So, I went on a sort of pilgrimage today. I didn’t know it was going to be a pilgrimage, but I’m not sure you ever know these things until you set off.

For many reasons (and those who read my Facebook profile status update can testify to this), yesterday (Friday) was a very strange day and I was in an utterly ditsy mood by the end of it. A very good friend found out he been successful in getting an amazing new job, effectively invented for him, but he went about telling me in the most ridiculously cack-handed fashion that in the end I was just angry, beyond utter belief, with him. Obviously I was over the moon, but telling me at some silly time in the morning when you are on the way to catch a plane out of Heathrow, really isn’t that useful. He also made my best mate hide the fact he’d got the job from me (so he could tell me himself) but then it transpired he expected her to tell me anyway (which angered her). Anyway, all is well, but it put me in the most bizarre mood.

So, when I got up this morning I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do. I’d also gone to bed around 11pm (my time) but for a variety of other reasons had been on the phone to the above best mate around 11pm (UK time) so 6am (my time). All utterly fine and unconnected, but it was just a bit bizarre. As a result, I didn’t end up surfacing until this afternoon, to what was the most beautifully sunny day. So, what do all Brits do when it is sunny? Yup, they go to the beach.

I got on a bus – yup, me on a bus. I generally hate buses in the UK (sorry, David) because I never know when to get off them (and hate looking like an utter dipstick –more than I can help it, anyway - in my own country) but here I decided to follow the masses. After a 20-30 minute drive out of Central (HK), the bus arrived at Repulse Bay. According to the guidebook, Repulse Bay is probably the most famous HK beach. Unlike the most famous UK beaches (? Camber Sands… dreadful memories from a Geography school trip… Skeggy… urgh… Blackpool… pretty grim, donkeys aside) it is actually rather beautiful. At the end of the beach there is a shrine to the God of Mercy and around the temple are an entire range of weird and wonderful figures – from fish to rams to other Chinese icons. There is also a Longevity Bridge.

Apparently each time you cross this, it is supposed to add three days to your life. I crossed over and then back again… so that’s an extra six days. I also went in the sea. Well, I paddled. Well, ok, my feet got wet.

Like all Brits I was thoroughly dressed for the beach… in jeans. *cough*. But these rolled up to my knees, so it was fine. The on-beach thermometer only read 36C, so it was hardly warm…

And then from Repulse Bay I got back on the bus and went to Stanley. Now, in terms of payment on the bus, HK has an Oyster card equivalent (as previously mentioned). I think I failed to complete my first bus ride since I didn’t zap off the bus. Thankfully, unlike the UK when this beeps the hallelujah chorus at you, when I got back on the bus to Stanley, it seemed to be quite happy and complete the journey. So, I didn’t zap off the bus to Stanley (in the hope I now had once complete journey) but I did double zap on the way back to Central HK – so fingers crossed I’ll be OK. One day I’ll work out this double zapping thing. So, Stanley. Stanley isn’t a particularly remarkable place. It was one of the more populated areas of HK Island when the Brits invaded in 1841 and now has a famous market as well as a couple of obligatory temples. I wandered around the market – quite an experience and also the temples.

The reason why it is more meaningful for me is that the amazing guy I was fortunate enough to call my 2nd Granddad (don’t go there) and who died last November, was called Stanley. When looking through my HK guidebook before I left with his daughter and son in law, it was generally agreed that I must visit and ensure I had a drink on him. So that is what I did. I sat in a bar, and had a beer and shed a tear as well (which, is utterly pathetic). More fitting is that Stanley is home to Murray House. This rather grand edifice was HK’s oldest colonial building in Central, but it was pulled down in the 1980s to make way for a tower block. The HK government promised to re-build the house elsewhere and in the mid-1990s they rebuilt it at Stanley. However, they had numbered the pieces so badly that it took 3.5 years to put the building back together and even when they did so there were six extra columns they didn’t know what to do with. Now, for anyone who knew my 2nd Granddad, this is possibly the most fitting tribute to him. If there was anyone who could put together flat pack furniture or the like and still have three bolts, two screws and a piece of wood left over at the end, it was him.

I sent a text to relevant family members who suggested I had a beer on them too. And who am I to refuse? So I sat and watched the sun go down in a bar overlooking the ocean.

Whilst doing so, my father sent me a highly amusing email (some antics my mother and he had got up to the previous day). And so there I was, sitting in this bar, drinking a pint, on my own and laughing out loud at my BlackBerry. What a sad git. We’ve all seen people do it – well, today it was me.

I don’t mind traveling on my own at all – in fact I quite enjoy it – but I do find I spend less in a place. You could spend all day at Repulse Bay for instance, but why am I going to sit on a beach on my own? I just go, see it and then move on. Not sure what to do tomorrow… maybe I’ll venture on the HK tube and go to another park out of town. We’ll see. Oh and I’ll probably go to church again. I've been using Shutterfly to load all my phots for parents and thing - highly recommend.

However, first I’ve got to wait up and patriotically watch England get beaten in the rugby. Oh and in more exciting news, I’ve booked my Christmas flights home. I wasn’t going to come home and then I decided it would be a perfect break. I’ll have Christmas at home (I really couldn’t imagine being anywhere but the UK) and then NY in London, probably. I looked at traveling around from HK, but that would cost more than the £500 return flight home. Also, I guess when it comes down to it, although I’m really enjoying it out here and it hardly feels the other side of the world – come on, I packed the day I left and really didn’t give it a second thought – I’m a homing pigeon at heart. And I think all birds go home to roost at Christmas. Unless of course you’re a turkey. ‘Cos then you get eaten, don’t you? Hmm. I’ll stop there.