Hong Kong and the Rugby Sevens!!

After a long journey via Taipei, we finally arrived in Hong Kong the morning of the start of the Rugby Sevens, with only tickets for the friday. We found the company organising our shuttle bus to the hotel and they kindly upgraded us to the "limousine", which was actually just a people carrier with a crazy driver! We reached our hotel in Kowloon pretty quickly and checked in easily. Upon arrival Laura got an email from Philip Woolf, Kate's friend from school saying he had tickets for the whole weekend at standard price and we were over the moon! We went to go and buy a Hong Kong sim card so we could contact Philip and Tom Morgan-Harris, Charlie's house mate from Uni who is currently living in Hong Kong with Immi Miller. We got hold of Philip and arranged a meeting time to get the tickets, and wandered around Mong Kong and the Ladies Market where we purchased some needed bargains such as Charlie's "D&G" shoes and Laura's bag. (At last I didn't have to carry everything around for her!). We went back to the Hotel, got ready for our evening of rugby and found a bus that would take us to the Hong Kong Football Club to meet Philip to get the tickets. We met Philip, had a quick chat, got our tickets and headed straight to the stadium. This was the beginning of a weekend filled with rugby! We found a good viewing spot, bought a 2 litre jug of beer and soaked in the atmosphere. After a few games and some epic rugby, Fiji giving a good beating to their trembling opponents, Tom and Immi arrived, we caught up with them for ages, chatting about travelling and how everything was going for them in Hong Kong, drank more beer and headed to the top stand to watch some more rugby, including a narrow victory for England at the end of the night. We then headed on to a local sports bar to chat some more, eat "monkey nuts" and nachos and have a few more beers. We decided to head home after this as we were all shattered from either work or our long journey. 

We woke up the following morning definitely feeling the effects of the beers the night before, but battled on and headed to the stadium for a full day of sun and rugby, but not before heading to Laura's favourite bakery, Panash, for some ham and cheese croissants. We spent most of the saturday in the stands watching the rugby with Laura claiming she was enjoying it more as Charlie was feeling a little worse for wear and staying quiet, until England came on! After a long day of rugby, we both decided that it would be best to head home and have an early one to try and be on form for the next day of rugby.

We woke up on the Sunday bright and early as the best games, the quarters of the cup, were first. Some quality rugby was played, not necessarily by England, with Fiji looking like the easy favourite and Laura deciding that if England didn't win she wanted Fiji to win. Just as the good rugby finished Immi and Tom arrived with Immi's Uncle. We found them by the entrance and chatted, drinking beer and basking in the beautifully warm sun for a while before deciding to head up to the stands, in which no alcohol was allowed. After a while Tom decided that Immi's designer hand bag was big enough to smuggle a jug of beer in with so he emptied her things out and sent her off to get some beer. This was a great success and the beer began to flow again. England lost in the semi's and subsequently lost in the 3rd/4th play off, but it was great to see Fiji take on the team of the moment in sevens at this current moment, New Zealand and beat them comprehensively to take the most prestigious cup of the World Sevens Series. After the rugby we head to the Valley Rugby Club Tent after bumping in to Charlie's friend from school, Ciaran, who was dressed as a sheep. After more beer in the Valley Tent, we headed to Wan Chai, to go to the legendary Carnegies Bar. By this point we had lost Tom and Immi and found ourselves both with random hats on, Charlie's a sombrero and Laura's a chinese hat and hung around chatting with randomers and dancing before heading back to the Hotel. 

Most of Monday was spent in bed nursing our hangovers, but we decided to make the most of our time in Hong Kong and we hopped on the MTR to TST (Tsim Sha Tsui) where we enjoyed a stroll in the fresh air and took some photos of the great view across the harbour of Central. We then headed to Harbour City Mall, recommended by Ron, and had a delicious dinner at Pizza Express, with probably the best view from any Pizza Express in the world (again, looking out over Central).

Tuesday was spent at the Ladies Market, this time for a proper session whilst we browsed all the stalls yet didn't make any purchases (rare for us) and then headed to Mongkok Computer Centre which was an eye-opening experience into the world of the asian technology market! We decided to head back to TST in the evening to see the rather touristy Light Show, with synchronised green lasers and multi-coloured lights being shot into the sky from the various buildings over the water in Central, in time with some rather strange "music". Laura persuaded Charlie to try some of the local food so we headed to the cheapest, decent-looking restaurant where Charlie had pork and noodles and Laura had prawn dumplings with noodles and bok choy. We both left the strange soup that we were given that smelt very similar to pet food (not very appealing). We walked home from TST rather than catching the MTR, via the Temple Street Night Market where we haggled for a fake rolex for Laura and also bought a new wallet for Charlie. Satisfied with our purchases, we headed home.

On Wednesday we decided to have a lazy morning and get some much-needed washing done. We had a delicious and cheap lunch at the restaurant at the hotel we were staying at (Thai fried rice and sweet and sour pork) before arranging to meet Philip for a drink later at the Football Club. On our way to meet Philip we had a call from Ron Tsang, one of Charlies best friends from school, who lives in Hong Kong and had landed earlier that morning. He kindly agreed to come and pick us up after our dinner and take us up to The Peak to have a look at the view over Hong Kong. After a few drinks and a yummy burger and pizza at the football club (thank you Philip!), we headed to where Ron has told us he would pick us up. The rest of the evening was spent catching up with Ron and his girlfriend Katie, taking in the stunning view at the top of The Peak and meeting Ron and Katies friends over a few drinks in Lang Kwai Fong. 

Early on Thursday morning we headed to Esprit in TST, where Laura had booked a hair cut. After arriving nearly 45 minutes late, the hairdresser finally arrived and after two hours the haircut was complete (longest haircut EVER). Ron then picked us up in his yummy white Scirocco and drove us over to Lantau where we spent the afternoon visiting the Tian Tau Budda, the monastery and lighting some incense and saying some prayers. After our cultural experience, Ron decided our Hong Kong visit would not be complete without a quick snack of sushi so Charlie braved the unfamiliar and slightly crazy Hong Kong traffic  and drove us safely back to Central. Laura tried some sea urchin and salmon roe sushi whilst Charlie, who "doesn't like sushi", loved the tuna nigiri and the prawn tempura sushi. We then headed upto Katies house, and sipped champagne whilst looking out over the incredible views of Central from her patio (from the other side this time). Our evening was spent eating a delicious meal in a lovely candle-lit restaurant at the top of The Peak (thank you SO much Ron) with steak for Charlie and king prawns for Laura, followed by a dessert of chocolate fondant. A few mojitoes later at a bar in Kowloon and we were feeling very merry and ready for bed as we had an early start the next morning and still hadn't packed!