I actually managed to get some sleep overnight – which I didn’t expect (I was all set to do lots of work on my photo albums and watch a few movies). The combination of a huge amount of space and the Qantas business class travel bag made things much more comfortable.

The only problem was that as the plane came down to land at Sydney Airport (about an hour late due to air traffic control) I felt something was wrong. My ears felt dull – blocked. An announcement was made that I could only just hear. I assumed it was something to do with cabin pressure but started to worry a little by the time I made it through immigration having to use a combination of muffled hearing and lip reading.

Having said that – I made it through Customs OK with my new purchases. Caught a taxi home (since didn’t want to struggle from Central with all that luggage on the Airport Link.

I got a little bit of sleep – but mainly focussed on getting one of my freelance projects finished. While it progressed well and I got all of the infrastructure stuff done – I have so much more to do I am quite worried. Better get on with it tomorrow night.

Went to bed still feeling quite uncomfortable – will see how I am in the morning. But before I go – a big thanks to all those who helped out on my holiday: Kenneth, Kevin, Lester, Faryd, Jerry and Scott. Without you it wouldn’t have been such a fun (and productive) time. Cheers guys.

I write the journal entry for today while sitting in seat 13K in the bubble of a Qantas 747. The good thing about that – business class.

The morning was fairly quiet. The last day so I packed overnight and we got to spend some time along in the morning. Was a pretty funny morning which we both spent a lot of time laughing – which was great.

When we eventually did get moving.. I checked out and Hong Kong customer service lived up to its reputation with a not too impressive performance from the front desk clerk at The Wesley. On the whole – I’d recommend it as a hotel if you aren’t too worried about luxury. It is very convenient to everything on the island including the tram, buses and the MTR. The rooms were very basic – and I would really recommend making sure you get a non-smoking room (but they won’t let you book one in advance).

From there we caught the tram to the Bank of China Building – where there is an observation deck on the 43rd floor. We arrived and I took some photos. While standing there – we listened to two Chinese girls talking really loudly. One had an Australian accent (Taiwanese who lives in Australia) and the other an American accent (three years study in the US and one year in Australia). Does anyone in Hong Kong actually stay there? Funny to listen in on such detail about their life – which was given so freely despite the number of tourists around.

From there we caught the train to Causeway Bay and had some lunch at Genki and then an one of the worlds nicest ice creams at Haagen-Dazs. Unfortunately Kenneth spilt most of it down his front – which is normally something I would do. Good to see im not alone. From there walked to the Happy Valley Cemetary which has five major sections. We took a quick (but discrete look) at the Muslim and Catholic sections before moving on to the Happy Valley Racecourse. It wasn’t a race day – so really couldn’t see anything – but it was just a quick trip to look around. Hong Kong is one of the biggest gambling nations in the world – so couldn’t miss the main racecourse.

From there we went to pick up the bags. It was really quite early but might as well sit around the airport as somewhere in the city. Caught the train from Admiralty to Central and walked over to Hong Kong Station. I had mulled over whether to check-in for my flight in the city (where a Cathay Pacific representative would check me in) or whether to go to airport where I could try and use a smile on the check-in staff to get upgraded to Business Class. I decided to go with the prior and then try my luck in the Qantas Club. While checking in I asked the girl from Cathay if she could tell me how full the plane was. She said it was quite full – but just then ripped up my printed boarding pass and started the process over again. Had my question prompted a rethink of my seat? Maybe – because when she handed back my password and my Australian entry pass she told me that because the flight was full – I had been upgraded to business class. Yay!

It was hard enough leaving Kenneth in Hong Kong for another 15 days – but this brought a real smile to my face. Hard to be in such a position of mixed feelings.

Caught the Airport Express to HK Airport, dropped my backpack in Left Luggage and then tried to do a little bit of plane spotting. The guide oversold the opportunties to take photos a bit. But I got some. Unfortunately they were nearly all 767s. I thought Hong Kong was a better hub airport to take photos at – perhaps it was just a bad day.

We grabbed a hot chocolate at Pacific Coffee and just sat in some armchairs for ages and talked. At times it seemed like one of us was going to get over emotional – but pretty much held it together. Eventually the time came for my to pick-up my backpack and give him the farewell hug. I took the long walk to the Departures gate and waved him goodbye before going in. A bit of a sad moment.

I walked around trying to find some throat lozenges for the flight – but wasn’t able to get any. I boarded QF128 (HKG 20:45 to SYD 08:35) quite quickly – nice to have priority seating. The amazing thing was that when I climbed the stairs up to the bubble for business class – I found I had noone sitting next to me. So much luxury.

Interestingly enough the Chief Flight Attendant ‘David’ has just come along to each of the Business Class passengers to introduce himself. A little bit of overkill – but a bit of a nice touch. I guess I am getting a pretty different picture of Qantas’ service up here – I was just saying it was fairly average last week.

There is one complete ‘Lucy’ (bitch) in the cabin. She seems like one of those woman who really isn’t comfortable in business class but has let the power go to her head. Pretty funny to be honest.

I settled in to watch a few movies including S1m0ne and The Banger Sisters. Started to work on my journal and then my photos. The goal for tonight is to make sure I get through all of the descriptions of the existing database. I had absolutely no hope of getting it all done – battery is now failing and I have only gotten about 150 of the 750 done. More tomorrow maybe?

Anyhow.. Sit back and enjoy the inflight service.

Was up early again this morning but managed to convince Kenneth to just hang out for an hour before heading off to finish the days itinerary. Some really important landmarks today though.

We headed off to Pacific Coffee for a quick fix to start the day – and took our far too sweet skim milk hot chocolates with us on the tram to Central where we checked out the phenomenon of Filipino maids hanging out in the Central plazas across the city. Literally thousands of maids congregating around the city to catch up, socialise, sing and snap up a bargain at one of the stalls.

We then headed for Dim Sum which was nice (apart from some problems with too many dishes having prawns in them haha).

From there we headed to the Star Ferry to catch one over to Kowloon. It was nice to just sit with the wind in my face – but it was over all too quick.

When we reached Kowloon, checked out the Former KCR clock tower, Harbour City and the Ocean Terminal before walking around the Cultural Centre where we had been for the light show last week.

Past the Peninsula Hotel and Hong Kong Museum of Art before heading into theSpace Museum. While we were there we also watched the pretty amazing Space Station narrated by Tom Cruise on an interesting variation of Imax.

Headed out and grabbed some food and then went past the Museum of History on our way into the Science Museum which was pretty similar in content to the one in Singapore. Was very noisy so grabbed some Panadol from Watson’s and went for a walk past the Kowloon Mosque and Islamic Centre and then through Kowloon Park.

Caught the MTR back to Causeway Bay and did a spot of shopping at Times Square. Included a new set of earrings at J’s, a new Sony Clie PEG-SJ30 (about 27% cheaper than AUS) and Sony MD MZ-N10 Network MD from Broadway (not even available in AUS yet but guessing about 34% cheaper).

Headed down to Bauhaus to buy a bag from two of the rudest sales assistants in the history of Hong Kong and on to Giordano to buy a clean shirt to wear tomorrow (that is desperate isn’t it?).

Grabbed some dinner and stopped at Watson’s again – this time to get some Neurophen 400 for Ben who was coming over to say goodbye. Met him at the The Wesley and then just hung out with Kenneth until he had to go home at 10pm.

I spent the rest of the night putting together the last of the photos and uploading a new database which included all the new shots. Should be almost up-to-date (sans descriptions) by end of the night. Yay!

Big day tomorrow.