China Trip Recap

Many thanks to Sloan for taking care of the Luke and Hope for 17 days!

As I look back, here are some of my highlights:

• Attending church at Kowloon International Baptist Church on two different Sundays
• The Peak...eating dinner on the Peak and being able to see the entire city
• The earthquake...amazing that I was in China on the day it happened...the National Day of Mourning, 3-minutes of silence, flags at half mast, television and newspaper coverage, etc.
• Excursions to Lamma Island and Cheung Chau
• Shopping at Stanley, the Ladies Market, the Jade Market, Causeway Bay and Lo Wu.
• Chinese-style meals!
• Taking morning jogs along the water front in Kowloon
• Seeing all the signs for the Beijing Olympics
• The amount of construction taking place in China
• The amount of people in Hong Kong and China
• Never did find a lefty in China!
• Finally found an Olympics t-shirt in Lo Wu

A quick thank you to my BSF teaching leader, Mike Pent, who gave me the idea to do this blog. This has been a great way to recap my thoughts on the trip each day and keep everyone informed back home. Thanks for taking the time to read it and post comments.

The next blog will be when the whole family moves over there...right Sloan?

Day 16 - Back to Reality

This was my last day in Hong Kong. My flight left for KC at noon (Hong Kong time, 11 pm KC time) and arrived in KC at 6:30pm.

In order to conquer the jet lag coming back, I scheduled a wake-up call at 5:45 am. I was out the door for a run then spent about an hour walking through Kowloon Park, which is close to the hotel. The park is pretty good size and many people were out exercising. I also found a pond with a bunch of pink flamingos. The other part of my plan to conquer jet lag was to stay awake for most of the flight. I only slept for about an hour of the flight and kept myself busy reading the rest of the time. I finished a book about John Wesley and got about half way through another on Hudson Taylor. When I arrived in LA, I was able to bet through Customs in about 5 minutes and my flight to KC did not leave for another 3 hours. Since I had some time to spare Uncle Phil picked me up for a quick trip to In-N-Out Burger for lunch...still the best! It was great to catch up with Uncle Phil and I am glad the timing worked out.

The flight to KC was pretty uneventful and I was able to stay awake for most of the flight. I arrived back in KC about 6:30 and was home to see the family by 7:30. Luke and Hope were standing at the door jumping up and down with excitement!

It was a great trip but it's good to be home!

Day Fifteen - Almost Over

Kind of got off to a rough start this morning at breakfast. I was looking under the hoods of a few pans, looking for my normal pancakes and waffles when I lost my appetite upon finding 2...yes 2...varieties of chicken feet, chicken feet salad or bbq chicken feet. Just seeing these things made me loose my appetite, so I ended up with a couple pieces of watermelon and toast.

From there we headed to our largest factory in China. We have been to 2 other factories that have roughly 20,000 employees, but we were just a very small portion of their business. This factory also has around 20,000 employees but we make up a decent size of their volume. This was an unbelievable factory...rated by the Chinese government as one of the top 100 factories (all industries) in the country. They have 5.4 million square feet of manufacturing space and 1.4 million square feet of dormitories. By far the nicest dorms I have seen at all the factories. For their workers, they have basketball courts, soccer fields, a bank, a grocery store, a library, and a post office. On site they also have a fire department. For their management, they had a Starbucks-style coffee shop and a very very nice restaurant. The dorms are pictured above.

A few parting comments on China. They smoke cigarettes everywhere...inside, outside, anywhere. Hong Kong just adopted similar laws to the US that basically ban it anywhere indoors but in China, they smoke everywhere. The Chinese people were very friendly and helpful. I learned quickly, the best way to get one of them to laugh or smile was to try to say something in Chinese...it always surprised them to hear a white person attempt to speak their language. One thing I forgot to mention on the National Day of Mourning...every tv station in my hotel last night (probably 30-40 channels) were all in Chinese and were showing the same program, which was coverage of the earthquake. All the foreign channels had a message about being blocked due to the mourning. I even heard from someone else today say that all bars in China have also been closed for mourning. The picture to the left is a government building in He Shan...notice the flag still at half mast.

We came back to Hong Kong on a ferry that took about 3 hours traveling down the West River.

Tomorrow I catch a flight back to KC and back to reality!

