have the energy to go to Disneyland as well. However, the hotel in itself was fantastic for the kids (Troels suffered a bit), and at dinner in the evening they got to meet Goofey, Pluto, Mickey Mouse and the rest of the gang, and the buffet had everything from princess cakes to all kinds og candy, marchmellows, ice creme etc., so no complaints there...

The next day we got up early and went to the airport for our next adventure on the Phillippines....