Monday 3 April 2017

Day #1 - Long, tiring, exhausted, but what an eye opener...

After a very long and tiring day the boys and coaches are happy to now be heading to bed at 10:24pm. It's been quite an exciting day with many, with new smells and sites to see in Hong Kong. With many of our boys never having been to Hong Kong before even just the air and the smog has been an awakening for them. The realisation that Australian isn't that bad has hit in early...

We arrived after a bumpy flight from Australia into the Lantau Island airport here in Hong Kong at around 7:30 AM. After a brief encounter with the customs department we got through and join our bus which took us on route to our hotel on Hong Kong Island. Along the way the boys enjoyed seeing the smoggy mountains of the new territories and of the high-rise mountains built around what look to be a lovely Harbour of Hong Kong. 

Once arriving at our hotel unfortunately they won't ready for us with no rooms available, so we decided to put our luggage into storage and then venture into the city to have a look around at the many of the sites and people of this wonderful place. 

Times Square was our first stop it's a large shopping centre with some food outlets. With many of this very tired from the flight over the first thing that we felt like with some type of sugar release or coffee so Starbucks was a hit amongst all of the touring party. 

After grabbing a bite to eat the touring party walked a few of the streets he came across a local market place which sells fresh fruit fish meat all on the street front this was an eye-opener for the boys as a number of the butchers where carving up the meat on the foot step. After walking around and looking at some of the sites of the downtown district we headed back to the hotel at around 2 o'clock hopefully being able to get into our rooms unfortunately this wasn't the case we have to wait around another hour for some of the final rooms to be released not many of the touring party got to have a quick nap as we have to prepare for our first match against the Hong Kong football club over at Happy Valley.

Its a short 15-20 minute walk to the racecourse and to the lush grounds that surround this wonderful venue for a game of rugby. With a skyline full of skyscrapers surrounding the ovals it's a very picture risk and unique place for our boys to play their first game of the tour

The first game started very well and TSS was strong in the opening phases of this match but the opposition itself also was finishing a very long and succesdsful season and they had been well drilled. 
They entire match was a tussle between both sides with one scoring and then the opposition scoring, one scoring then the opposition scoring, ending up in a final result with the Hong Kong football club beating TSS by one try. This is an amazing feat by the TSS for TSS touring party especially after many of them haven't then slept for over 24 hours. Man of the Match - FWD - Sam Morris and Justin Faber, and Back - Jojo Fifita.

Following this wonderful game we celebrated with our opponents gave away some of our gifts and then headed off to an all boys restaurant nearby and had a lovely meal of nachos, Hamburger, chips and desert which fill the stomachs of the boys in preparation for the rest the tour.

After dinner we jumped on an old trolley car which took us around to near our hotel we walked home later at me evening it was a long day and the boys will enjoy a good night sleep and so will the coaches.

Please remember to go the link on this blog to see the many photos from the day.

Best regards,

Ian Browne

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