This takes us from 26th February up to 2nd March when we arrive back home. Ronnie's birthday on 28th should be an interesting day; I hope to surprise her with something a bit special! (Please, no smut, thank you! WilF)
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Friends we remember, friends we forget
Until such time as our minds do let
Us know that we have lost some treasure
Memories flood back and bring their pleasure

Once I saw this Maori maxim I just had to buy it. Says it all for a poet and a dreamer.	The centrepiece of the Botanic Gardens	The Maori group with their street performance

26th Feb CHRISTCHURCH • AUCKLAND • HONG KONG We start the day with a quick breakfast at the coffee shop across the road from the hotel, just coffee, toast and marmalade because we are meeeting Maureen at about 10:00 am and we are running late. We start by browsing a few shops and there is a necklace that takes Ronnie's eye and causes me to gulp (just a little), the price is 300 dollars but she decides that as it is only Sterling silver (not white gold) she will pass on this one and my wallet heaves a sigh of relief! LOL. Then we came to the local council offices (Maureen, have I got this right?) where there were two or three rooms where local people were able to set out their craft wares for sale. This was a really good display of several different types of craftwork and so (with Mo's help) I bought a small surprise for Ronnie's birthday in two day's time.

We walk next to the Christchurch Arts Centre where there are a multitude of small specialist craft shops, on a slightly more professional scale (I don't mean to imply anything derogatory about the council office set-up); everything from woollen designer clothing to high quality wooden items to paintings and all sorts of other arts. It is really lovely and we both found lots of things we would have bought except that we could not get them home safely. I bought a couple of small items though, one was a ruler made with twelve different types of New Zealand timber ( a suitable memento for an engineer) - the other was a small drawing and Maori saying (with translation) which is highly suitable for a dreamer and a poet! (Or someone who dreams he is a poet! LOL)

After this Maureen took us to the Christchurch Botanic Gardens which is 75 acres and has the River Avon meandering through it; we decided to take the Caterpillar Tour which is a little 'tractor and trailer' train which tours the gardens in about an hour, the driver giving a very interesting and informative commentary. Relaxing and entertaining all at the same time!

Lunch was a treat because we went back to the Arts Centre for a toasted sandwich and pots of tea (quite normal) but we were entertained by a group of Maori singers who were a really exotic treat for us europeans. They were doing an impromptu street concert and collecting funds for their school. I shot a few videos so eventually, when I can get some decent internet bandwidth, I will upload these to my website for everyone to share.

All good things have to come to an end sometime and we left Maureen at about 3:15, just in time to nip round to the classic car dealer that Jamie had informed us about yesterday. My word, that was another awesome experience (that word again). As we walked in to the shop the first two cars on display were a 2002 3200GT Maserati and a 1974 BMW 2002 Touring which are respectively mine and Ronnie's dream cars! Actually Ronnie owned one of these from 1978 to 1987; she traded it in then for a BMW 316 which, in comparison, was rubbish. The 2002 was, in our opinion the last of the real BMWs, certainly the last that was much cop. But the Maserati is yet to be owned by me; it is my dream car (it is just so beautiful) but I am fairly sure that I will have to buy one, OK it will be a used one but the example we saw today was a 2002 year and had done only 72000 km. Magic!

Later today we do a lot of flying [I am hoping to be on autopilot myself, WilF]. We fly from Christchurch Airport to Auckland, where we then connect with our Air New Zealand international flight to HONG KONG. I write this blog update as we are approaching the coast of Australia north of Brisbane and it is 02:20 NZ time (13:20 UK, 21:20 HK) - you really needed to know that didn't you? We have had 'supper' and lots of lubrication so it's time for some shuteye I think, no doubt talk to you later!

