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For the French version of this post, click here.
To go to all my French posts, click here.

Well... it's high time for me to go further on my blog... otherwise I may forget my memories before writing them!! And moreover, I'd like to post some French news, some French pictures, but I wanted to write all about my stopover day in Hong Kong first!

Thanks to Karina we go on our trip by getting higher in the hills surrounding Hong Kong! Sweet to be taken for a drive as if we were locals :-) The hills vegetation seems different from France and Australia, difficult to say why when we look close to it, but we're obviously somewhere else!!

Once on the top, the view was splendid!! Karina had us noticed that Hong Kong is a whole island group what we can indeed make out behind the impressive buildings on the 2nd picture among the 3 following each others. We hurried a bit though, cos lots of clouds suddenly appeared around us!!

Then Karina took us for a drive near the place she lives. Lots of fishing men there looking traditional, we can even eat by choosing directly the seafood in the aquariums behind the tables of the restaurants (if my memories are right).

Then we have to say good-bye to Karina... and we head off to the Market Streets. It's funny, we can find a market street for electronic devices, another one for clothes, and another one for sports items! At first I didn't plan to buy lots of things in Hong Kong, but it's quite difficult not to buy in front of all those low prices and especially when we start to bargain without noticing it just because we said we didn't want to buy!!
From 4pm onwards, it's going crazy! It's becoming even more crowded and neon lights turn on everywhere!

A small pharmacy for my mother :-) (Indeed she's a chemist and I always take Chemist's pictures abroad for her :-) ) Moreover, it's written Bonjour on it, which means "Good morning / Good afternoon" in French!!! I wonder why they wrote French words there!!?

The fruit market became very colorful, I don't recognize all the produce there!!

A local specificity, scaffoldings are made out of bamboos!!!

In the evening we miss out on the sound-and-light Laser Show!!! Lasers are played out from many buildings of downtown Hong Kong and sometimes we can even see the traditional fishing boat with its big red sail that comes out in the harbour for the show. Moreover Dixon (a Weeronian originally from Hong Kong) told me that every night they find an opportunity to have fireworks! It could have been an impressive show!!

But the laser show was around 9pm if I well remember and our plane landed at 10:30pm the day before and we were leaving at 11:30pm the next day, so we were already on our way back to the airport instead of watching the show in the harbour in front of the skyline...

Luggage seemed a bit heavier and bulkier after this small walk in the market streets!! We even took a small cart with Emeric! I was already a bit worried to check in my overweight luggage in Sydney airport but there I really wondered if they would let me through with my extra bags!! When I think officially I wasn't allowed more than 20kg...!!

Our Swiss Air plane was waiting for us, definitely not as good as Singapore Airlines that we had on our way to Australia, the air-conditioning system wasn't working at take-off time and my seat screen in front of me was always crashing... but I still managed to watch good movies!!

And then we headed off back to France, uh... Zürich in Switzerland and then France!!

For the French version of this post, click here.
To go to all my French posts, click here.

Ni Hao!

I decided to try to send news regularly on this blog, I think I'll try to send something at least once a week, at the beginning of each week for instance! I have so many things I'd like to share with you (my return trip - the end of my trip in New Zealand - my new life in Rennes / Châteaugiron in France - my summer trip around Australia - a summary of the Aussie parties...). I don't even know where to begin!! or should I say what I should finish that I started in my previous posts!! Now that I found quite a normal pace for my everyday life in Châteaugiron (near Rennes), I'd like to find my pace as well concerning my Internet habits!

So here we go, I've decided to start with my return trip, back to France...
(You can click on the pictures to enlarge them)

At first I had to leave my room - B104 - that was empty then, and then to say good-bye to all of you that were there for my departure with Emeric... I will never forget the time of this departure... I miss all of you there and just watching this picture is sometimes not that easy...

And then we left, with a Qantas flight Sydney --> Hong Kong.
Osaka and thus Japan didn't seem that far from Hong Kong on the map, someday I will definitely go and visit these islands!!
Hitotsu nihon ni ryôko ni ikitai desu! (I hope I still remember right this sentence you taught me Reiko :-))
Hitotsu yakusoku shiyou boku wa koko de ikiteru! (I promise some day I'll go to Japan if my Japanese is right :-) I took this sentence from the song of the small "watashi no sutekina nihonjin no tomodachi" video I did before leaving)!

We started by flying over the National Park according to Emeric, the one a few residents from Weerona College went for a hike along the coast with Joe if I well remember.
Then we saw the Sydney harbour by daylight (whereas for my recess week trip to Cairns, it was the night, so there, it was better!) and we can even see the bridge and the Opera House... that was really good!!
And then we flew over the Blue Mountains!

Arrived at the airport, we started to realize that the atmosphere might be a bit warmer :-) (30°C at 10pm according to the airline crew, the pilot said the temperature but also good luck for the socceroos!!! as they were still through for the world cup! That was unexpected!). But as we stayed in the airport at first, the temperature was ok :-).

Then we found the opportunity to check our emails and blogs in a tiny cybercafe where we had to take a drink so as to get a mouse and then use the computers! But I did without any mouse :-) I wrote a comment on my blog with this funny keyboard for a French person with all these Chinese characters :-)!

Then we called Karina (an ex-Weerona College tutor) to arrange a place to meet the next day. Then we took the subway and a taxi to get to our hotel. We had an awesome view of the Hong Kong bay from the window of our room!
We even had some asian-looking slippers that were a bit small for me even though my feet are really not big :-)!

A few pictures leaning at the window the next morning, a bit like in the movie Lost in Translation even though behind here it was Hong Kong and not Tokyo :-)

Next week will come the visit of Hong Kong from inside in this blog,
Nico

PS: If you're not speaking French and read these words, please feel free to leave a small comment to let me know if it is worth for me writing in English :-)!