what do you see?

Monday morning, after our quick weekend in Sapporo. We got the night bus from Kitami on Friday, and managed to get a surprising amount of sleep before our arrival at just before 6am. It was hauntingly dark at that time, surprising as usually it gets blindingly bright ridiculously early here...anyway, we wandered around kind of aimlessly until Starbucks opened at 7.30...the rest of the day was mostly spent shopping and walking a lot. The few old buildings left in Sapporo are very interesting to vist, gives you a lonely feeling thinking of the early pioneers setting up the city. We checked into our hotel (tiny room, but OK, especially for the special half-price deal we found) at 2 and slept a while before going back out for more shopping, dinner (at a realy nice Asian restaurant) and a look at the Christmas illuminations, and "German village" set-up selling various souvenirs and foods from fake log-cabins!

On Sunday we checked out and had breakfast in a different coffee shop. Then we headed for the shops again, via the botanical gardens (closed on Sundays!) and the famous "Clock Tower", another old wooden building still standing in the centre of the city. We had lunch at a branch of "Lion" (beer hall/restaurant chain) - a nice one, with semi-private concrete "rooms" for each table and then killed some time before the bus back at 4.30 (got home around 9.30). So a good weekend in some relatively busy city-life.

Another sunny day, in the sunniest city in Japan. Probably also the coldest too now. Saw a couple of icicles this morning. And everywhere the haunting sound of cars running on winter tyres...

New look site. What do you think? Still working on it...

OK, here's Hong Kong in a medium-sized nutshell (I'm posting it incomplete, and then I'll fill in more later):

Wednesday (29th October) - after our 5 hour bus trip to Sapporo, leaving home at 6.45am, and then train to the airport and 5 hour flight, we arrived in HK around 9pm, the flight was a little early. Our bag was the first on the carousel, so we headed off to the airport express, changing money in an automatic exchange machine (I've always wondered when they'd get round to using them!) on the way. We found our way easily to the subway, and then the hotel. Got an upgrade to a suite room on the 31st floor (well, not really 31st as there was no floor 4, 7 or 13 (to leave out various unlucky numbers)!), not a lot smaller than our apartment here! We went out briefly to the local supermarket for a few snacks, and then slept...

Thursday - room service breakfast, just like in the movies. Then we went out and headed for the Peak - the famous hill overlooking the city, with a really steep funicular railway up to it. We walked around up there for quite a while, saw some incredibly expensive looking property. Then we went back to the hotel briefly and ordered pizza.
Shopping.

Friday - Halloween! Star Ferry. Kowloon. More shopping.

Saturday - our last day. Ferry again. More shopping.

Sunday - left the hotel around 7am, had a pretty uneventful journey back to Kitami.

Pictures of Hong Kong are now on the pictures site, I deleted the Trains and Stations album to make way for it...

First of all, sorry for the lack of Hong Kong info. I just can't find time to write at the moment. And, just after my last post it did snow a little! It’s been sprinkling with snow on and off over the last couple of days, not really settling though, melting within minutes. But I suppose winter's here now, suddenly...

Or not! Haven't had time yet. We had a great time basically, it's a really cool city. Cold and wet here now, no real frost yet though, certainly no snow.

We're back, a little tired as you can imagine, full report coming up tomorrow perhaps...