The Bad Pilgrim

We picked Nathan up from the airport Thursday night. He's going to be here for ten days!

Dad had the day off work because it was Hong Kong Establishment Day. We decided to go for a hike to a walled village. It was fun, but sort of anti-climatic. The village still has people living in it (amazingly enough) so we weren't even allowed inside. The little temple was cool though. It had these awesome blue dragon-donkey-dogs on the edges of the roof, kind of like Asian gargoyles. On the inside of the great wooden doors were painted two warriors. I stared at them a long time, trying to decide which one was my favorite. It was a hard choice, but I finally chose the one with the many-pony-tailed beard over the haystack beard.

The trip was fun, but it was extremely hot. Mom and I both looked like freshly boiled lobsters. After our returning to civilization and consuming massive amounts of Ribena (a blackcurrent lemon drink that is my new favorite), I felt much better. Then we headed to the airport and retrieved Nathan.

Today we made the pilgrimage to the giant Buddha. The best part is the cable car ride to the bottom of the Buddha. We're swept over craggy mountains surrounded by silvery water. I'm a green fanatic anyway, so I loved seeing the mountains' shadowy greens melting into the brighter mosses. So nice.

The Buddha itself was nice, just not quite as nice as the ride up to it.

See? He's pretty cool.

Good ol' BB is several stories tall and sticks up above the mountains. We had to climb a ton of steep steps to get to its base. But then again, I guess it wouldn't be much of a pilgrimage if you didn't have to climb a mountain, right? There were several other large statues surrounding the main Buddha, and lots of stone carvings. From Buddha's left side, I could see the bay. The silver water bled into the sky, and the black islands that popped up almost looked like they were floating above the earth. Sorry Buddha, but you can't really beat that.

I guess I'm not that great of a pilgrim.

Hello, Hong Kong

I left this morning.

Yeah, still kind of weird. I was in Bangkok for a whole month, and now I'm sitting in my "old" room in HK. Tomorrow I have to get up early for church. I'm going to Mom and Dad's church tomorrow, so that should be fun.

Anyway, this morning I checked out of my room at nine, and grabbed a chicken teriyaki from the 7-11 for breakfast. While I was sitting in the apartment lobby eating, this German guy comes running in and goes into the office right next to me. He starts yelling and screaming at the staff in there! Thais really value serenity and hate overt displays of anger. Anyway, he was really acting crazy. He was screaming something about how he's sick of their administration and he wants something fixed and he needs his money. And, get this, he even told them that he would give them five seconds to do something and he started counting!

Now, first of all, he sounded like a mix between an angry bull and a mad two-year-old. Second, most (if not all) of the people that office don't speak English. I've gone in there a couple of times myself and no one has understood me. Finally, he was scaring the poor people to death. As I said before, Thais aren't used to angry outbursts. Two cleaning ladies who were cleaning the lobby were just frozen when he was yelling. He finally ran out front to the security office (telling his girlfriend, "Don't try to stop me." Never a good sign). After he left, one of the cleaning ladies just put her hand over her heart and almost fell over. She was shaking, and she showed the other cleaning lady her goosebumps. Stupid angry man. I could hear him yelling out in the back at that point. I kind of wished that he would come back so I could say something to him about the futility of his actions. I doubt it would have helped, but it would have made me feel better.

After that episode, I took a taxi to Tipawan's house. Tipawan is the lady who picked me up from the airport with her friend Jang, and they were going to drive me there again. They took me to a shopping mall to look around, and we stopped at an Baskin Robbinsesque ice cream place. But it was the coolest thing ever! Instead of just bins of ice cream, they made beautiful, shapely mounds of ice-cream that were decorated with the things that made up that flavor. So kiwi ice cream had kiwi slices nestled among the scoops. The chocolate had quirly chocolate bars, and the mint had mint leaves. It was amazing. I would have liked a picture, but oh well.

The plane trip was fine. It was one of those huge, across-ocean planes with ten seats in a row. And I was the only person in my row. The plane was SO empty. There wasn't even a person for every row. I recommend that all of you fly Thai Air, because that was some of the most delicious food I've ever had. I ate chicken curry with rice and some kind of anonymous vegetable that's related to a zuccini and is good for women who are breast-feeding (I asked a flight attendent). There was also a creamy salad, a wheat roll, and capeccino pudding. Oh, and during the course of the flight, I ended up drinking water, apple juice, wine, orange juice, Chinese tea, and coffee. The wine wasn't my favorite, so I poured some of my orange juice in it, which made it pretty good. Kind of like a sangria.

The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. Collected baggage, found parents, exchanged money, caught bus, got home, showed off new treasures, and wrote in blog. The end.

