The sky I'm told is blue is looking very grey

Well people, where should I start?

With a great big thank you to friends old and new who helped me get here, especially Big Paul and Misch. I couldn't have done it without them.

After a night to remember with said new friend, and waving her off at the station, Paul helped me pack - he was chuffed that with what I was taking and the lightweight amount, which made me feel better... then took me to the airport... Big emotional hugs, with a combined weight of 33 stone. You do the maths!

After phoning loved ones to say goodbye, I was seated on the plane next to 40 year old yummy-mummy-to-be Amanda from Bris Vegas. We chatted about Generation X and Y and concluded that I fell into both categories, interesting stuff. She was cool.

We chatted to the Chinese cabin crew in the two universal languages invented by the Victorians - Pollution and The Weather. Apparently on the day after national holidays when the Chinese factories close the smog clears. Alex Ho, our steward remembers his childhood in Hong Kong when the sky was blue not grey. Probably around the same time he was dressing up his sister's dolls, I thought to myself.

While Amanda slept, as anyone who knows me will confirm, I did not sleep well... well; I did not sleep at all, which explains much of what you're about to read...

Hong Kong airport is cool, and I mean icy cool - you have to get a TRAIN to the arrivals and baggage collection. Going outside for a cigarette, that's when it hits you... I've been to hot countries before but this was something else entirely. It was like being punched in the ovaries, or being branded. I swear I'm gonna start menstruating in a few days.

India, Australia and Fiji are all darned hot, but this humidity clings to you like a girl you don't love as much as she loves you. Its more oppressive that a Zimbabwean Barbecue. There is no respite from it. One day in and I've given up trying to look cool or have a haircut.

I got the express train (think Stanstead Express but quiet, air-conditioned and almost Japanese) into Kowloon watching the sun set behind me. The sun looks so different in the East - rounder somehow and more orange; like.... an orange. Dusk lasts about fifty-five seconds on the Orient and day became night in the blink of an eye. Transferring to a bus, the driver proceeded to drive round in circles for the best part of an hour, no exaggeration - we went thru the same bus station FOUR times, he finally dropped me off at my hotel, which was nice. At least we went past the Yington Currrency Services and the GOFUKU Center, both of which made me chuckle. Walking across the road felt like running a half-marathon and I felt a tad embarrassed to walk in to a hotel obviously so plush just from the look of its garage, wearing what I was wearing and sweating like a rapist. I could see what the concierge was thinking the smug little bastard; he was thinking "we don't allow wet T-shirt contests here, Sir".

After the obligitory ten minutes of "just resting my eyes" I knew what I needed - FOOD!
I walked out of the hotel and across the road forgetting one thing - cars were for roads, not people... I'll wait til that policeman crosses as he won't jaywalk, that's for sure. He's got a gun. "cool" said my inner child, but what shoud I do with my cigarette butt? Should I ask him what to do? I zipped across the road while it burnt down to my fingers... He's gone, I'll just stub it out on this bin... Within seconds, and before you could say "Boxer Rebellion" aforementioned cop and fifteen of his armed colleagues had me in their crosshairs. I was surrounded. With all of them shouting in Canton and Mandarin, the English trumpeted above through a tannoy "Step away from the cigarette"

Thinking on my feet, as is my want, I quickly picked the cigarette butt out of the bin and ate it... Destroy the evidence I thought and seconds after I did so, the first cop began to laugh. One-by-one all the others joined in. Even I nervously joined in until, lickety split we were all beside ourselves, laughing like old friends. My eyes closed from the tears and when I opened them again I was alone... I was hallucinating. A half-second fantasy that my jet-lagged brain couldn't tell from reality.

Phew! that was like poppers, when time slows down and everything goes a bit sci-fi... I rounded another corner and there I was... On the set of Blade Runner. Was this real? Was I hallucinating again or was I tucked up at home in bed still dreaming all of this? I reached across my imaginary bed; nope, not dreaming. I pinched myself. This was real, I was wheelie, wheelie in Hong Kong.

After amazing street food I had a wander, but not too far from the hotel in case the Cylons attacked. I turned yet another corner from a main street lined with McDonalds and HSBC's (Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corp) into a side-street cum alley that was dotted with pretty Chinese girls... I didn't really know there was such a thing. They're all beautif... Wait a minute... Oh I see.

Maybe the term "cum alley" was right the first time... My brain ached and I needed to get home.

The lift of the hotel is just like Channnel 4 at Horseferry Road, but this one kept going up and up and up and up. 20th floor for me, one from the top. I exited the lift expecting to see Rutger Hauer or for someone in my room to subject me to a Voight-Kampf test, but alas no. Sleep came like a drug, or more like a raising and falling elevator. Don't fight it, Will... feel it.

After 5 hrs sleep I was wide awake, a couple of cigarettes outside and a chat with a Londoner about plumbing (well, he talked about plumbing while I secretly hated him) it was time to try and muster some more sleep...

I awoke in Kowloon for the second time (8hrs sleep in total, well done me!) pulled the blinds and said the word "Wow!" to myself as I surveyed the first of many new kingdoms. Victoria Peak jutted out higher than any of the skyscrapers, even the one Batman stands on in The Dark Knight trailer (no, I still haven't seen it)

I placed my hand on the glass and the "Wow" was soon replaced with an "Ow!"
Today was gonna be a scorcher!

There was even a little blue sky.
I thought to myself "so long as there is blue sky and three-pin plugs, Hong Kong will remain ours"

After a swim in the roofside pool (highly unusual for me) I had some food and a massage (that's more like it) whilst I waited for my friend Big Gay Sam who lives in China to call. He eventually did but because of the Olympics was having visa trouble so cannot get to HK from the mainland without them barring him going home, or something. We decided we'd meet up in Thailand instead.

And so that brings me to here, Starfuckers. One tenth of the price of wireless in the hotel, some things are worth going against your inner morals for... Never have I been so glad to see a McDonalds sign directing me home last night like a giant pair of red and yellow, north pointing breasts. In the time its taken me to write this day has again turned to night, but I don't feel so tired and foreign today so am heading to Lan Kwai Phong where the backpackers hang out.

Next stop Thailand. Now what was I just saying about morals...