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Good morning and Happy Easter.  For clarity, I ate 10 easter eggs before leaving on my sabbatical, so I am in tune with you on this special day.

It’s Sunday morning here in Hong Kong and my good night sleep is being rewarded by a traditional English Breakfast.  I was tempted by a spicy soup or the noodles, but Easter Sunday is about tradition.  If I was at home today I would be planning a very traditional lunch.  I would be at Aston Villa for the Liverpool game and a ‘roast’ lunch of Balti Pie and Chips with Curry Sauce would be the order of the day.  Come on you Villa!  3 points today would make this a very very good day.  I digress, unreserved apologies for my lack of reverence.

I caught up on the Blog today after my embarrassment last night.  The Chinese are checking-out in their masses this morning, as I assume they will be back on their buses to the mainland shortly.

It is a bit brighter start to the day, but I am expecting it to pour later.  I am off to Hong Kong Island to walk around and get a feel for the place.  The general quietness and lack of building lights is leading me to think that my Hong Kong night skyline photo may not happen on this visit.

I head straight for the Star Ferry which will give me a 10 minute taxi across the harbour.

From the Ferry dock at Central Terminal the long clean ond open walkways take you straight into the of the best Shopping Malls I have every seen.  Hundreds of the top brand shops of the world in a massive 4 level complex.  London eat your heart out.  Worth a stroll just to see who and what is there.  I am not a shopper, more a procurer, but I still thought this was top drawer.

I aimed for the back end of the mall to move through town to the back end of which means that you walk up hill.  This is Hong Kong, it is built on a big hill.

As I left the mall and passed into the next main walkway, I noticed ladies sitting and talking on rolled out cardboard.  Sunday in Hong Kong means serving staff have a day off and they get together with each other and catch up.  It is almost a carnival with the amount of ladies and they are all smiling.  The latest iPhones are out, music is playing and they have picnics.  They are all glad not to be working, all happy and they are doing everything from video phoning to love ones to dancing.  The roads and every crossing point (Hong Kong people are good pedestrian) are packed with gabbling ladies.

Early afternoon, and it is a special day, I am in need of a beer,  I walk towards a Beer icon on my map that I have and it takes me straight to the Hong Kong Hard Rock cafe.   Replenished and good music and videos too.  I caught up with a couple from Cambridge who were going to a wedding out in the Philippines and stopped off for a couple of days in HK.  Nice to talk and share a few things.  I didn’t tell you about the Australian couple that I met at the Golden Temple in Amritsar.  They had been travelling around India for 12 weeks and they looked to be in their early 60’s.  They said their purpose was to see a lot of beautiful things before they died.  A lot of people say things like this but it is often conversational.  I really believed these people as they didn’t try to embellish it.

Anyway for my shallow reason I was in Hong Kong in a Hard Rock Cafe franchise having a good time and nothing more spiritual than that, although Jon Bonjovi’s ‘it’s my life’ made me think a bit about the lyrics.

Back through the shopping mall, I spied a Godiva shop with some small Easter Eggs and Chicks.      Well I did! and they were ace.

I made my way back to the harbour by following the thread that I had laid on the way out and jumped aboard the first ferry.  On the other side I turned left into yet anther enormous shopping mall, not so pretty, but a massive amount of brand names.  I wanted to make my way to an area where there we lots of street market stalls and lights on Shanghai Street.  At the time I got there it was getting dusky, there was a little drizzle and it was quiet.  The side streets and main streets in this part of town like their neon lights.  On the main road back towards the hotel, travel guides touted their wares, mostly to the Chinese visitors, but I did get the odd offer of a Watch.

In the evening I found a place to watch Aston Villa in a live game with Liverpool.  Liverpool FC is popular with the Chinese, even if they do find it hard to say, so I seemed to be the only one in the pub in support of the Claret and Blue.  For the first time ever in my life I put a football shirt on to go out while on holiday.  Luckily this years sponsor is a Chinese casino, so I sort of blended in.  We lost the football so enough said about that.  I did manage to get a half rack of ribs which had so much meat on them that I could only get through half of the portion.

I wandered back to the hotel to check if the skyline had lit up.  Unfortunately not.  Lots of colourful adverts but the building were in total darkness.  Note to the Mayor of Hong Kong…Sir, did you know that I am here.  I am on an old colonial audit tour, checking out if you are looking after the place and it appears that someone has knocked the plug for the lights out of its socket.  Can you please send someone around to correct please.  I need a photo.