Around the world in ten days - almost!

I arrived home in Birmingham yesterday lunchtime after what seemed to be a never-ending journey. It was 24 hours since I had left the hotel in Hong Kong and I was very tired indeed. How people can do this all the time amazes me.

On the way out to Hong Kong I stayed over in Dubai for a day with my nephew, a journalist, who lives there. All was on a very large scale - everywhere were tall buildings, construction projects and a very efficient road system. He took me up the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa and round the largest shopping mall in the world on the way to seeing a Fountain display, the water 'moving' to music. In the evening we took a short boat ride across the creek to the souks where spices and medicines are sold before having a very tasty Arabic dinner. Fabulous.

I was up early next morning and back to the huge airport for the next stage of the journey to Hong Kong, arriving late at night to a kaleidascope of bright lights.

Hong Kong ws a wonderful place to visit and everyone I met was very helpful and extremely polite. Temperatures were in the early 20s so it was even more wonderful to be there  after the freezing cold in the UK.

The city was very clean, well organised and easy to get around enabling me to visit most of the places on my list in the time allowed. I saw the Big Buddha, had lunch in the buddhist monastery, visited Taoist temples,  went to several street markets, had a trip round the harbour at night, crossed over to Kowloon on the Star Ferry and had coffee in the former headquarters of the Hong Kong Police Force - now converted into a shopping mall with restuarants and coffee bars. On my last day I went up to the Peak by cable car for the fantastic view. Here as everywhere there were more shops and restuarants!  It was windy and cold and a little misty (unless that was pollution, hard for me to tell) but well worth the effort. I was lucky to do all these things in the company of some wonderful friends - so thank you to all who came with me and made it so enjoyable.

This was all fitted in after, and round the conference, which I will talk about later.

Now it is time to unpack, do the washing and start thinking about Christmas.

 Back to earth with a bump!