Hong Kong 2: New Teachers at 9:11 AM

Around January, my good friend Jacob Harlan asked me a favor. He's the guy that runs China Horizons. China Horizons is the program that got me here. Anyways, Jacob asked me to help him help the new teachers sight see in Hong Kong and make their way to their respective schools. So we hung out in Hong Kong for a few days. We went to the temple a lot which was awesome, because that's the first time I had gone to the temple since I had come to China. (LDS Temple, not bhuddist, although I saw a lot of those, and they were really cool)

We also saw a lot of other cool stuff. We went to this place called Ngong Ping village on Lantau Island (other side of the island from the Campbells)  where they have this huge bhudda statue and a cool bhuddist temple. Overall, really awesome place. I went twice. Once before the teachers came and once with the new teachers. The first time was awesome, becuase I had all the time in the world. That day I hiked to the peak of the island by myself in this killer awesome fog and I think I can understand why historically amazing religious things happen on the tops of mountains. It was an amazing experience. About half a mile from the top there was a white out. It was like I was hiking through a really windy cloud. My hair was wet even though it was warm outside. (I think that's what happens when you walk through clouds.) The second time the whole place was under fog (all my pictures are from the second time), and it was just as much as an adventure even though I had already seen it. On top of the awesome Bhuddist temple and the Cool Giant Bhudda Statue (Yes, that's a proper noun, maybe not accurate, but deal with it), they had this really awesome place called The Path of Wisdom. It's a figure eight path you walk, probably only about 80 meters total and as you walk the path they have these giant trees cut in half along the path with writing on them. The writing is the Heart Sutra, which apparently is used by Taoists, Bhuddists, and Confucianists alike. I may not believe what it says, but it's still pretty cool. And it was fun to walk along the path and not read it (I can't read Chinese yet....). I did read it after on a plaque for Americans who can't read Chinese.

Other than that I went to church in a real church building for the first time in a few months. Man is that something I've taken for granted in my life. I'll write a post about how we meet for church in China soon too...

The new teachers were not what I thought they would be. I don't even know what I expected, it's just hard to imagine up a new personality. When I finally met them it was fun to watch all the new social dynamics come together and especially fun to watch people bond because they had no one else. I love all the new teachers. They're fun, they adventurous (they came to China, that would be enough for me to know they were adventurous), and they know how to have a good time.

We also went ice skating, but somehow I didn't document that. Sorry. It was also awesome.

After Hong Kong we went to Shenzhen for a couple days to train the new teachers. We really didn't do anything, we just sat through good trainings on how to teach, but I do have some pictures of us on the town at night playing pool. Sorry you only get to see one.

And Erica, thanks for the note. I will keep writing!

Hong Kong 1 more pics at 7:41 AM

Enjoy!

Hong Kong Part 1: The Campbells at 7:39 AM

You guys, as many of you know I'm WAY BEHIND in my blog. This entry is about February, and it's uhhh, May. Yep, It's May. So this is my time to recommit. I'm going to try to bust out a lot of entries in the next month. We'll see how it goes. I'm hoping that if I don't people will start emailing me about being lazy. Also, I love your comments. I can't really respond because of the filtering system here, but I will in a couple months when I return to the states.

So! After Xia'men the time came for my final destination in my wondrous winter holiday backpacking extravaganza: Hong Kong. This is another one of those places that shows up in the movies sometimes and I just can't even comprehend how different it must be. Well, it was was pretty different, but ridiculously awesome. When I got to Hong Kong I headed for Lantau island where my good friend Sarah Campbell lives. I arrived at her apartment at 9pm and had one of those late night conversations with her and her husband that just make you glad you're alive. Little did I know I would have those multiple times a day for the next week. It's amazing how you run into people you know you were supposed to be friends with. Well the week was pretty fun. Sarah and her husband Eric can't have kids, so they adopted. As of now they have two awesome kids who speak fluent Cantonese and English. They were kind enough to let me sleep on their floor for a week before I helped the new teachers in my program find their way around Hong Kong. Sara showed me around for a week and helped me see some of the sights. She took me to the beach with her kids and overall it was awesome.

My students had told me that Hong Kong was too crowded. I expected to go there and find a huge city with out space. Which was sort of true. I found a big city, with a lot people, but I also found some of the coolest abandoned trails and beaches. It wasn't what I expected at all. It was clean, beautiful, huge, but it still had everything that I would want in a place to live. I probably won't live there, but I have tossed around the idea....

