As I awoke this morning the weather we much brighter than the past few days and the sun shone through the curtains of our bedroom.  This was good news as today we had planned a visit to the Hong Kong Wetlands Park, a newly created wetlands area in the new territories of Hong Kong.  After a light breakfast - as I was still full from the night before - I set off with Clara, Polly and Andrew to take the long journey to the wetlands park.

The first step is to take a bus number 3B down the hill to central where we can interchange to an MTR.  As we waited at the bus stop there were road works taking place and the road was dug up in a number of places.  Andrew said this happens regularly and its good to know that the UK is not the only place that has constant roadworks taking place!  There was a tipper lorry delivering dirt to fill in a hole that would park for 2 minutes next to a hole and then dump some dirt and then drive to the next hole.  There was obviously a lot of pressure on him as the cars beeped loudly at him for holding up the traffic, even for 1 minute!

We approached the bus stop in Central and myself and Clara were talking about police in Hong Kong and I asked if they were armed.  We didn't think they were, but are not sure - but on approaching the bus stop we saw some security guards from a money van (like Securicor) standing in the street with a large suitcase of money.  One of them had a shotgun strapped to his side - but the way it looked, it didn't seem like he would actually be able to use it - the gun was nearly as tall as him!

We walked down to Central MTR station under the Landmark shopping center - this is a very posh shopping center with Harvey Nichols and many designer shops.  We were going to travel on an MTR line that I had not been on before - the Tung Chung line travels to the airport and is the newest line on the network and every station looks very new.  To get to the line we had to walk about half a mile underground to eventually reach the station.  Hong Kong appears to have a whole city underground, most buildings have basement levels or a car park below ground and the MTR stations are huge!

We got on the MTR which would take us under the harbour and up to Nam Cheong where we could interchange with the Kowloon Canton Railway (KCR), a fairly recently built rail line that connects some of the newer towns back to the city.  The trip on the MTR is quite long, but does go above ground slightly so its possible to see a little - but mostly only roads!  We interchanged to the KCR West to take us up to a new town called Tin Shui Wai which is on the northern edge of the New Territories and very close to the border with China.  The KCR is a new line and according to Andrew the government has wasted quite a lot of money building a line which is hardly used.  The train we were on was quite empty and everyone had a seat, and we only paid about $20 for a trip of about 30 minutes - but then again this is relative with other transport costs.

Eventually the KCR goes above ground and its possible to see some of the countryside in the New Territories.  The new territories are the countryside of Hong Kong and consist of many mountains, forests, fields and even national parks - which have been created to try to stop the ongoing development all over the territory.  The view was not great today as visibility was quite bad, even though the weather was good, it was very hazy.  As we approached our stop we passed into a large new town called Yuen Long which is next to Tin Shui Wai where we were travelling to.  New Towns were created in Hong Kong to allow more people to live in the territory and to free up some space in the busiest areas.  Yuen Long is home to more than a million people and so 'new town' is a bit of an underestimate!  Yuen Long (and Tin Shui Wai for that matter) are far from pretty, but I still think they are worth a visit. 

The towns were created some 20 years ago and provide much more affordable housing for people than in Hong Kong and Kowloon.  The city is very artificial and as it was built over a small amount of time.  All the houses are high rise blocks about 40 stories high with many buildings being identical in the same estate.  The houses are built cheaply and not for their looks, and its very obvious to see!  Each estate seems to house thousands of people and the only buildings that are present in these towns are housing blocks, shopping centers, and what seems like hundreds of schools!  The transport network around these towns consists of a tram system called a Light Railway, that is basically a tram system.  The new towns are massive and the light rail system is also very large (and slow as there are many stations to stop at).  The new towns, somehow seem very fake and I would liken them to 'The Manor' estate in Sheffield, but all high rise and without the bad reputation!

After arriving at Tin Shui Wai station we needed to take our fourth method of transport of the day, the Light Railway to the wetlands park.  We got on the 705 circular line and some 10 stops and about 20 minutes later we got off in the shadow of more high rise blocks, rising identically into the sky!  From the tram stop it was possible to see the park, and it looks very strange located on the edge of a housing estate.  We bought tickets to enter (only $30 - 2 pounds to access the whole park) and it was now about 1pm and had taken about 1.5 hours to get here!