At the harbour waterfront	it is a little misty yet	but it makes a nice panorama

27th Feb • We arrive at Hong Kong International Airport at 5:20 in the morning and we are met by a local firm Tour East who organise about eight of us into a few taxis and whisk us off to the Holiday Inn hotel; it takes about 40 minutes to drive and it is still dark of course, and slightly misty so it is interesting to have our very first glimpses of Hong Kong in sleep mode, or as near to that as it ever gets. We are told that this is 'the city that never sleeps'. As we near the city centre we see Hong Kong Harbour lit up all around. At the hotel we decide to take a room upgrade so we have a suite which is much more luxurious than a standard room and comes with all sorts of extras such as included breakfasts and all day tea and pastries in the executive lounge. (Just showing off). There is a swimming pool and health club on the roof (19th floor) and the 'executive lounge' is on the 18th, views not applicable though as all the adjacent buildings are just as tall. We wander into the said executive lounge and are greeted by no less than three really sweet (and cute) Chinese girls who cannot do enough to make us feel welcome and respected. I ask about Ronnie's birthday bash and they telephone Tour East to check the details and reassure me that all is going to plan.

After a rest and a blog update we go for a walk to the harbourside which is just a few blocks away and immediately the contrasts between this place and NZ become apparent. I think the population within a few miles of this point exceeds the total population of the whole of New Zealand and most of them are out on Nathan Road this morning. Ronnie asked one of the young ladies in the hotel what she would recommend for our first morning's excursion and the immediate answer was 'shopping' - once we got past this she said that one of the best night-time experiences was the nightly laser show at the harbour so we we went to find exactly where this is and I am hoping that I can get some photos of this later ............ I'll let you know (of course).

We meet up with Jane for lunch (Jane spent a month in Australia before she joined the NZ tour and now she is doing three nights in HK just like us) and we go to an authentic Italian restaurant and have the pasta of the day which is spaghetti with bellpepper and anchovy sauce topped with black truffles, washed down with a glass or two of Soave. Later we discover something called temple Street Night Market in a local magazine so we jump on a Metro train to go and see it. The Metro is just like Singapore's, very high tech and just a bit crowded. The market is good too - we are sure you can buy anything here, and, yes we do mean ANYTHING.

Temple Street Night Market getting set up	It seems one is able to buy anything here	The Metro is modern, functional, on time and works properly

Below are a few of my pics from the Harbour waterfront this evening after dark. The Laser light show was 10 minutes only from 8:00 pm and is surprisingly difficult to photograph so I did a couple of short videos (will upload when I get home). The buildings around the harbour don't allow any green issues to get in the way of their lighting and advertising and it does look pretty spectacular, and the boats too. The Chinese, I think, do this sort of thing particularly well.

28th Feb HONG KONG • We have a half day tour of Hong kong Island today to 'get us started' - after that we are on our own to relax or 'live it up' depending just how knackered we are after a month's tour of New Zealand. Wish us luck! I hope Vera likes her birthday surprise!

The 'half day tour' turns out to be from 08:15 to 15:15, perhaps in HK that counts as a half-day, we were expecting 3 to 4 hours at most; it was very interesting and quite informative, too, telling us quite a bit about the history of HK, how people live, work and enjoy themselves here. Of course, it is very different to NZ not least of which is the fact that HK has a population of about 7.5 million in a very small area (about 1100 square km). As everyone knows it is now part of China but, as with Macau it forms what they call a 'special administrative area'. Since it was taken back by China in 1997 there have been some changes and quite a large part of the population has moved to mainland China. The tour included a visit to Dynasty Jewellery factory a ride to the Peak and descent by the Peak Tram which is a funicular and in places the gradient is 45 degrees. The harbour tour this morning was very appropriately (because we are doing a harbour tour tonight, that will be the main harbour area, but hush, she doosn't know yet) within the harbour area where there are a lot of 'residential junks' where people actually live full time (they call it Harbour City). The 'official' numbers now are 5800 people doing this whereas some years ago there were many, many thousands living this way, the HK government is intent on steadily reducing the numbers. I suspect that they won't all be 'moved on' though, this is too big a tourist attraction for that to happen. It is said that, in its heyday, there was little actual water to be seen in the harbour; one could step out onto the first sampan and just keep walking, stepping from one sampan to the next right across the harbour!

