You know how it is when everything's going along smoothly and the one thing you didn't count on happens and it all falls apart? And you know how I said that getting to Hong Kong eight hours before our flight to Delhi was a work of logistical genius and it'll all go horribly wrong? Well, we phoned the hotel from which we were meant to pick up the train tickets to Hong Kong. Or rather, Anson, the nice hostel guy, did it for us because we still don't speak enough Mandarin. And he relayed the message that there was no train to Hong Kong from Shanghai today, so did we want to cancel the order or book tomorrow's train instead? We said we'd call them back, and a brief panic ensued because it was likely that changing our flight to Delhi would mean a lengthy stay in Hong Kong and less time in India. I phoned the lady in Beijing who booked the tickets, prepared to be angry with her. She, in fact, was prepared for my call and was very, very nice about it all.

There'd been a mix-up (obviously) and she'd had no way of contacting us as soon as she worked it out. She was hoping we'd go to pick up the train tickets earlier in the week so that it could be explained. I told her that in Xi'an the tickets weren't ready until the last minute, for which she apologised! Anyway, she tried to get us on another couple of trains but even using the 'back door' channels no tickets were available and in the end we decided to fly to Shenzhen and then get a train to Hong Kong from there. The flights even worked out less expensive than the (slightly overpriced) train tickets, which was nice.

We phoned Tommy in Hong Kong to see if we could stay with him again. He (as usual) explained it was high season there but he'd see what we could do. We tried another place and made a reservation. Then we went out for some lunch.

We had excellent dim sum, and finally got some decent spring rolls, which we'd sorely missed these last few weeks. Then we took a taxi to the hotel to pick up our tickets and change, and then collected my photos (some particularly impressive ones - by accident - of the Bund tunnel train). We bought postcard stamps, spent a while getting an address from the internet and phoning Delhi to find places to stay, and then made a start on the packing.

In the evening we went back out to Mesa, our Sunday lunch destination and had a really wonderful dinner. I ate far, far too much, and I think there might have been some wine involved... I remember trying to explain to Mikey that it was important to drink wine when you eat steak, but I was suffering from wine-glue, which is where everything is slow and hard to do. You know how it is. At one point the owner of the restaurant came by to chat to us, and I think I managed to say something relevant about Ho Chi Minh City. And then there was pudding, a marvellous lime and vanilla bean panacotta with tiny, tiny balls of melon and mint. And Mikey had a little pot of sparkles that was a berry compote to go with his chocolate cake that tasted like Christmas. All wonderful. It cost more than a week's food combined but it was well worth it. Mikey made us run all the way home (or at least, to the bus) and then we watched Shrek 2 like we'd planned to do and then it was midnight.