Day Fourteen - China

Today we traveled to 2 factories, both Northwest of Hong Kong about a 2 hours drive. The factories are all starting to look the same now but we did travel into some areas that were a little less congested...more 4-5 story buildings than high-rises and a lot more agriculture as we are close to the Pearl River delta (I think). After visiting the second factory, Tim left for Hong Kong with both of our Chinese hosts, so Mike and I were left alone with our driver who speaks ZERO English! We were supposed to have a 1-hour drive to our hotel but for some reason he took a route that would resemble trying to get from Kansas City to Topeka and going through Emporia!! We would have corrected him but it took us about an hour to find a street sign in English and by that time it was too late to get it corrected! After a 3-hour ride, we finally got to our hotel. The hotels in China are very nice and pretty new but they mainly cater to Chinese guests and only a few of the staff speak English so it was interesting trying to order dinner!

On another note (and I may have mentioned this in yesterday's blog), all flags in China are at half mast for 3 days to mourn the earthquake victims. This is the first National Day of Mourning in 30 years and the first one in the history of China that mourns ordinary citizens!

Also, I forgot to mention in Sunday's blog that I ran into a couple on the subway that was from Canada. I told them I had a brother who lived in Winnipeg and they asked what took him there. I mentioned he was working for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and the lady (probably 60-65 years old) mentioned she played the organ for a Layton Ford crusade a long time ago in Canada...there is more to the story but I probably shouldn't post it in my blog while in China. I can give more details when I get back.

You will notice a couple of funny things about the photo below...1) I took a picture of it...2) it's misspelled. I was got a pretty good kick out of this and also taking a picture of it. The sign was posted in our hotel lobby next in front of a miniature replication of a new housing development going up around the hotel...not sure why photoes are off-limits.

The weather has been absolutely fantastic for our entire trip until last night and today as it has been raining non-stop. It didn't really matter since we were inside factories all day but it does make the drive a little more interesting. I will say one thing about the Chinese, the rain does not keep them off their bikes or motorcycles. They all wear ponchos and don't seem too affected by the rain. Even the motorcycle taxi drivers have 2-person ponchos that attempt to keep the passenger dry as well!

Day Thirteen - Back to China

Overall, it was mostly a working day in our Hong Kong Buying Office. The highlight of the day was the pigeon I had for lunch...once again, served with the head on the plate! It came in five pieces, two wings, the chest cut in half, and the head. I luckily ended up with a small wing...not much meat but I did try a few bites. The rest of the meal was traditional Chinese...bbq pork, beef, octopus, broccoli, dim sum (I am still trying to figure out what is inside this but it is some type of dumpling)and fried rice. At about 5pm we headed for China. It took abbot 3 hours to make it from our office to the hotel. This time most of the drive was at night. In China, there must be hundreds of deaths each day on bicycles...as we were approaching the hotel, in the dark, in the rain, on a 4-lane street...all of a sudden a bicycle is coming down the middle of the street the wrong direction...I seriously thought we were going to hit him but it didn't phase our driver. We had dinner at a Japanese steak house inside the hotel. The meal was very good and very similar to a Japanese steak house in the States.


I am not sure how much coverage the earthquake is still getting in the United States but it is all over the papers & tv here. Today was the official National Day of Mourning for the victims, the first such day in 30 years. At 2:28pm, there was 3 minutes of silence. At our office, we all gathered in a break room and watched on tv a ceremony taking place in Tienanmen Square. The moment of silence had a different twist than anything I have ever seen...during the entire moment of silence...every car horn, police siren, tornado siren, etc. was to be sounded as a symbol of the country's wailing/mourning for the victims. This began 3 days of mourning that includes no public recreational activities (i.e. sports). I will always remember being in China on both the day the earthquake took place along with this day of mourning. Also, the earthquake has now been upgraded 8.0 on the Richter scale. Since the quake, there have been 24 aftershocks of 5.0-5.9 and 4 aftershocks of 6.0 and greater.

Below is an attempt to post a video I took of Chinese television...

Day Twelve - A lot!

Trying to make the most of my last non-working day in Hong Kong, here is the short version: 8-mile jog...church at Kowloon International Baptist Church...Olympian City Mall...Ladies Market...Mong Kok...Flower Market...Bird Market...Causway Bay...Times Square (world's only curved escalator)...So Ho (world's longest escalator)...Indian food for a late dinner...time for bed.

I started this morning with an 8-mile jog along the promenade. I ended up meeting a guy on the run from San Diego and we ran for about 50 minutes together. He has been coming to China for 15 years and it was interesting to get his viewpoint on everything from the earthquake to the Olympics to doing business in China.

After the run, I took the subway (called MTR) to church in Kowloon Tong. It was a great service and it is an amazing experience to worship with them. One point of interest is that "amma's" (you have to read yesterday's blog to understand this) get Sunday's off and there were seven of them sitting directly in front of me at church. It's powerful to see different classes of people and many different nationalities all worshiping the same Living God.

