So it begins..

So,me and rich departed heathrow in a slapdash,generally disorganised manner that has stayed with us so far,plane journey was all fine,one of us pretentiously watching ancient french comedies with subtitles in the obvious hope some beautiful(and ignorant) girl would take a chance glance at his 'intellectual brilliance',and one of us watching crap romantic comedies unabashed (sure you can guess who's who..). And so we touched down in Hong Kong airport,a sterile, almost weirdly clean place and got the bus into Hong Kong which took around an hour.Tried to take photos in moving bus that was built for 3 foot pigmys,attempts desperately unsuccessful.Very obvious as you move from the suburbs into the main city of Hong Kong that welath increases proportionally, across some insane bridges that probably would've been a highlight in another country,but child's play in terms of HK architecture."suit,suit?watch,real rolex?(hashish?)"-the gloriously untactful salesman of hong kong, these were the words that greeted us, and after a day we had learnt to ignore them completely..our hostel was in a huge sprawling complex called Chung King mansions in Kowloon, it was a bit of a hole but very entertaining. The downstairs of the building was a huge set of shops,generally dodgy currency sellers,fake phones and dubious food, ahighlight being 'Ali Baba's food emporium'-Ali Baba as far as i could tell hadn't sold any of his 'genuine indian produce' in the whole period we stayed.Our hostel could have been called,germany,paris,singh or paris hostel,noone really knows;run by a bunch of indians who reeked of dodgy dealings- but we were paying next to nothing and they entertained us.The room also had an added bonus of having a shower,toilet and sink in a 2x2 metre square space-remarkable piece of invention if you ask me. We dropped our bags and strolled into the city,very sweaty(hardly surprising) and really smoggy (the sun only tended to break through at about 4 each day) we made it up to the botanical gardens but were both crippled by jet lag so crawled back to the hostel and slept till 10.badly needed. Then we went out in Hong Kong,was absolutely mad!The HK 7's was on so we strolled to Lan Kwai Fong, streets and streets of bars on Hong Kong Island, they ahd closed the roads due to sheer numbers of people, loads of fancy dress and rugby supporters of any number of nationality-alot of Aussies and Brits especially. It was awesome fun,rugby balls being thrown around and makeshift street line outs popping up all over the place-we were in our element. Alcohol was bloody expensive,though beer was sold in yards (lush) but cost 6 pounds a yard (not so lush), however in true cheap skate fashion me and Ricardo just popped to a 7 11(these shops are evrywhere-and a lifesaver) and sell 2 cans of most beer for about 1 pound 50-we therefore just stood and drunk these in the street, like loads of other people, no police around but a really cool party atmosphere.Next day was a little fragile,stumbled in at 6 after a night of debauchery (notabley a bar in Wang Chai (clubbing area) where we could dance on the bar-alot of regretful photos.) I must remind you we hadnt eaten in 36 hours and a night in hong kong during sevens isn't advisable,safe to say we only got up next evening and repeated actions,same fun occured if not even busier-encountered alot of english 25 year old toffs,wiiffing of Jack Wills and private school,generally nice but hi-lariously pompous..Oh yeah,we also went with alot of excitement to see the 'symphony of lights',big disappointment.In reality a few torches coming off the main buildings to a cacophony of crap classical chinese techno.baffling.Woke up before 12 next day,gave ourselves a big pat on the back,rich still pretending to have jetlag (or 'jet lad' as he has so wittily decided to call himself.yep,me neither.) but just being a bit weak. We took the famous star ferry across the harbour (only 25p people!) across to the business district,the buildings are ridiculous, the HSBC building and bank of china especially impressive, we climbed to the 43rd floor of Bank of China and could see over all Hong Kong and more.Had lunch in business district, food has been a great success in HK,sooo cheap,our haunt has been 'cafe de coral' which does lightning quick really nice chinese food which we attacked with chopsticks with limited success. Went up the peak over HK to get more spectacular views, bit of a tourist trap and a little regret we didn't do it at night, but the tram up was nice and exciting going to some crazy angles up HK mountain. HK also we have found is just an absolute maze, me and rich must have walked nearly 2 kilometres just in walways across hong kong without touching teh ground, everythign is planned perfectly and there are escalators everywhere,i have never escalated so much in my life-seems all a bit needless but one thing i'll say about HK is it is bloody efficient. Before flight yesterday went to museum of history, alot of expected propoganda about the glories of Hong Kong,but refreshingly showed some real accounts of death and destruction in the last 10 percent and a jolly funny chinese film which made the 1 pound entry fee totally worth it.Got to airport stupidly early-a bit of a curfuffle with visas, apparently me and rich can't just stroll into Australia without visas,honestly...sorted out by awesome staff in about a second.Rich,or calamity jane as we shall dub him from now on then left half his posessions on the other side of the border,lost a pile of documents and generally stumbled around like an oaf but somehow stumbled on the plane and then proceeded to lose his passport,which he eventually found in his shoe (the obvious logical safehouse.)After a sleepless flight we landed in Sydney today which is a-mazing.the city is really really nice and loads of people our age,met up with friends from Cirencester and around who are all really laid back and welcoming (T only met them properly today) went to the famous bondi beach later on which was mentally busy but alot of beach rugby and general relaxation in ridiculous heat,hoping to lose doughy physiques soon!(unlikely). Have really taken to Sydney, an improvement from our stop off at HK which was a bit too much of a big shop (especially considering we couldnt spend any money!)and seemed a bit sterile(but nightlife was unreal) Having an amazing time in huge hostel in central Sydney and will keep you posted soon!G'day xxxx