More HK

Today and yesterday have been full of seeing parts of the city and running errands. Yesterday my mom and I tried to find a Fossil store (one of my favorites) with no luck, but we did go to the phone store, the chiropractors, and IKEA. I bought a decent-sized mug at IKEA. I really hate tiny mugs unless I can actually drink from a pot. I don't mind refilling my cup from a teapot, but it's annoying when I make the tea in the mug. We also went to a very sweet lifestyle store called Franc Franc where we purchased a clothing hamper of gray cloth with a wooden frame.

Today we went to a market that a lot of ex-pats live around. The nice thing about that is that a lot of the workers speak English, and the signs generally have English and the dollar amount or items. I bought a small watercolor painting to brighten up my dull walls. I mean to buy several more pictures, but the rest will have to wait until I return. I also bought a beautiful, carved wooden necklace rack. At least I thought it was a necklace rack, until one of Mom's friends informed us that it is actually a rack to hang calligraphy brushes on. Oh well. It works just fine as a necklace rack.

Tonight was the night of my parents' Bible study, so I tagged along as well. Dinner was included (we brought fruit salad). Their apartment was absolutely beautiful. We spent most of the night just talking since they have already finished their study and not that many people were able to come. The people were quite interesting. The host couple are Malaysians, the man a doctor. One lady is a Philippino who has lived most of her life in Hong Kong. Another lady is Korean but is married to a German man. She's lived in Germany for ten years and Hong Kong for fourteen. Yet another lady is Korean but has lived in the States, the UK, Australia, Singapore, and now Hong Kong.

It's interesting to me that most of them have "helpers" a.k.a. maids. Having a maid isn't a terribly common practice in the States. That, coupled with the size of their houses, makes me wonder why they need maids for such a small space. Dad told me that one couple he knows has four helpers. FOUR. And they live in an apartment. Won't the helpers just bump into each other? How much work is there to do anyway? But I digress.

I leave for Thailand on Sunday. I've been a little nervous about the actual arrival (finding my way to the apartment and to the school the next morning). God is pretty awesome! When I went to Dad's work on Tuesday so we could go out for lunch, he introduced me to three of his coworkers who are from Thailand. They jumped into overdrive helping me get ready to leave. They called a friend to pick me up from the airport and take me to my apartment. They read the directions to my school and tried to figure out how I would get there from my apartment. They even wrote out directions to my apartment in Thai that I could give a taxi driver if I get lost (since most Thais don't speak or read English). I have been amazed at how much work they are doing for me.

Amazed and grateful.

New Home

A lot has happened since I last wrote. I'm in Hong Kong now!

My last couple of days in Korea were pretty great. We went to Seoul on Friday which happened to be Buddha's birthday. Bad idea. It was so crowded! We paid for this tour bus that runs by thirty different famous places. We could jump off at any of the places and get back on another bus whenever we're done. The buses were supposed to run every twenty minutes, but the least we ever waited was forty minutes. The most was an hour and twenty.
Besides the waiting and massive crowds, it was a lovely day. We saw the national museum, the war monument museum, a historic village (which had a rice cake cook-off going on), a shopping place where we ate lunch, and a market where I bought some scarves, coin purses, and custard bites. After that we caught the train back to Chuncheon. It was a good and tiring day.

Sunday was my real last day. We went to church, and I just read my Bible most of the time. That afternoon I went shopping with Sarah, and it was actually fairly successful! The thing I hate about shopping in Korea is that most stores don't let you try things on. I'm not going to pay forty dollars for a dress that I don't even know will fit me! Seriously!

That night some family friends took us out to this super nice Korean restaurant. The entire table was absolutely covered with little bowls of food. While Americans tend to have one main dish and a couple side dishes, Koreans love to have five or six side dishes. Well this meal probably had thirty different things, including grilled meat. egg soup, shrimp with onions, squid legs, crab innards (that you mix with rice), tiny fish with walnuts, and fish organs. It was very exciting.

The next morning I got on a bus and headed to the airport. The day didn't go too badly, except I was afraid they weren't going to let me leave in Shanghai. When I had my layover in Japan on the way in, they just checked my passport, and I went to my gate. In Shanghai, they probably checked my at least eight times, and I went through several different security points. I kept thinking I was going the wrong way because I didn't think they'd have so much security for a layover. But they did. I got very thoroughly patted down, and I was taken to the special security offices twice. But I finally got through, thank goodness.

So I'm in Hong Kong now! I'm mostly moved into my new room, which is defintitely smaller than anything I've ever lived in before, but I like it. I walked to my dad's work on my first day being there and didn't get lost! I was very proud of myself. That night we walked around some downtown areas and rode a ferry around. The skyline is simply gorgeous.

My mom got in last night, so we fetched her from the airport. Today and tomorrow I think we'll be shopping for some things I need/want for my room. Exciting times!