Ronnie seems to be fairly happy now; the birthday surprise was a meal in the Rotunda revolving restaurant on the 62nd floor of a tower block with 360 degree views over Kowloon, Hong Kong Island and the harbour, with the nightly laser show playing at 8:00 pm. This was followed by a night time harbour cruise of about an hour. Surprise presents include a silk scarf purchased in Chrischurch (thanks for the help, Mo, she loves it!) and a white gold and amethyst ring purchased this morning (and altered for size and delivered within 6 hours!) Another small 'wear it now' present was a little Sterling Silver pendant necklace on a very fine chain and called 'The Dancing Couple' which is an exclusive design to Dynasty Jewellers. I am hoping that I might be in favour for a while now! Might as well be optimistic.

On returning to our suite (!) late after the harbour tour a birthday card has been delivered for Ronnie from 'the entire team at Holiday Inn Golden Mile' and signed, it seems by all the staff at the Executive Club! We have been visiting the Executive Club several times each day for tea, coffee, pastries and light snacks (all included with our room upgrade) and the staff there are really lovely, nothing being too much trouble. One of the girls, Nichole, has been particularly attentive to Ronnie since she found out it was going to be her birthday on Sunday, she is so sweet, to look at you would think she is hardly old enough to work but, as with most Chinese, she is always working really hard. (Ronnie says can she take her home please?)

This sampan took ten of us on a tour of the residential harbour (Harbour City) where apparently 5800 now live	As well as living here many people run businesses and these are two of the floating factories	An egret finds a peaceful spot amongst all this human activity

Sampans galore, hard to tell if these are residential, fishing or other industry (perhaps all three). Notice the recycled tyres.	Three blocks of highrise flats adjacent - would this be better or worse than living on the harbour? Or just different? These three blocks defied my attempts to count the floors, I gave up at sixty with plenty still to go!	A pair of fishing boats; these go well out into the South China Sea to trawl for their catch, must be quite hairy! And scary.

Floating restaurants are popular businesses, go fishing during the day, come home, sell your catch in your own restaurant. Sounds wonderful but I bet they work hard to make a living doing this!	One of the larger and more prestigious floating resaturants.	A floating harbour tour par excellence. Floating through the air!

Ronnie showing off the silver pendant necklace	The white gold and amethyst ring, beautiful.	The view from the restaurant just as dusk approaches and before the lights come on

Apologies for not showing any of the night time views from the revolving restaurant. My camera was not able to cope with the combination of low light levels and the multiple reflections from the restaurant windows (OK, so a bad workman blames his tools! I am NOT a very good photographer!) A word picture will have to suffice. The restaurant turns through 360 degrees in about one and a half hours and it takes us longer than that to munch our way through even a small part of the the buffet. The views are just completely staggering and I am devasté that I cannot show you, but you really had to be there. Neither of us could remember ever being presented with such a vast and varied selection of wonderful dishes. There were traditional Chinese dishes including a large Dim Sum selection, Japanese Sushi, a huge selection of seafood, salads galore, roast beef, lots of vegetables cooked, Chinese, Japanese and western style, and puddings to die for - Ronnie had a little cream puff with butterscotch sauce, Aloe jelly mousse and a strawberry marshmallow dipped in the chocolate fountain (well ..... it was her birthday). Now she has owned-up to the naughty bits she insists I tell you about the virtuous starters and main courses .......... all sorts of salads - a small spoonful of about eight different ones, roast rib of beef, lamb cutlet, crispy duck, sauteed potatoes, mixed steamed vegetables and pak choi. Now here goes for me ..... Lots of salads to start with ... then I tried the Sushi, some fish and shellfish, lots of different crispy pickled vegetables. After that I had a bowl of Chinese Daily soup, consisting of two root vegetables and some sort of white meat, tasted like rabbit (woops, sorry Puck) but probably wasn't (I didn't ask) in a clear soup, delicious. Then a Dim Sum selection and a few prawns, followed by roast beef, sauteed potatoes and steamed veg. Finally my all time favourite pudding, Creme Brulee. No wonder I have a stomach ache this morning! LOL.