The pictures are of Sarah, her husband Eric, and their kids Cooper and Anderson. Totally awesome family.

Xia'men at 8:35 PM

So, as my time in Chawaii came to an end I started to wonder what the heck I should do next. I had no where to go and everyone I wanted to travel with during the break had dropped out. Matt and Kristal Carter had been awesome, but they were going to go to Beijing after Hainan (Chawaii) and I sure as heck didn't want to go to frozen over Beijing. So I opened my lonely planet the night before my train left Sanya and found Xia'men. I thought to myself, 'Self, that looks nice. You should go to Xia'men' So I told Matt and Kristal who told me Xia'men was a random place to go, but it just seemed like a good idea. It wasn't too far from Hong Kong, which is where I was ending my winter holiday and I knew I had enough Chinese down by this point to get there and to Hong Kong on my own. It still seemed a little daunting, but I figured things would work out.

The next night we went to the train station destined for Guangzhou where I knew I would split paths with the Carters. When we got there we met two foreigners. One was a Chinese guy with an Australian accent, and the other was this nice little white girl with a French accent. We struck up a conversation. They were really nice. The Chinese guy was born in china and raised here until he was about 12, then he moved to Australia. Then he moved to Canada and met this nice girl from Quebec and they were traveling together. Really cool people, turns out he was teaching her English/Chinese and she was teaching him French. When he first asked her out she couldn't speak English and he couldn't speak French. Kind of cool. Anyways, turns out, you guessed it, they're going from Sanya to Xia'men. They totally helped me get a sleeper bus, which I took the night we got to Guangzhou, and then when we arrived in Xia'men his Aunt dropped me off at my hostel. Talk about awesome. I spent a week in Xia'men visiting with some members of my branch and seeing the sights.


A few days into my time in Xia'men I decided that I should buy my ticket to Hong Kong, I was hoping for another sleeper bus, but all I could find was a day bus. It left at 8:30 in the morning and I had to be at the small office where I got my bus ticket at 7:40am for the bus to pick me up. This isn't easy since I'm kind of a night owl. I only get up early when I have to, but it's not a serious issue. The night before I set my phone to go off at 6:30am so I could take a shower and take my time. I'm still not sure what happened, but I do know that my alarm either didn't go off, or I slept through it. Having gone to sleep at 1:30pm the night before this could be potentially scary, but luckily I woke up at 7. I realized that my alarm hadn't gone off and that by all accounts I still should be asleep with how tired i was the night before. Pretty awesome. I caught my bus, and all was well.


Things I learned on my trip to Xia'men.

1. Traveling alone is bitter sweet. I've never had SO MUCH FREEDOM! It was awesome. I went where I wanted, when I wanted, with who I wanted. It's really satisfying for me to follow where the wind blows. I loved it, but it came at a price. I understand more and more what the Lord means when he says men and women aren't meant to be alone. I think that's something a lot of people with significant other's take for granted. As for me I'm sure a lot of the things I saw would have been significantly better had I had someone to share it with. So it goes. I'm still happy and I'm sure the Lord will remedy that in his tme.


2. The Lord is TOTALLY still looking out for me. I see it all the time, in big and little things, but I see it most clearly here in China because I'm so clearly on my own. It's funny, because the Lord's been there the whole time even though I haven't always recognized it.


3. I can speak good enough chinese to do things on my own. Who'd a thought. Don't get me wrong, my chinese is still bad, but it's improved a lot considering I knew zip when I got here.


Pictures / Things I found in Xia'men


1. A really cool Bhuddist temple. It's called the Nanputou temple. It's huge, there are supposed to be monks everywhere, but it's hard to see them because they're living quarters aren't open to the public, and for good reason, I would go crazy if my apartment was open to the public. Oh wait, It is. I'm so glad I live in a school. (Slight Sarcasm)

2. Some new friends. This is Yelena and her brother _____ from Switzerland. Ya, I couldn't even pronounce his name, let alone remember it, but they were both really nice. They hung out with me for a day or two. The second picture is Morein from Holland. He came with me to see Avatar in 3D. You don't even notice the Chinese subtitles after a few minutes. I'm surprised at how nice strangers are here. Most Chinese people and Foreign travelers I run into are really nice people.





















3. The Road less traveled by. You know that famous poem where someone decides to take the road less traveled by? I took it, and it was awesome.
















4. Nemo. He was here the whole time. Poor guy is trapped in a really low budget public aquarium, but he seems like he's gotten used to it.