The best laid plans of mice....and Sandra!

Flushed with her success with public transport yesterday, today Sandra set us a more ambitious target - to get to Aberdeen by bus. Identifying the M590 as the appropriate bus we found the bus stop beside the Hong Kong Jockey Club, however a "just in case "trip to a nearby loo meant we missed it.

Undismayed, a quick change of destination and we waited for one of the small local buses to take us to Stanley Market - a small town on the south coast with - a market! It arrived after a few minutes but the doors closed before we could get on. Undeterred by closed doors, a quick push and she was on. However, undeterred by pushy foreign women, the driver put her off - the bus was full!

A local woman, obviously taking pity on hapless foreigners, came to our assistance and suggested we might like to take a trip to "The Peak" as it was a nice day and the views would be spectacular. As this had been our original idea for the day anyway we took her instructions and headed up Queens Road East to get the Number 15 bus. After a 10 minute wait along came the 15, on we jumped only to find the bus wasn't going to The Peak but the opposite direction -- - we had been waiting on the wrong side of the road!! The photo shows a slightly fed up Sandra waiting for the 15 bus, but this time on the right side of the road.

The reason we had decided not to go to The Peak (the mountain overlooking Hong Kong) was it was a bit misty and we thought this would spoil the view. Needless to say, we were right and the local was wrong. Halfway up, the mist came down and, as you can see from the photo, the view was somewhat obscured. I was reminded of the time a few years ago in Italy when Sandra force marched me - on crutches - to the top of Mt Vesuvius as the view over the Bay of Naples was breath-taking. Or at least it would have been if we could have seen it!

At The Peak we found a very modern shopping mall complete with Starbucks and of course Macdonalds - once inside you could have been anywhere. It just seemed a bit incongruous. That said, there were plenty of wooded walks and the views were pretty spectacular on occasions when the sun came through.

Sandra's shopping instincts then re-surfaced and a trip to Stanley Market was called for. An hour or so later, and two more bus journeys, found us walking through the market stalls in Stanley. Sandra was very restrained as, thankfully, we were just on our weight limit for the next flight to Sydney. Stanley itself was strange, reminiscent of an out of season holiday resort in Spain with all the local council workmen getting the placed spruced up for the tourist season. A waterfront promenade had the usual array of bars, shops and cafes - and I'm sorry to confess I

even stooped to having a pint of Guinness in a bar called the Happy Pelican (or some such name)

Seven o'clock and back to Hong Kong city for an excellent dinner in a Chinese restaurant called the Peking Garden. Our only identified gaffe was to tell the waiter to take away the pot of Chinese tea he brought at the start of the meal and asked him for two pints of beer - Philistines! Everyone else in the place started their meal with tea.

Anyway, last day in Hong Kong tomorrow then on to Sydney. I'll try to get Sandra to do a bit more blogging tomorrow. Her problem is, when she gets back to the room after a day out, she hits the bed and is out for the count.