As much as I try I cannot direct around this city

After not the best of days Friday, we all awoke with high hopes for the weekend ahead. Amrit only had 2 days left in HK before returning home and Selina and I intended to enjoy ourselves before the conference started on Monday.

So off we headed, octopus caards in check, to Causeway Bay, Hong Kongs major designer shopping area. I've been to Causeway Bay before, and they are the original home of my Staccato shoes so I thought I knew my way around. However being brought here by a local last year and travelling on the MTR proved to be a very different experience. We walked round and round and round for ages as I couldn't remember where to go and where we were walking had no resemblence to anywhere i'd been before. After a couple of hours, some rain and not much luck at finding the Plaza, we stopped for food which consisted of a hot dog for me, potato wedge things for Amrit and street food style veg for Selina. We then found a shopping centre and started on the clothes shopping. After a couple of hours we met up with Jack and hung out in Victoria park for a while, then continued shopping.

After a few credit card spends later, we were ready to head home - bags in tow. Amrit was hungry to say the least and headed off to eat near our hotel, however Selina and I wanted to shower and drop the shopping before eating so we had a separate dinner date in a chinese restaurant on the terrace.

Sunday was a much better day - we all had a lay in and Selina and I headed to the conference registration mid morning and then had a meeting with lecturer to discuss presentations and the conversation inevitably got around to my phd application form and it lack of appearance on my tutors desk...oops!

Selina had plans for the evening so I headed from the Marco Polo across to Central to meet Amrit and we got the bus across the island to Repulse Bay. In typical Hong Kong style it started to rain, and when it rains here my god does it rain. We stood on the beach in the 30 degree heat with shoes off and the rain pouring down. I was went through from head to toe but after a while it felt pretty good.

Sunday night involved packing up as we moved to a different hotel monday morning as we no longer needed a triple room as Amrit was leaving. Our new hotel isn't as posh as our first one but still, it isn't on the 15th floor of a back street shopping centre with an MDF lift! Its small but comfortable and will do until I leave, which is getting scarily close now.

I can't believe that this time in 4 days I'll be another several thousand miles around the world in NZ with Jason, it doesn't quite feel real. I have a plan straight in my head of how I want my time to New Zealand to be, and if I get my way it'll happen!