After church, I headed over to Olympian City Mall...which, ironically, is about the only place close to our hotel where you can find Beijing Olympic stuff. The t-shirts are sold out all over the city, but I got a few things for Luke and Hope and the nieces and nephews.

At noon, I hooked up with Tim and Mike for a long afternoon of sight seeing and shopping. We started out at the Ladies Market, which is a street lined with booths selling everything from clothing to purses to watches to luggage. From there we walked through the Mong Kok district, which I have been told is the most densely populated district in Hong Kong with tons of high-rise apartments. As I have already notes, everywhere you go in Hong Kong there are people, but in Mong Kok it is truly beyond comprehension...in every direction the streets are packed shoulder to shoulder with people and this was just an ordinary Sunday in May...no special event! From there we walked to the Bird Market and the Flower Market, which are kind of self explanatory...store after store selling flowers/birds.

From there, we headed to Causway Bay to see the World's only curved escalator. Not sure why it's cureved but it was kind of interesting to see. While there we ran into a pop singing group, probably similarly Hong Kong's version of Hannah Montana...groupies were everywhere. After the curved escalator, we headed to the So Ho district which is home to the world's longest escalator! It is not one long escaltory but a bunch of escalators that string together for about a mile...it's outside and goes up the hill from the business district towards the peak. From there, we met a supplier at an Indian restaurant called Tan Dore's. The food was very good...the lamb was the best! After that it was back to the hotel...my day began at 5:30am with a run and ended about 10:45 after dinner.

Tomorrow (Monday) we have a working day in our Hong Kong Buying Office before heading back to China in the evening.

A few more pictures...Ladies Market...Mong Kok...Flower Market...Bird Market...Long Escalatory.

Day Eleven - Cheung Chau

This is going to be a long blog...it's Saturday...I left my room at 7am and just returned at 10pm! I started the day by heading over to the island of Cheung Chau (great recommendation from Kathy & Orin). It is a small fishing village located about 45 minutes away by ferry. I was able to walk around for awhile in the main shopping section before renting a bicycle to see the rest of the island. No cars are on island, just bikes! The island was mainly loaded with tourist from Hong Kong, not many foreigners. I hiked to a couple of look-out points, found a place called the Alliance Bible Seminary, and saw a few temples. Cheung Chau is famous for something called the Bun Festival but it just took place last Monday...barely missed it. One of the pictures to the left is from a look-out point the other is the very nice bike I was able to get my hands on.

It was back to Kowloon by 1pm to meet meet up with Tim then head to the Hong Kong Museum of History, which was about a 20 minute walk from our hotel. The history of Hong Kong is quite interesting and revolves mainly around the British occupation, the opium trade, a war in the mid-1800's, and the signing of the 100-year lease in 1897. The cost to get into the museum was only HK$10 which is roughly $1.25 in US dollars...pretty good deal! We also discovered another thing about the museum...it is the one place you can go in Hong Kong to get away from people! On our walk over there we couldn't even walk side-by-side because the crowds were so thick, but as soon as we inside the museum, we had the place to ourselves! We kind of got rushed through the end of the exhibit because we needed to be back to the hotel by 3pm to meet up with Mike.

At 3pm we headed over to an area of Kowloon called the Jade Market. It is famous for all types of cheap jewelry...mainly jade but also pearls, necklaces and the usual assortment of trinkets. As usual, it was very crowded but the merchandise was interesting to look at.

At 5:00 we headed to the main Hong Kong Island to have dinner with a supplier on Victoria's Peak. The peak has a view of almost all of the Hong Kong islands in all directions. When at the top you are almost eye-level with the tallest building in Hong Kong, which has 100+ floors. The picture to the left is the view looking down on the city from the peak. We had the best seat in the house for dinner...it is nighttime in the picture but we had a view of the entire city as the sun set and the city came to life with lights. We also had a great view of the laser show. The lady between me and Mike is the Sales Manager for the factory, the two guys on the left are brothers and own the factory. The lady on the right is married to the guy in the blue. You may notice a high chair to the right of the lady...also eating dinner with us was their 2-year old daughter and their "amma" or "helper" in English. In Hong Kong it is very common for the middle class (and up) to have an amma, which is a live-in maid, nanny, cook, etc. 24/7. They usually come from Indonesia or the Philippines. It costs about $500 USD per month but it is a regulated industry and you have to sign a 2-year contract. When you sign the contract, they are basically an employee and you are responsible for health care, insurance, etc. More in person on this one...kind of a strange concept. That's it for today.