The Dome of St Paul's Cathedral

St Paul's Cathedral

The first opportunity we had after settling in to our flat in Highwoods, Colchester, we took a Saturday trip to visit Paul in London. Having watched the All Blacks demolish Italy, we spent a couple of hours visitng St Paul's Cathedral across the new Millenium Bridge. St Paul's was the marriage venue for Charles and Diana some years ago but for us, the climb to the upper balconies was more memorable. Winding steps seemingly going on forever upwards (were there 400+ steps?)spiralled into narrowness but at last opened up onto a crowded balcony from which views over a leaden London spread underneath us. You could almost feel the pomp and ceremony in the whispering gallery and the serious history in the basement burial tombs of, amomgst others,Horatio Lord Nelson, Sir Christopher Wren, the Duke of Wellington and Florence Nightingale.

Amongst the cloud on The Peak, Hong Kong Island

Jordan Rd, Hong Kong in the early evening

Kowloon skyscrapers from Kowloon Park

Hong Kong was an amazing place: population density and high rise accommodation were more than picures could ever indicate. Just so intensely jammed together sometimes apartments not too much bigger than a bed space. Eating out and laundromats preclude the necessity of anything beyond bed space. On the harbours around Aberdeen on the south of Hong Kong Island the rich (apparently) but near destitute looking fishing communities do more than eke out their exisrence fising: if there's no fish catch then tourists pay to be transported around and through the fishing villages where boat dwellers live in boats as big (if not bigger some of them) as apartments with no rental fee (because they are not taking up landspace) and paying no Government taxes. And the August heat and humidity were very overwhelming. Three showers a day to get rid of dust and sweat and wet from the summer rains. For three days the clouds hung low and pregnant over Victoria Harbour like the world was closing in from the hills that characterise both Kowloon and Hong Kong Islands. At another time of year Hong Kong would make a great stopover on the way to Northern Europe but would need to get out into the New Territories and into mainland China. There is not a lot to do but the experience was well worth having. What a history: proudly and richly presented in the Museums: Art, Natural and Space - three separate insitiutions all with their own different contributions to make about Hong Kong's turbulent and sometimes brutally violent past.
But for these tourists no bag space = no shopping (yet it is a shopper's paradise!). Maybe next time. And just to put the icing on the Honk Kong cake our flight out to London Heathrow was delayed 15 hours - so nice of them (Air New Zealand) to feed us with huge buffet meals (breakfast, lunch and dinner) and put us up in 5* luxury at the Airport Hotel. A great way to while away the time -and what's more we got to fly out to London at 12.30 ish am, a much easier flight on which to sleep than the day flight. And so then to our arrival in England.