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Hong Kong, Thursday 5 November

My travel time is up, I fly home tonight. Like all good students I have some learnings to take home:

• Your heart is not the colour of your black tee shirt when you do not buy something from a hawker in Fez

• There are worse things to call someone than a mixed salad

• The shoes you bought which you thought would ‘give’ never will

• Looks like a rip off artist, talks like a rip off artist…

• Bathroom attendants in Morocco don’t always deserve the measly tips they get

• Speaking Spanish in Portugal gets you about as far as speaking English

• Pastry with egg custard is good

• If you are a tourist you are ripe for a fleecing

• You can ask any price for anything some idiot will pay

• Shoving a snake in someone’s face doesn’t mean you will get some action

• Sensible shoes and cobblestones are not necessarily a match made in heaven

• It’s ok to be called an Australian if the only other alternative is American

• Drinking plenty of bottled water in hot countries is only good when you know you will find a bathroom

• Shopping can be a hobby

• If you plan to stow away under a bus don’t wear your good shoes

• Trying the local wine is not always the a good option

• It’s important to give back, massages and manicures help the local economy

• If a taxi driver grunts when your luggage is tossed in the boot it will cost you

• Marcus Brutus and Marcus Aurelias lived 300 years apart

• Don’t believe everything the tour guide tells you

• A girl can never have too many handbags or pairs of shoes

• Modern hotels have the best music

• Four wives is three too many

• One husband is one too many

• You don’t need more than five words to communicate in another language

• You can walk further in 35 degrees than you think

• When it’s a beautiful day, you are on a boat, and the scenery is fantastic it will be even better when you get where you are going

• There are big black butterflies in Hong Kong

• Being friendly to North African men means you want to sleep with them

• North African men fantasize

• The experience of carrying your own bags anywhere involving stairs does not make the journey more fun

• Pretend you know where you are going and you will get there

• Daytime television in Spain can stop a nation

• A beautiful church does not mean it has had a beautiful history

• A good chef can still be a git

• Nothing is free from a gypsy

• It's best not to lose track of the date when its a flight day

• Chicken that looks like cat can sometimes be dog

• English football supporters should stay in England

• Paella will always take longer to cook than you think

• Horse and carriage rides and not soppy

• Someone will always have seen your bargain buy at a better price

• A man on the street with a passport in his hand probably stole it

• Shopping at your table could be a workable concept for franchising

• The best hotels have free wifi

• Italy really is good at everything

• Best to not be one of the 71 per cent of people that don’t wear all of the clothes they packed when they travel and to leave more room for shopping

• Stinky wet wipes actually do have many practical uses

• There will not be huge international demand for Camel head soup

• More women walk on their knees than men

• There is such a thing as the big quake

• Maps are a waste of time

• Tired shoppers can be bitches

• Taking on a tired shopper is stupid

• Food re-distributing is bad when it is in a five star hotel in Morocco

• A couple of puffs does not make you a smoker

• If you can convince yourself an 80 cent glass of wine is good you have had too much

• It’s pointless spending too much time looking for the right hotel, the one you choose will be right

• Being on time will always be late to the early birds

• Plain old charm will distract airline staff from reading the scales

And last but not least...

• October is always the best month of the year not be in Wellington :-)