Our Easter bunny prize

You may remember back in October that Annalie won an Air New Zealand competition to win a trip to Hong Kong. As she couldn't take the original prize on offer to see the All Blacks play Australia, they rearranged the flights for Easter weekend. So on 20th April we duly set off for our first trip off these shores since arriving.

We'd been to HK once before, about 5.5 years ago, and only for a couple of days. So we'd done a few key things and weren't quite sure what to do this time! Normally we're incredibly organised and know exactly what we're going to do, and even when! So this was a bit fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants. And I don't think we liked it!

To try and make the most of it, we bought hop-on, hop-off tour bus tickets before we left. That gave us something to do when we got to HK and keep us active (and awake!) after the 11-hour flight. We did most of the HK Island tour, getting off at the Mid-Levels Escalators. For the uninitiated, this is a unique HK form of commuter transport. In the mornings the escalators travel downwards, taking the stream of commuters from the affluent SoHo suburbs into the town centre. From 10am, for the rest of the day, they go the other way!

The bus tickets included a trip on The Peak Tram. We'd done this last time we were here in 2005 but we thought it might be nice to revisit it. Not much has changed, but it's still and interesting (and steep!) trip on a funicular!

The one plan we'd made was to take a day trip to Macau. Known as the Vegas of the East, that was once under Portuguese rule, we thought it might be interesting to see what it was like, and maybe have a play on the blackjack table.

When you get off the ferry in Macau, you obviously have to clear immigration - it is a different country after all! But given that the Chinese are huge gamblers, and that it was the Good Friday holiday, there were a lot of people in the queues! And if you know anything about the Chinese, they don't queue very well. So we had to adopt a bit of a "when in Rome" attitude!

After what seemed like forever, but was probably only about 35-45 minutes, when we finally got through immigration, we were met by all of the casino operators offering free shuttles to their hotels. We jumped on one to the Sands, supposedly the cheapest of the casinos.

Given that we'd had to get an earlier than we'd hoped ferry due to it being so busy, we were in the casino by 10am! It seemed a bit rude to start gamling so early, so after wandering around the floors, we decided to go and explore Macau itself.

With map in hand we walked to the city centre which holds most of the traditional architecture. The East meets West feel is slightly odd, but pretty all the same.

After grabbing a quick lunch, we decided to head back to the casino to start a bit of a wager. We'd allowed ourselves HK$1000 for betting, about £100. Now we're used to playing on tables that are US$5 in Vegas or at Mohegan Sun. The cheapest table we could find in the Sands was US$25 (HK$200). Given our HK$1000 limit, this could be a very short stint at the table!

Well. It was a very short stint. But not for the usual reason. Within 30 minutes we'd doubled our money! So we decided to quit while we were ahead and legged it! Very sensible!

Then came the dilemma of what to do for the next three hours until our ferry back!

We set of on a mission to find some souvenirs (nearly impossible) and finally found some in the ferry terminal. Luckily we were allowed on an earlier ferry back to Hong Kong, so at least we didn't feel like we were hanging around.

On the last day we did what any respecting visitor to Hong Kong does...shopped! As NZ is quite expensive for most things, we looked for some new trainers for Ian and also an iPhone case, some headphones and a snow globe for our friend's daughter. As is expected, some severe haggling was employed with some successful bartering at the end of it.

We also finally remembered to watch the light show. We'd seen this on our last visit too but it was great to see it again. It is quite a spectacle and quite how they control the lights on numerous different buildings is a bit of a mystery!

You can click here for a full range of photos of the trip.

Long time, no speak

First off, apologies. It's been a while. Forgive us. We've been getting on with life over here, and that includes our first tranche of visitors.


So what's happened since our last update?

Well, we've had two more lots of visitors. Firstly, and slightly impromptu, was our darling friend Suzanne. Lucky for her (and us) she had a last-minute excuse to visit Jetstar in Melbourne. Given that she was flying all that way, it seemed criminal not to spend 3.5 hours on a plane to visit us. So she duly did.

Cue many squeals of delight and feelings of incredulous surprise as we didn't think we'd see Suzanne again for a long, long time. we showed her some of the lovely sights such as Mount Vic lookout, Brooklyn wind turbine (the first wind turbine in NZ) and a walk along the ridgeline to take in the views. We watched dolphins frolick in Lyall Bay and enjoyed some quality time in the late summer sun.

It was joyous to see her and sad to see her go, but promises to visit again (and try hard to get another trip to visit Jetstar!!).

Next it was the turn of Annalie's parents. They seemed to cope really well with the jet lag and got into the Kiwi way quite quickly. There was some diving to be done for Colin. Some shopping and eating for Mum. Plenty of walking. A trip to the Wairarapa for some wine tasting and a cruise to the South Island to take a look at Picton.

Sadly we couldn't take any time off though. The holiday laws in NZ mean you don't actually receive any holiday until after 12 months of working somewhere, even though you're accruing it. So you're kind of given it retrospectively. But Ian's shifts saw him home a couple of days. And unlike the States, at least there's decent public transport here and you can walk to places! So they got independent and found their way around.

All too soon the two weeks was over and it was time for another goodbye. Now there's more uncertainty about when we'll see people again. In the US we had the knowledge that flights to the UK were affordable, or that Annalie would travel a lot through the UK, or that air miles would easily get us home, or that RR would pay. Now those trips are a lot harder, which probably makes the farewells harder too. Still, that's a consequence of the move. Maybe we'll just have to convince everyone else to make the move over here too so that we don't have to keep doing that!