We entered into the main building of the wetlands park and took a look around some of the galleries.  They were all environmentally themed and showed some of the animals that live on wetland areas and how to stop them from being destroyed.  We went into a theatre to watch a video on wetlands and their importance in the world and saw some of the many creatures (including Malaysian crocodiles) at close hand.  The exhibits were good and quite interesting to look at and were more than I thought there would be!

After looking round for a little while we visited the cafe to have some lunch.  Here I got my next surprise of the day - just how good food is at Hong Kong 'theme parks'.  If you went to a museum in the UK, you would probably have to eat burger and chips which would probably cost you twice as much as if you were outside.  The cafe in the wetlands park served food such as spare ribs, pork chops and rice and curry with rice, all of which only cost $25 (less than 2 pounds), for a very hearty meal.  I opted for the curry, which was a whole meal complete with rice and was very tasty.  I also had a very strange drink of mango with sago (yes as in Sago pudding) grains and some grapefruit juice - it was quite nice, but very strange all the same!

After lunch we took a look around the outside part of the park.  The weather by now was hotting up and it was sunny and very humid.  Just outside the visitors center is a small enclosure where you can see a crocodile called Piu Piu.  This (very small) crocodile was found close to the wetlands park and is thought to be an illegal pet released by someone into the wild.  OVer the next 6 months the crocodile evaded capture, even by an expert crocodile catcher, but when it was eventually captures it was rehoused in the wetlands park.  Crocodiles are not native in Hong Kong and it would have killed people if it had not been removed.

The wetlands park was opened this May and is still very new.  The outside area faces the sea and the border with China and also looks over a national park that has been set up on the wetlands.  There are a few walks around the park that allow you to look at the plants, birds, fish and other animals in the park.  The walks are nice, but mostly in the open and so very hot!  We saw some very different flowers and some fish in the rivers.  We took a walk along a Mangrove swamp and inside all the banks were many small red crabs with large claws.  We also saw some of the walking fish (as seen in the Guiness advert - sorry I don't know the name) which jump around the banks and into the water!  We also had a look in some bird hides where you could see some of the many birds of the wetlands including Cranes and many wading birds.  It was also possible to see a barbed wire fence which was established on the edge of the land in Hong Kong that separates the no mans land of the sea area from China - and prevent people from illegally entering Hong Kong.

After walking around for a little longer it was getting very hot and we decided to call it a day.  We had to now visit Clara's grandma and auntie in a village just outside Yuen Long and we would then be going for a seafood meal in a small village by the sea.  To get back to Clara's grandma we had to take the Light Railway about 15 stops to the terminus in Yuen Long.  We passed through the new towns and the trams were busy with school children in multicoloured uniforms.  It was interesting to see that the school children were very well behaved and having many schools on one tram did not cause any problems.  The tram journey was quite long and short but we had chance to see a little more of the new towns. 

When we arrived at Yuen Long terminus we took a taxi the short ride to Grandma's house which is located outside the main town and in much greener surroundings.  Her grandma (Andrew's Mum) lives with her Auntie Denise in a ground floor apartment with another of Andrew's brothers.  The apartment also has a small outside space where the family grown many Orchids, many of which Andrew has grown at home and moved them to Yuen Long when they get too big!  Also at Grandma's house was another of Clara's Aunties (Lisa) and her husband Albert who had come over from Canada for a visit.  Clara's grandma also has a small dog which got very excited as we arrived, but was very nice and didn't bark much.  We stayed at the house for a little while while Clara burned some incence in the small altar to remember her grandad.  She would have had to visit the grave but this is somewhere out in the countryside.

After a small break we set off by taxi back into Yuen Long, something I mentioned earlier was that the different taxis are different colours. The New Territories have green taxis and the fares are sligtly cheaper, as most journeys are further than on Hong Kong Island and in Kowloon.  The journey took us past the high street of Yuen Long, this area was much more reminiscent of Hong Kong Island with many shops and the neon signs filling the road.  We got out of the taxi at a killer bus stop.  We needed to take the number 34 killer bus from Yuen Long to a the small town where the seafood restaurant is located.  We met up with more of Clara's family at the bus stop and now there were 11 of us we nearly took up all 16 seats of the killer bus! 