Oh, by the way, Puck was asking about veggie crisps. Yes, they do have them in New Zealand and very nice they are too! Also there are lots of shops and market stalls in HK that specialise in nuts, dried fruit, veggie chips and crisps, all that sort of thing; pet rabbit paradise and not too bad for veggies and vegans!

1st March HONG KONG • Free day at our leisure [should help us get over last night's celebrations! WilF]. I have just checked the Blog chatroom and received my 'instructions for the day' from Poli. She wants to see her Mum wearing the scarf and the ring so I am going to have to be persuasive (or devious) with the camera later. Also I will try to sort out some decent photos from yesterday and last night. We both agree that we have enjoyed coming to see Hong Kong but that we would probably not be desperate to come back again. (We need be careful though with sweeping statements like this, when we first visited Malta we said something similar, then on the plane home we found ourselves saying things like 'next time we come we will have to see the ......... We have been back there times!). Ever since I first visited Singapore (1978 I think) I have wanted to see HK and compare the two. Silly really because apart from being Chinese the two places do not really compare - probably the closest I could come in comparing them would be to say that Singapore seems to me to be a more refined version of Hong Kong. Singapore is lovely and I would live there happily if I could. Hong Kong is noisy, has wall-to-wall people almost everywhere, is a bit grubby and smelly in places (not as bad as London though) but it is certainly an exciting place and one of the 'must visit' destinations of our world. It has increased my 'now I can die happy' index by several points anyway! Having said those derogatory things about it I feel I need to point out that the streets are kept clean, there are always people employed to sweep up rubbish and even dead leaves; the toilets are always maintained impeccably and there is NO grafitti. People seem self-contained but are always polite when you do interact with them.

Ronnie and Jane (one of the more refined ladies from our tour, oh God I must sound such a snob!) are hoping to go fabric-seeking today, HK being one of the best places to buy silk, they both want to take home enough to make a dress with. We have already sorted-out a couple of likely shops for them to start with. I will just slop-around and work on my blog, and I may go and look for a local book or two about HK.

When we visit the Executive Club this morning Ronnie's friend Nicole greets us and collapses it an uncontrollable fit of the giggles when I ask if it was she who was responsible for the birthday card. She seems to be delighted that she was able to add to Ronnie's happiness on her birthday, all very touching.

Arrival at London Heathrow Airport should be early afternoon where we hope to be 'whisked-through' the formalities rapidly for our journey home by taxi and hopefully we should be back by tea time (but the day will be 'stretched' by eight hours).

After a leisurely breakfast we go out to see if we can find a silk pureyor; Ronnie has been out already but hasn't been able to see anything she likes so we are going up Nathan Road (northwards) to see if we can find the place recommended by Nicole. On the way we find another shop that is actually a bespoke tailors but also sells a multitude of fabrics by the yard. Little English is spoken but this is a good sign that we may have found a local shop that does not have a particularly 'tourist' bias. Ronnie finds two complimentary fabrics, a lovely plain silk in silver grey and a complimentary cotton patterned fabric and we are able to get a 10% discount by getting the fabric in metres and paying for yards; I try for a better price but this is the best we can do. No problem, because we would never be able to find anything of this quality at home anywhere near these prices, if at all.

On the way back to the hotel we discover Kowloon Park which has, amongst other delights, a Chinese Garden and a Sculpture Park so we linger for a few minutes in the calm atmosphere only yards from Nathan Road; we can still hear the traffic and the people but it just seems calm and unhurried here where few have penetrated. We just wander and take a few photographs and then just sit under the trees and chill out. I think Nathan Road must be the busiest shopping street in the world, they call it the Golden Mile but it is over five kilometres long. The edge of the park is no more than 30 yards from the street but there are few people here, those that are here are quietly enjoying the relative peace, just like us. If you ever come to Hong Kong, seek it out, you will be glad you did.



