That girl named Chanel was kind of annoying – she always tried to be the centre of everyone’s attention

My hostel in Hong Kong was like a military camp hidden in the mountain highlands. No joke!

I was beginning to wonder if it was the right decision to go there at all when I arrived after a very long bus trip that seemed to go further and further away from the city where I wanted to be.

There were curfews, large 36-bed dorm rooms, gates that locked after midnight and only a few scheduled bus runs into the city each day, which you had to pre-book the day before.

But then again, there was a great group of people staying there and it made all the difference.

We even had a communal BBQ one night which I’m sure broke every health regulation in the country.

It was only after I left Hong Kong that I came to realise that it was the birth-place of the avian flu. So here I was woofing into the chicken dishes and lapping up the asian cuisine where I could. Oh well, you can’t live life with too much fear.

Jackie Chan is a total marketing machine. Hong Kong loves its most famous export to bits and he appears on every street corner holding a product or jumping on top of Honker’s famous Peak Tram. Sadly, I didn’t get to see him in the flesh and ask for an autograph as he was filming some movie with Chris Rock or Owen Wilson or one of those guys in some other country…