Wednesday, November 28, 2007

As we approached our hotel - BP International - in Kowloon, Daniel thought "wow, there's a scout building in Kowloon". (It's the smaller building on the right).


Then he realised... BP = Baden Powel = founder of scouting = our hotel! We can highly recommend this hotel for great service and a nice environment at a very reasonable price.







The view from "the peak" is amazing. If you have time for anything touristy in Hong Kong, make sure you take the tram first.








The star ferry is a cheap and enjoyable way to get to Hong Kong Island in a matter of minutes. We had trouble finding this ferry initially - our advice is, don't try to catch it from the ocean-going ferry terminal in Kowloon! Nobody gave us clear directions... so just make sure you have a map, walk towards Hong Kong island and find it yourself. Another great alternative is the MRT (underground).






The view from our hotel room. We could see the headquarters of many multinational companies on Hong Kong island quite clearly. To name a few: Sharp, Panasonic, Toshiba, Canon, LG, Philips, Samsung.





Scaffolding in Hong Kong is economically efficient!










Sleeping pandas and hungry dolphins at ocean park. Very relaxing.













Lorri didn't want to ride the gondola, but it was the only (quick) way to get to the other side of "Ocean Park". These were scary, but breathtaking views that Daniel was happy to photograph. Lorri chose to look the other way at the side of the mountain.









Hong Kong skyscrapers, the northen Himalayas, and one of many amazing desert scenes.














Us with Anne in London, off to see the national science museum. We stayed with Anne in a cheap hotel in Earl's Court for 2 nights after we arrived. We caught up again with Marcus and Yvette (we were too busy enjoying ourselves to take photos).



We took a bus with Kurt to Louth to see Pete. Kurt only just caught the bus, because he was stuck in the tube for 20 minutes. As far as Pete knew, Kurt was "on holiday in Wellington with his Mum". We had a lot of fun that night during dinner at Pete's restaurant. The kitchen is in full view of the dining area, and Pete spent the night trying to work out who the mystery diner was (Kurt was obscured from view by some other people). It was such an awesome surprise when he had finished work!




We really enjoyed catching up with Pete and the kids again. Kurt was too tired from "jetlag" (a late night out at the pub) to resist Daniel building his masterpeice, much to Charlie's enjoyment.







Wales (a.k.a. Cymru) - we like to think we're bi-lingual in New Zealand, but we could always do better. Have you ever wondered how to spell "Statistics Office" in Welsh?





Wales has more castles per square mile than any other place in the British Isles! We travelled less than 100km to see all these.