Asia and Australia 2017

This is it. The end. The last of 77 days and 77 blog entries.

We woke up in Hong Kong and went for brunch about 15 steps from our hotel. It was hard to decide if today should be a lazy day or an action packed day but seeing as we did most of the tourist attractions the first time we were here the former kind of won out.

We sent our big bags off on the airport express, a great service where you can check in bags from a couple of train stations across HK and they'll (hopefully, we've not got back to the UK yet) get on your flight without the need to lug them around all day.

We went for a walk around Nan Lian Gardens. The gardens were set up in 2006 and are aiming to become a UNESCO site. It's patrolled by an army of staff who want to stop all fun. Not limited to, and this is spelt out on signage, frolicking, bawling and brawling. We saw people stopped from taking fun group pictures and using selfie sticks by the guards. We stayed on the right side of the garden law and walked around uninterrupted. We went to the rockery where each rock had some profound calligraphy attached to it - see photos. We visited a room of beautiful ceramics made by a group of students and a room of important spiritual buildings made out of wood. It drizzled throughout. We also stopped by the most densely populated koi carp pond I've ever seen which was fascinating to watch for a while.

Once the walk was done we surpassed ourselves in the over ordering stakes at a ''modern Chinese restaurant'. We did however manage to eat it all before heading off to visit the Chi Lin Nunnery. No nuns to be spotted but more Buddhist statues and rocks with poignant phrases. After that we were at a bit of a loose end so what else was there to do but hit Soho and happy hour cocktails for a few hours? £3.50 sangrias helped soften the blow of returning.

Alas the time came and we're currently sitting at the airport. We went crazy and paid to come into the lounge so showered and watered we await our flight home. The lady serving noodle soup gave me extra fish balls because I wanted 'everything'. There's maybe some deep and meaningful rock worthy life message there.

The trip has been amazing and as the cliché goes, time flies when you're having fun. The scary part is that we'll go back to normal life almost like nothing happened. I'm not going to miss the packing/unpacking, the sniffing of clothes to decide if they're re-wearable and the constant use of TripAdvisor to dictate my daily activities but that's about it. We're looking forward to seeing our friends and family and our reliable bed and shower. Plus the ability to cross roads safely and not worry about bumping monks.

Thank you to everyone (all 6 of you I reckon) who have been reading the blog and commenting on what we've been up to. It made writing it worthwhile. Hopefully we'll be back for another trip one day. See you soon UK.

Helen and Matt xxxxRead more