Wandergaels: Hong Kong

We arrived in Hong Kong by train, and passed through the train station fairly quickly without any major delays at security. On our first night we stayed in a swanky hotel (compared to some of the previous ones) just outside the main city area, and had a farewell dinner with our group in a local restaurant, after which we headed on the metro to Victoria Harbour for an amazing night-time view of the Hong Kong-island skyline. This is an impressive sight made more spectacular by the numerous lit-up ferries and boats that cross the harbour in front of the skyscrapers. The following morning we booked out of our tour hotel and into a hostel near to the harbour (our room was a three-bed bunk in quite possibly the smallest hostel room ever!) after which we went for a walk around the 'ladies' market' (a large market area with narrow streets filled with stalls selling everything from food on skewers to counterfeit watches and shoes). That night we met a few people from our tour group and went to Lan Kwai Fong, a popular expat haunt full of bars and nightclubs. Around this area, people drink on the streets outside the full bars, and even the fast food places sell bottles of beer out of large coolers. It was still hopping and packed full of people when we left at around half three. The next late morning/early afternoon we pulled our tender bodies out of bed for a trip to Victoria Peak, a mountain on Hong Kong island overlooking the city. There is a 360-degree viewing area at the peak ('Sky Terrace 428') as well as several restaurants, where you can look out over the entire city while downing your burger. Getting to the peak from the mainland of Hong Kong required a small bit of a journey and some queuing. Luckily, this journey involved a scenic trip across Victoria Harbour in one of the Star Ferries that run frequently from morning until night. Once on the island, we got a public bus to the bottom of the Peak, from where we ascended in one of the famous trams that have been in operation there since 1888. The only downside to this was the long cue to get the tram tickets, which wasn't ideal in the humid thirty-degree heat after a night out, but the brilliant views at the Peak were worth the journey up. Overall, Hong Kong was a place well worth visiting. Similar to some of the other cities we visited in China, it is very densely populated (it has an land area around 1.3% that of the island of Ireland but has a population of just over 7 million). Despite this, it doesn't seem as packed with people as Shanghai and Beijing. Maybe this is due to people in Hong Kong tending to work more in skyscraper offices rather than selling goods and services on the backstreets (as was common in Shanghai and Beijing), but I'm not sure.
Overall, we had a great time in China, particularly during the group tour. There were a few cultural differences that might take some people a small bit of getting used to, such as the fairly common occurrence of men and women spitting everywhere (even sometimes indoors), the general lack of any sense of personal space (especially on public transport), and the internet censorship (except in Hong Kong), but these are only minor things, and were overshadowed by the several fantastic sights we saw and the great people we met in China.
Off to Thailand next...