An English gentleman's day

Our second day in Hong Kong, our first full day - we had a lazy morning in the slightly more plush hotel we stayed in for the last night of the tour, knowing that we'd be checking in to a hostel later in the day.

In the morning, we took a walk down Nathan Road in Kowloon, on the mainland - looking to buy a suit for my wedding present from Fiz. Towards the bottom of the road there is a large Indian contingency, or at least there seems to be - as we were offered a tailor made suit every 4 or 5 paces. We knew where we were heading though as my Dad had recommended a place to buy a suit, and when we reached Punjab House tailors (suit providers for Fulham FC and a number of celebs it turns out) we could tell it was a quality place. Anyway, after much haggling and choices of fabrics, etc I agreed a price for a new suit and it is being made for me while we're here.

In the afternoon, we checked in to our hostel - to say this place is a bit of a change to our last hotel would be an understatement. Whilst its relatively clean and there's at least enough room to swing a bag, our 'bathroom' is contained in one large shower cubicle, so when you're taking a shower you can also sit on the loo!

So we are now staying on Hong Kong Island and spent some time taking in our new surroundings. We visited the Hong Kong yacht club and sat around in Victoria Park for a while, where they have a big lake dedicated to cruising your model boats!

In the evening we did what the locals did and went to final night of the horse races at Happy Valley racecourse, on the recommendation of the Aussie from our tour group. It turns out though that it's not just the locals but it seems every ex-pat in HK was there too! The atmosphere and the setting were incredible - the racecourse is set virtually in the city, with high rise buildings covering the hill opposite the huge grandstand building. We met a handful of Australians, some from the Gold Coast and a woman from Victoria who owns some of the horses racing - she took a moment to come and sit in the pleb seats and in the end gave us her email address and said that we can come stay on her house boat when we're in Oz!