Cheerio from China!

Sunday was a full day. We went to Evangelical Community Church of Hong Kong for Church. It reminded me exactly of Kirkwood Road Christian Church (my parents home church) so I felt right at home. Minus everyone leading the service was asian. But they spoke English so it allowed for us to follow along. After Church we went to the Hong Kong Space museum. It was awesome and also great to see how much The US dominated in space travel. (U-S-A! haha) I got to go on a machine that simulated the gravity on the moon. So I obviously had to take advantage of the occasion and Moonwalk just like MJ. There are photos and a video I can show ya later. After the Museum we went back and picked up some baked goods. (Their bakeries are fantastic!) Then hit up the market and got dinner for 3 bucks.

Monday we set off for the Botanical Gardens and Zoo of Hong Kong on Hong Kong Island(the financial district). It was beautiful and they had plenty of monkeys and two very frisky turtles (yes we watched two turtles get in on). After that we took another stab at going to Victorias peak. This time we succeeded and I am so glad we did.

At the bus stop we met a group who worked with the St. Stevens society. What happened was a girl in out group from California saw this guy out of the crowd who she knew from her school. Small world, right? For the rest of the day our groups bonded. The group was 5 people 2 guys from California, a guy from the Phillipines, a girl from Australia, and a guy and a girl from the UK (hence the title of the blog post). The group was there with St. Stevens society. What they do is they work with drug addicts and pray over them to help them recover from their addiction and then plant them in a trade so they can work their way back in society as a “brother.” The philipino guy is a brother who is now helping in the program. It was so encouraging talking with them and hanging out all day. We compared our american society to Australia and the UK all day as well as mocking each others accents and way of calling objects. The girl from Australia called candy Lollies....so funny. We all took the bus up to the mountain and spent two hours talking about life and observing the beautiful skyline of all of Hong Kong. After leaving the group prayed for us and we were on our way.

Thanks always for reading. I will post pictures on Facebook. It is my last day in Hong Kong (Tuesday) so we are just relaxing and getting ready for the plane ride ahead of us to Xiamen on Wednesday morning. I will not have Facebook so I set up a Flickr account fro you to look at Pictures on.



I am not really sure how Flickr works but do a google search of Arbitrary photos Flickr and it should pop up.


Thanks for reading!

When you wish upon a starrrr....

Again my apologies for not having a video. I tried posting one and it didn't post all of it. Anyway I'll try to keep it brief....

Yesterday we had our first "class" we got filled in on mandarin its origin and how to identify characters. It's pretty sweet cus we can identify some around the city. Unfortunately there is an infinite amount of characters so it will make learning the language difficult. The advisor informed us that the business students would be doing their internships the last 4 weeks in Chinese companies. He said if we are doing it right it should be one of the most stressful things we ever encounter. Its a 40 hour a week job but it should really push what I can do. It will be interesting. After class we went downtown to try to go to Victorias peak to overlook Downtown and the nightly light show. However we got lost. We took the wrong bus and it took us to the very opposite direction we needed to go. Speaking Cantonese would have been handy. (Side note, In Hing Kong they speak Cantonese where as most of mainland China speaks Mandarin. It is as similar as dutch is to english so our earlier mandarin lesson and language books were useless for this occasion.) Getting lost could have happened to anybody. No worries we made it back safe and sound but unfortunately we never got to the top of the mountain.

Today,  me and two others journeyed to Hong Kong Disneyland. It was very awesome! I havent been to a Disney theme park since I was ten so it was a happy time. The pics of it are all on Facebook for ya to check out. If you have questions about how it was different or the same, just ask I would be happy to answer your questions.

I didn't think I would miss home this soon and if I didn't go to Disenyland I don't think I would. But walking around listening to disney music can only make a person miss the friends and family they would rock out to this music too.  I am fine no worries I am not jumping off any buildings. I just wanted to let you all back home you are missed. So yes disney songs have been in my head all day. Its great.

