More time in Hong Kong...

Today is the first day that I don't have to go anywhere today! Nothing much to do except for lunch with some aunties and uncles from my dad's side of the family and to see my sister off back to England tonight. For some reason I have to pay for their lunch today. It must be some conspiracy for them to get a free lunch as one of the aunties kept ordering more and more food after the initial order. Still at least the food is cheap here as lunch for eight of us was only thirty odd pounds.

The photo on the right is of the only train in and out of the local town Sheung Shui. I'm always amazed at how clean the trains are here, but then again they do need to have signs to tell people not to spit on the floor.

I saw an amazing big concrete park yesterday, lots of open flat concrete with steps and benches. Would have been a great place to skate around but the authorities have obviously thought of this as there were clear signs saying that you weren't allowed to skate there.

Had a fantastic Japanese meal last night with my sister and my cousin Stewart. I love Japanese food so much and it's so rare to find it in the UK and when you do find it, it is very expensive and not very fresh. Here it's cheap as chips and plentiful, hopefully it will be the same way in Sydney.

The picture above is of the waitress who served us. Some of the food that we ordered was a little strange and not quite to our taste, but most of it was very tasty.

This is an image of my parent's house in the New Territories of Hong Kong in Chau Tau village. It borders China and just behind the hill is a massive city in China. If you climb the hill you can see the barbed wire fence and the city in the distance complete with high rise buildings. At night there is an orange glow from behind the hill. I remember when the city used to be a small trading town for the border crossing but with all the construction lately the town has turned into a sky rise city.

Buried on the side of the hill are my deceased relatives. I think my dad once mentioned that there already is a plot for him and me on the hill side!

Behind my folks house is the rebuilt local village hall (and what used to be the village school where my dad went) where meetings are held on a regular basis to discuss local issues and to also allocate money made from recent sales of local property that is allocated to the family village as a whole. One really strange local law is that only males with the "Man" surname get an allocation of land and cash in the village. Any family females don't get squat, I don't think that this is law just a local tradition which is carried out in most places in Hong Kong. This of course means that I get some money and land, but my sister doesn't. I give her her fair share of course...