A Week of Warmth

I spent the past week in warm and sunny Hong Kong! It was such a nice break from the cold (and long) winter in Tianjin. The main purpose of the journey was for my organization's annual conference (you may remember that last year it was in Thailand.) Another associate, Beth, and I flew into Shenzhen a day and a half early then made our way across the border to Hong Kong. We found our hotel and spent the time before the conference began exploring the city a bit. Hong Kong is very confusing! It's broken up into several different parts and for some reason I just couldn't wrap my mind around it. On the map below you can see the large section labeled, "New Territories." That was the area we stayed in but we also traveled into the "Kowloon" area several times throughout the week. Not only does it take some time to travel around Hong Kong, but it is expensive!!


The afternoon before our first conference session, Beth and I went to a place called Ping Shan Heritage Trail which was described in our map as, "one of the most historic areas in Hong Kong...experience the traditional lifestyle." What we didn't realize was that the "trail" was pretty much a street cutting through a block of neighborhoods. Apparently "experiencing the traditional lifestyle" includes seeing people's laundry hanging out and buying a coke at the supermarket. I'm pretty sure they haven't seen a tourist around there for a long time! We did see some neat architecture, though...I especially liked this painting on the outside of a door...


Another "must see" on the trail was this historic pagoda...


The actual conference was great. We had speakers, Stuart and Jill Briscoe, from Wisconsin in for the main sessions and then break-out seminars in the afternoon. It was a great time to chat with people who are in other parts of China and to hear about what they are doing. It's a very encouraging and uplifting time! We spent our free evenings playing games and going out to eat. One of the great things about HK is the food! We had Indian food twice and I was so excited to eat Italian food twice because it is rare in Tianjin. At one of our meals we got a massive piece of tiramisu that fed 8 people...drool...


Since the weather was so warm and beautiful I opted out of a few of the afternoon sessions so that I could spend some time outside. There was a beautiful, quiet park near our hotel and I spent several hours just walking around and taking pictures. Here are a few...



For our last night in HK, 8 of us moved to the center of the city to stay there. We went shopping, walked around, and two of us went to the HK Harbour to just sit and gaze for a while. Although I liked visiting HK, I would never want to live there...the amount of people is unbelievable! Here's a picture of the harbour with the mountains and Hong Kong Island falling in behind.


Since there are so many people in HK, the living spaces are very tight. Every night, except for one, we were in a very plush hotel so we didn't notice the cramped feeling but the last night we had a dose of "real HK." Here's Beth in our hotel room...now when I did this, I could nearly touch both walls by stretching out my arms (but keep in mind that I do have abnormally long arms... :) The bathroom is also hilarious...the door slides shut and there is not enough room to sit normally on the toilet so you have to sit sideways. Also, it is a traditional Chinese bathroom so there is no bathtub or specific place for the shower. There is just a showerhead hooked to the wall and it sprays approximately where you stand in front of the sink (the only place to stand in the bathroom.) The entire bathroom gets soaked...toilet, sink, toilet paper and anything else in there. I even had to back out of the bathroom when I wanted to brush my hair because my elbow kept hitting the wall! Soooo tiny...


I'm so glad that I had this chance to go to HK for the conference. It's truly amazing to hear what others in my organization are doing all over China...starting businesses, studying Chinese, opening a counseling center for both Westerners and Chinese, teaching English of all ages, doing physical therapy, working with AIDS awareness programs, helping mentally or physically disabled people, one family even has a "Cheese in China" company! There's much to be done here and while some doors are opening, others are closing...I wish I could say more but it's not a good idea to talk about it on here! Just know that there are good things happening in China!