The bus journey winds its way through Yuen Long and then leaves the big city and moves into the more industrial part of the area.  We travelled for some time down a long road which goes past many 'container cities', areas of land full of large shipping containers.  I'm not sure why they are all located here, maybe the land is cheaper or we were close to a port - although I didn't see one.  This area was quite dingy and appeared very old and run down compared to the brighter streets of Hong Kong Island.  The journey took around 15 minutes and we arrived at what looked to be a roundabout next to a shanty town area.

To get to the restaurant we had to walk down a small side street, stuffed with stalls selling fresh fish and many selling dried fish and other goods.  The stalls were like the ones I had seen in the markets with polystyrene tanks filled with fish and being pumped full of oxygen to keep the fish alive.  There were many lobsters, large fish, shell fish, clams and crabs - its also a shame I don't have smello-vision!  Most of the restaurants on this street have the seafood displayed outside and you pick what you want to eat and then the restaurant will cook it for you - just about as fresh as you can get!  We arrived at the restaurant and Clara and Andrew took me a little further down the street.  Towards the end was the wholesale fish market, now deserted, as its normally busy during the early hours of the morning.  The area looked quite scary and reminded me of some shanty town slaugherhouse with wires running all over.  Just after the market, we came back into the open air and the sea was in front of us.  The area was hardly pretty and was really an industrial area where the fish are taken from lorries into the market.  There were piles of oyster shells on the quayside that had been piled up from the catch.  Out to sea it was possible to see poles marking the oyster beds as it was low tide.  Visibility was very bad, however I'm told that normally you can see across the water to China.  There was also a long bridge that had recently been built - and is not yet open - that links Hong Kong to China across this small straight.  On a hill on the right was a police station.  According to Andrew the station is equipped with machine guns and is placed to stop people from swimming across from the mainland into Hong Kong.  There was also a patrol boat moving in the water, but it was very hard to see in all the mist.  The sunset is supposed to be very nice to see here - but not today!

This area is so good for its shellfish becuase it is located at the joining of a river estuary and and the sea.  This makes the water less salty than the sea and apparently makes for bigger, juicier oysters and other shell fish. 

We walked back to the restaurant where we had a large table to accomodate all 13 people (Clara, myself, Polly, Andrew, Auntie Denise, Grandma, two cousins who we named Katie and Carmen as it sounds like their Chinese name, their mother, Auntie Lisa and Uncle Albert, and Uncle Number 3 and 4 - they don't have English names so Clara calls them this in English!) at the meal.  Again the table was round and had the customary spinning middle and seemed to take up half the restaurant!  As we sat down we were brought a large bowl of fish soup - apartently this is 'on the house' and is used as an appertiser while you await the main meal.  The soup was nice, milky white in colour and had some fish pieces floating inside.  After the soup came both boiled and deep fried prawns.  The prawns came in the biggest portion I had ever seen, piled high on a plate to serve all 13 people!  The boiled prawns were very nice and needed to be shelled, the deep fried prawns were covered in batter and actually burst out of their shells during cooking!

Next came some long black shellfish, I'm not sure what they're called in English, followed by some muscles with green vegetables - although apparently they weren't that good as the muscles are not in season!  The courses kept rolling in and next came some small crabs, which were difficult to eat and try to get the meat out, some clams in a soup, followed by a large barracuda fish.  Finally came a mountain of fried rice, which I couldn't eat much of as by now I was quite full (ho baw in Chinese).  We washed all this down with a couple of glasses of a local beer called Pearl River, which tasted pretty much like all other Chinese beers - like San Miguel.

After the meal we had to take the killer bus back to Yuen Long, for our very long journey back to Hong Kong Island.  We got off the killer bus on Yuen Long high street and walked to the bus terminus.  By now it had got dark and the killer van trip through the container cities was pretty black!  We were taking a number 968 bus back from Yuen Long to Central.  We were taking the bus as I wanted to see the Tsing Ma suspension bridge at night, all lit up brightly as well as the lights of the buildings around the harbour.  The journey takes around 30 minutes all the way back through some very long tunnels under the hills and over a suspension bridge near the Tsing Ma suspension bridge.  Finally we were on the same route as we had taken yesterday back from the Buddha under the Western tunnel and getting off in Central.  Our luck was in and we managed to get a number 12 bus straight away back to our house.

We eventually got home about 9.30pm, after quite a tiring day where we had travelled to the other end of the territory!  Tomorrow we were having an easier day, meeting some more people and having a rest!

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