Hmmmmmm! Next time we come here ......................... I didn't think I liked 'plastic' hotels. But Holiday Inn Golden Mile has caused me to have a rethink. It's obscenely expensive, quite enormous at eighteen floors with 40 rooms per floor, but I have to say that it DOES have some character and I have never seen another Holiday Inn that comes anywhere near it for comfort and friendliness. Oh well, we live and learn ...........

2nd March HONG KONG to LONDON • Today we have an early start to get to Hong Kong Airport for our flight to London. I am putting-off asking Tour East for a collection time but I know the plane leaves at 08:15 am and they like you to check-in 3 hours beforehand and it's a 45 minute ride to the airport .................... and we need to shower, dress and pack, and check-out. .............. Oh, bugger, not much point in going to bed tonight is there? (Shall we just wander off to the airport now?)

We did get a fax message from Tour East yesterday afternoon and it could have been worse as the collection time is to be 5:15 am. The taxis arrive ok and we are all transported in our own taxis to the airport; seems a little inefficient but we have all paid for separate taxis so that is what they provide. When we check in we find that there is some air traffic delay over China and our departure will be delayed by an hour. Ronnie is feeling a little 'off' this morning so lack of breakfast has been no bad thing (we both had fish and chips last night, so it probably serves us right). Mostly the shops and cafes in the airport are still closed at this early hour.

The plane takes off at about 9:30 and estimated arrival at Heathrow is now 2:30 pm so we should still get home round about 6:00 pm with luck. The whole of this flight should be completed in daylight for a change. The first 5 hours or so find us flying over China and there is thick cloud to start with so we cannot see anything on the ground. Later though, the cloud clears quite a bit and we start to see quite a lot of surface detail over central China. There is a large snow-covered mountain range and later we are flying over a high plateau, also snow covered but we manage to spot some villages here and there. We emerge from China at about 2:00 pm local time (6 hours ahead of UK) which is about half way through the flight and indicates just how vast a country China is. Presumably we are now over Siberia, but I will have to check this later.

It is now 3:00 pm local time and we have had two meals so far. Breakfast (the first one today for us but the third one for those who flew on this plane from Auckland) was six hours ago and we have just had afternoon tea, sandwiches, scones and tea or coffee. The food and drinks and the service on Air New Zealand are excellent. Some people are sleeping but that seems wrong at 3:00 pm so I am writing bits for my blog and organising my video clips ready for uploading when I get home. I have decided to put them all on the web for starters; I was going to prune them down but I will put them all on and you can decide what you want to look at (if anything). I am hoping to edit the clips into a longish video at some stage (feature film! LOL).

I have put my watch back another six hours to UK time and it is now 11:15 and we are flying over Moscow; sadly it is cloudy so there is nothing to be seen. We will probably be having another breakfast soon .............. No, that's unfair, it will be lunch and no doubt it will be another nice meal. I notice from the flight information panel that there have been very high winds at places along the route, well over 100 km/hr in places. Someone mentions that there have been serious storms in europe over the past few days, but I am not in listening mode ..........

It's the end of a holiday and I have very mixed feelings. It is always a sadness when a trip comes to an end but this has been a long one and I am ready to come home. The blog has been good for me; I have enjoyed writing up some of our adventures and selecting pictures to go with the words. I normally write some sort of journal when we travel but this has been more of a discipline because I know other people have been reading it too. I hope that you have enjoyed at least some of it. I shall be glad to be back, to meet up again with a friend or two, a daughter and a son-in-law, and a nephew. It's good to be home! I am going back to work, voluntary work but work none the less and that will take me to Bognor Regis and London each week or two for the next few months and I am looking forward to it. You can't imagine how much! Perhaps you can, our friends (and our families) are the most important things in our lives aren't they? And during this trip I have made contact with a 'lost' member of my family; we will meet soon, I hope, and that alone will make the blog worth the effort. Take care, friends, and may your God go with you!

Video update: I have started to put a few of the shorter videos on the web, if you go to page Video index you will find an index - title is descriptive and there is an indication of size also. They take quite a long time to download but should start automatically.

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