Hong Kong was new. I had never traveled anywhere outside of England on my own, and thus making my way to London, and getting onto a 12 hour flight into the abyss was surprisingly scary. Little did I know that I would do most of my ‘learning’ during my 1 week stay in HK.

Having spent 12 hours on a plane, I waited a further 3 hours for my friend Andy in the airport. He was on a different flight.
My first tip: synchronize flights well because waiting on your own in a foreign country is extremely tedious.

We had booked our accommodation in advance at the ‘Yes Inn’. We followed the printed out directions, and made our way there. Unfortunately (as we later found out) they could not afford to pay for a sign on the building. Their offices were on the 5th floor of a block in the center of Hong Kong, and they had no sign !
Tip 2: Do not carry more than 10kg around the world. It is hard deciding what to take, but you will thank me in the long run. Everything you pack, you have to carry…. whilst you look for unmarked accommodation !

Hong Kong is a nice place. It is a city, and therefore it follows that it is busy. They have a completely different culture to the UK. If you are expecting a bunch of really friendly, hospitable people, and a load of road side cafes you are in the wrong place. I to this day do not know what I expected but I went in to every country prepared for a different culture, and boy did I get it.

I do not like Hong Kong food. They like their ‘cooked on the street, chickens with heads on’ style of cooking, and that is not for me. Fortunately there are an abundance of KFCs, McDonalds, and Burger Kings.
On one occasion we did enter a street side market which sold what seemed like every possible time of animal. This include frogs, pigeons, fish, snails etc etc Problem was they were all living, and being killed on the spot. I like fresh food, but food where you can still see the heart beating is a little too fresh. Furthermore they wonder why avian flu was a problem…

The people are evil. It is more than likely the cultural differences, but my experiences of the people were as follows: They WILL NOT move out the way of tourists, even if you are 7ft 9 and 600 pounds; They like shouting (even though you cannot understand them); and they WILL surprise you (see Burning Woman. These statements are not meant to cause offense, it is merely my honest opinion from first hand experience.

We spent some time looking around Hong Kong. We admired the architecture. We learned about the history: it was developed by the British, and then handed back to the Chinese. We visited the Walk of Fame. The main reason however for which we came to Hong Kong was the Rugby Sevens tournament.

Picture the scene: rugby sevens day one. We find the stadium. We go back to the room, I have left my glasses. We return to the stadium, and attempt to enter the ‘South Stand’. I am denied entry because I need my passport to verify my age, a UK Driving license is not acceptable. Eventually with a bit of small talk, and trickery we both get in, and the drinking commences….

We drunk a LOT of alcohol. We both had a large jug of beer at every instant. We smoked, we drunk, and we chatted to people. Fast forward 5 hours: we have watched 10 minutes of rugby, we are extremely intoxicated (to such an extent that Andy is meeting random people by asking them if they know ‘Insert Made Up Name Here’).

During this time we meet some heroic characters including ‘Tom Midgley’, owner of ‘Cafe Paradiso’ (If you read this Tom, please drop me an email), as well as a group of upper class, under age girls (whom we were more than happy to buy alcohol for). We also met a group of Londoners after hearing one shout ‘Lets go and f***ing kill him’ !

Fast forward again. After heading out to the infamous ‘Wan Chai’ amongst other places, and having all our drinks paid for by our newly found friends we headed back home, unable to walk/see. Long story short I proceeded to throw all my money at the taxi driver and run off because I could not count. Little did I realize I had given him about 40x too much, and had also left my wallet on the seat (which contained our tickets for the other two days). I will never know if he was shouting in anger or to inform me of the left wallet…

Tip Three... don’t get insanely drunk, don’t take everything you own out in your wallet, and even though you may look like a dick get a chain to chain your wallet to your person.

The trip could never be brilliant after this point. Trying to find a wallet in vain with a massive hangover and 0 hours sleep sucks. Working out how to get money when I had lost my wallet was a mission also. Moral is.. always have an emergency bank card, and don’t keep both cards together.

Eventually we found the funny side of it, I got my life back on track, and we had some fun.
A trip to Hong Kong must involve a night out in Wan Chai, and a night out in Lan Kwai Fong.

Most memorable moment? Trying to get into a bar which cost £30GBP without paying by trying to crawl under the managers legs and running into the lifts.