This evening we were off to see Clara's friends from University and have a meal and some drinks in Causeway Bay.  The evening began with a 15 minute bus ride on the 23 down the hill to Central and along the main road to Causeway Bay.  At this time in the evening the traffic is quite busy and there are thousands of people lining the road, shopping and returning home from work.  It seems that in Hong Kong it is normal for people to stay out shopping after work and due to the low cost of eating out, people often eat out and return home late in the evening. 

Before meeting Grace, Peter and Keith (Clara's friends) we had time for a small amount of shopping.  We looked through some more DVD shops but couldn't find any more to buy.

The Japanese restaurant we were eating in was on the 6th Floor of a local building (Causeway Bay Center 1).  It seems quite strange to me but according to Andrew, the best restaurants are on the higher floors in a building.  In the UK it always seems that restaurants are on the ground floor, normally with a good location on the street.  The restaurant was not too busy and Grace was waiting as we arrived.  Every meal in Hong Kong - no matter what the cuisine - is eaten as a social occasion and so we ordered many small dishes that could be shared including tempura prawn sushi rolls, fried tofu and udon noodles (Japanese noodes) with beef, washed down with many cups of green tea.  The meal was nice and very reasonably priced at less than 10 pounds each, however the portions were quite small and it was possible to order much higher priced items such as sachimi (raw fish). 

After the meal we went to a bar close to Times Square where we could meet up with another couple of Clara's friends, Alan and Cindi (soon to be married) and Keith (or OJ as everyone called him).  We went into a small bar called 'Sake Bar' (again with a Japanese theme), which was very dark, smoky and had very low tables.  We all decided to stay off the Sake and ordered drinks which were served with small green hairy beans (very like peas in a pod) which were covered in salt.  To eat them you had to suck out the beans in the pod and then leave the pod.  This was a very strange thing to serve with drinks, but they were quite a nice change from nuts! 

We stayed out until around 11.30pm when everyone was beginning to get tired and many of the people had to work the next day.  We took a taxi from outside the bar back to Robinson Road.  At this time the roads are quite empty (there are only really taxis around) and it is more like a Grand Prix as the taxis speed up the hill to our house.  One thing to note is that it's compulsary to wear a seat belt in a taxi in Hong Kong (Hong Kong has many rules) but the journey is still quite scary!  This was brought home as we pulled onto Robinson Road where a taxi had been involved in a crash (we didn't see with what) but the front of the car was smashed and caved in.

As we arrive back home after another long day we went to bed straight away as tomorrow we are off to Macau to see our friend Sunny!

Things I have learned today:

• Every restaurant has plates of plastic food in the window to show you the dishes that they cook.  The food looks quite strange and I'm not sure if it encourages me to go to the restaurant or not!
• Most of the roads in Hong Kong are very bumpy, hilly and not too well maintained.  This makes every bus journey VERY bumpy and you often feel very shaken up after getting off.
• This is one I've been saving for a couple of days - It is illegal to Jaywalk in Hong Kong and so every zebra crossing has a green man crossing.  As you appraoch a green man crossing there is a beeping noise to tell blind people they can cross the road here.  As the green man shows the beeping gets faster to tell them they can cross.  Also on the MTR every escalator makes a 'ping' like a sonar to tell blind people they are at the bottom of the escalator.  There is another ping at the top so they can tell when to get off!

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