We were keen to see more of the island and took the local double decker bus to Aberdeen on the south side. The bus was diverted due to road closures as a result of the current political demonstrations. We saw lots of tents but no evidence of any trouble which we'd read about in the news a few weeks early. Looks like the authorities are just trying to wait them out. At Aberdeen we walked along the front through the fish market which looked like the days catches had just been brought in, an eclectic range of sea creatures. The area has apparently been cleaned up recently with the house boats cleared. The tourist sampan's still operate and we took a trip around the harbour for 30 minutes which we really enjoyed. We decided to head to Stanley and it took a bit of time to find the local minibus to take us there (in the end we followed one on foot to see where it stopped). The coast road is lovely and passes numerous sandy beaches including Repulse Bay. The Bay is named after a British war ship that went there in the 19th century to rid it of the longstanding pirates. It was good to have something interesting to look out of the window at as the driving was crazy. There were signs saying that year to date 38,000 people had been injured on the roads. No surprise there. We had lunch on the seafront at Stanley, a small port where they have relocated the colonial Murray House and the original roof of Bake Pier from Victoria Harbour. We took the double decker back, felt like a safer option than the minibus! The public transport is very cheap and HK appears to be very well served by buses. In the evening we met up with Gayble at the White Stag, a very British pub in Wan Chai. We were joined by two of her friends, Kim a local school teacher and Spiro an ex airlines executive. After a few drinks (Tetley's bitter for Simon) we headed through the red light district to a local Thai restaurant. We shared a lovely meal and chatted about our common interest - travelling around the world. We were very interested to hear about Kim's trip to Siberia and her trip with Gayble to Iran. Both were definitely very different and their experiences where certainly out with our day to day comfort zone. After saying our goodbyes Kim and Spiro we went back to Gayble's flat to drop off our old bags (Gayble had kindly agreed to take these from us). The flat is on the 33rd floor and whilst compact is very homely. It's a top floor and has roof top terrace. The pavement is a very long way down although looking across to the mid levels disguises the height. The views are amazing, although the harbour view has now been restricted by a new build, and we felt privileged to experience it. In typhoon season the furniture has to be securely fastened down to avoid loosing it, as Gayble had experienced with the lid of her shed box. We headed off back to our hotel accompanied by Gayble who was meeting Marcel. We didn't need too much persuading to meet Marcel at a local Cantonese bar, the Big Dragon Phoenix, and enjoyed a couple of San Miguel's before finally heading back to our hotel. It was 1.30am and despite being tired and having a bit too much to drink we'd had a great night. It was lovely to see Gayble again, meet her friends and getting a brief insight into what living in HK is like.
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