Hong Kong and Macau

Hello from HK - the best place we've been to so far by miles!
We arrived in Hong Kong last week - it was such a culture shock!! It's soo busy with neon lights flashing everywhere, but it's so vibrant and colourful. I absolutely love it here. Accomodation's quite expensive here so we're staying in a big complex called "Chungking Mansions" - it's like something from an American Gangster movie. The complex is full of hostels, cheap Indian Restaurants, and immigrant accomodation... lovely. Not the most glamorous of locations: we have a TINY room with 2 beds crammed into it, but it has a shower with hot water and air-con. And, it's only 5 pounds a night each which is half what you'd pay anywhere else.
It's been quite cool cos we've been meeting up with some of Jake's old work mates. Matt works as a english teacher out here and he's been taking us round all the sights - we went up 'The Peak' on Saturday and saw the view by night across the whole of HK. One word - amazing. The most beautiful city I've ever seen. He's also taken us out to sample the night life which is also brillant: I've never seen so many bars in one place! The best one we've been to is a Russian bar which has an ice room inside, where you drink vodka shots!
Two more of Jake's work colleagues, Cat and Pete, are also on holiday in HK this week so we've been meeting up with them loads too. Last night a huge group of us went to the races and it's the most fun we've had in ages. I spent about $100 in bets (about 7 pounds) but I won about $190!! So overall I came away with 8 quid! How brilliant is that?! Everyone else either lost money or broke even so I did really well :-)
Over the weekend we went to Macau which is the gambling capital of Asia and it's also home to the biggest casino in the world: "The Venetian". It was so big it even had a canal inside it!
Today me, Jake and Si are gonna look around a few museums and then we're meeting up with Cat, Pete and Matt for dinner. Then we're going to see a laser show which lights up the whole of HK harbour. Cant wait!
It's such a hard life... every day feels like a Saturday and I dont want it to end!
Miss you all as ever though. We're off to Tokyo on Saturday so I'll try and write from there to let you all know what it's like.
Love Emma xxxxxxxxx