Love and Prayers from Hong Kong! 上帝保佑!

China Crash COURSE!

Greeeetings Everybody!

First I would like to apologize that this post is not in video form and if this first sentence has already bored you I will not be offended if you go to another page...... 

Second thought if you are bored, Facebook is legal in Hong Kong (which is where I will be for a week) but when I travel to mainland China I will not be able to go on. Sooo I posted some pics if ya wanna check them out.

For those of you who have stayed, thank you. The reason I am not posting in video is because I do not have the proper lighting in the place in which I receive wifi to do a video. A video recording would require me to walk back across the place we are staying at to go indoors...(thats right I am outdoors and blogging) The place where Wifi is best received is outdoors I will explain soon....

Before I continue there is no reason to how I think so if you are confused at all about what I am saying I apologize. I am not one to regurgitate my thoughts eloquently. Also, Dad I apologize if my punctuation or sytax makes no sense at all you will have to deal and you can explain to everyone reading this that you did educate me better then this and it is not your fault. Blame it on the jetlag/culture craziness that brings me to write to you this way....

Anyway where shall we begin...

Flight- Awesome (there was tvs in the back of chairs where I could choose from a list of movies, tv, and games. I watched Social Network and Despicable Me. Great choices!)

Group of new friends- Awesome

Today we got off the flight and journeyed to the YMCA camp in Hong Kong. Not the greatest living conditions but its awesome because we are surrounded by a bunch of kids at camp. I just talked to some kido's (via their good english and my crappy way of communicating with my hands) who want a soccer rematch tomorrow.  I am looking forward to that!

After we got settled into camp we showered and headed to our first info meeting. There Jay (our program leader) filled us in on some stuff about Hong Kong. We received our Octopus card. For those of you who are interested on what that is..it is essentially a reload able debit card you can use anywhere, Subways,etc. Its great!

By the way at anytime you have a question post a comment and I will do my best with what limited knowledge I have to answer.

After we got our cards we headed off for downtown. On our way we passed so many many tall skyscrapers. Every one of them was apartment complexes. It is incredible. There are 100's of these buildings and everyone of them is much much taller then the Millenium in downtown St. Louis. As you approach downtown you would see the business buildings for the most part it was housing. The area of downtown we were at was in the tourist area. It was right across the river from where the British originally colonized. Therefore, when you looked across the rive you saw business skyscrapers just as ginormous and impressive as Manhattan. It was foggy but you can see some of these pictures on my Facebook. We walked around a but then we headed back.

Our 1 hour subway ride brought us back to our terminal. The terminal where we are staying near is located in a huge mall. These malls are insane so packed and squished. (and if I havent mentioned it yet, the Chinese move so much faster and are so much more stressful to be around. I though the US was bad.) One level of the mall would be normal stores then the other was a third world meat market just a floor below. That is where I chose to dine. As a gentlemen was slicing heads off creatures he was preparing my pork and rice. It was greasy and delicious. No second thoughts. The girls were grossed out while walking around observing live fish being cut in half then sold right away. The Chinese reallly like it fresh. 

We finished up that craziness hit up a store to buy water, bananas and breakfast bars. Now I am back at the YMCA camp in crash mode with my mind about to melt into putty.

Love you all who read. Hopefully I can post soon. It is nearing 9 pm and it is sooo bedtime. Talk to you soon.

P.s. If someone sees Dave Burns tell him I saw Asian version of him walking in the Airport today.......

Also, if Dave Burns was not at school today it is very possible he is doubling as a Chinese Spy. It was the same person. 

Toodles!

D-DAY!!!!!!

Hey Folks! Last post before I leave!

T- minus: One week.

Hey Everyone!

Thanks for following my blog while I am away. Because Facebook is blocked in China this should allow you to keep tabs on how I am doing. The blog is set to post automatically to Facebook so whenever there is a new post you should be able to see it. 

God Bless!