Hong Kong 香港

(A brief interlude...)

Hi everyone!

Sorry for the long delay between updates this time- as you may be able to tell, last weekend Harry and I went to Hong Kong! Besides that taking a weekend of prep time away, my school has recently redoubled its attempts to cram Chinese into my brain- since the big government TOCFL test (Test Of Chinese as a Foreign Language) is in only three weeks (gah!), we're attending our normal three-hour course each day and then an additional two-hour course each evening, with additional homework and studying. It's useful information, but successfully kills off most of my free time. In fact, even my service time is going to be pretty low the next couple weeks... but it's only temporary, and if I get good marks on this TOCFL it'll help me out for a long time.

But the actual class isn't too interesting to talk about. (Although quick quiz for those of you who read/speak Chinese: What is the difference between 普通, 普遍 and 通常?)

Instead, have a picture of the fuel that puts me through school!

Xiaolongbao! (Or actually Shengjianbao, which is a Shanghainese variant)

Pork dumplings with green onions and sesame seeds inside, fried on one side to a crispy brown and steamed on the other to a fluffy texture, served with soy vinegar and hot sauce. Delicious and cheap! Probably not very good for you, but as long as you only eat them once or twice a week no problem!

Last Friday morning Nikolai and I woke up early to man the cart at Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall for a few hours, which was cool.

Nikolai is in white, our overseer Giancarlo is in blue.

It's interesting hanging out there, because we mostly talk to Mainland Chinese people coming off tour buses to see the sights. It wasn't an especially productive morning- Giancarlo said the first time he worked there he placed over thirty books, whereas we only placed a few brochures- but it was a nice witness nonetheless, even if we both looked like lobsters afterwards! (We figured it was only a couple hours, why wear sunscreen? Taiwan's sun is harsh!)

Anyway, now on to Hong Kong! Because my scholarship will be over soon (already?!), my student visa will also end soon- the seventh of May, in fact. Because I want to stay in Taiwan longer than that, I needed to leave the country before May 7 and get a new stamp in my passport- Americans get a 90 day tourist visa by default by arriving in Taiwan, so at the very least I could use that time to find a job and get a work visa or something.

The best time for me to leave Taiwan, then, is exactly May 7th- let's get as much extra time as we can! But I didn't want to leave the country alone, that's boring. I talked with Harry, and between us we decided that this last weekend, April 19th and 20th, was a good compromise between us (he wanted earlier, I wanted later).

And so, in the darkness of a Taiwanese pre-dawn morning, we hailed a cab to the airport, and after an uneventful 90 minute flight arrived in Hong Kong!

Hong Kong! I forgot how much bigger it is than Taipei!

Hong Kong and Taipei, in theory, have just about the same population- they're both sitting at around 7 million in the metro area- but Taipei is much more spread out than Hong Kong. They have nowhere to build but up!

But when Harry and I disembarked, we didn't waste much time gawking at the big buildings. No, we had a plan, a goal- Disneyland! 

Disneylaaand

Harry in particular loves all things Disney, and I hadn't been to a Disneyland since I was like 12, so we figured- we're going to Hong Kong, when will we have another chance to go to HK Disneyland? Let's go!

They have their own line on the subway!

HK Disneyland is, according to the brochure, quite small- the smallest Disneyland in the world, in fact. I gotta say, I didn't really notice that! I mean, yeah, it's smaller than the last one I went to, but in fairness that was Disneyworld, in Florida, so you can't really compare the two.

Disneyland Station of the HK Metro

It was a lot of fun, more than I was thinking it would be! When we were discussing the idea, I kinda thought Disneyland would be too cliche to be much fun, mostly aimed at kids, with maybe Space Mountain being its only redeeming feature. In fact, the only area that was completely for kids was Fantasyland- everything else was pretty much fun across the board!

It helps that, for whatever reason, not many people were there that day, so the lines were quite small and there was plenty of space!

Main Street, USA

Why is it still Main Street USA even when we're actually in Hong Kong? Why not Main Street China? Although, that might be a bit more depressing...

I will say, the people who designed Disneyland did a great job. They really manage to completely capture a mood and atmosphere in each separate zone, and when you go from one to the other it can change to be entirely different in the space of five steps.

Although they appear to be still building this one... notice a difference between the right and left sides?

Some buildings were just painted plywood facades of themselves- I guess they're still under construction? Those were the exception rather than the rule, though- most things were well built and pleasing to the eye.

So remember how I said there were very few people in Disneyland that day? That led to us riding Space Mountain no fewer than five times in one day!

Oooo, space!

I thought about trying to record us actually going on a ride, but I didn't want to risk my camera flying off never to be seen again (or worse, hitting someone!), so you'll just have to live without video of Harry screaming on the rides.

Although here's one pre-ride!

Harry is a really cool guy to go to a theme park with. We really had a lot of fun!

The Castle as the sun begins to set

And, of course, Tomorrowland!

We hung around all the way until the park's closing, which they did in grand fashion with one of the better fireworks display I've ever seen!

I'd show the video but it's like 150 MB in size- a bit too big for this blog!

After all that excitement, we took the subway out to a sleepy suburb of Hong Kong called Sha Tin, with only a little over 1 million people, and walked the rest of the way to our hotel.

Ah, suburbia...

The view from our hotel room's window

So on Sunday, we decided to go to an English meeting in Kowloon and try to meet up with some of my old friends. We ate a nice Western-style breakfast at the hotel's restaurant (a bit expensive, but worth it- in Taipei even "Western-style" things still taste Chinese; not so much Hong Kong!), then went off in search of the Kingdom Hall.

Harry and I walking through the City

Look, I'm in Hong Kong! :-D

The Kingdom Hall was still in the same place it was two years ago, last time I visited Hong Kong; despite that, it was hard to find, since its opening is a little tiny unmarked doorway between two fruit stalls! We did manage to find it though, and after being let in it was really nice to attend an English meeting after so long. It's like, I think of things, and then I can just say them! It was amazing!

Look at all those languages!

Although it is an English hall, it could be better described as the "other" hall- pretty much everyone who speaks a language that doesn't have its own congregation just attends English, as English is the international language. So they had lots of Filipinos of course, and Nepali, and Africans, and Mongolians, and...

An older missionary sister from the Philippines and her three bible studies

It turns out that two of the three people I knew in this congregation had already left- one got married and moved elsewhere in the country, another went back home to America. But I still had one friend- JQ Lee! Last time I was in HK he had just been transferred from South Korea Bethel to work in the HK Branch, and he's still there and going strong. It was awesome to catch up with him and his Nepali study, a guy named Shaobin, over delicious hot pot. 

I cried tears of joy and pain while eating it. Mostly pain. But it kills parasites, which is nice!

He says in the last two years, HK Bethel has gone from having only 70 people to having over 180, and new people are announced every week. Very cool developments are happening!

Unfortunately, we hung out a little too long, so we had to rush off to the airport! 

JQ and I rushing!

As a matter of fact, Harry and I missed our plane and had to wait four hours for the next one, but Cathay Pacific was nice about it and let us transfer at no extra cost. Seriously, they're a bit more expensive than the budget airlines, but for the extra comfort and convenience they provide I'd choose them every time I could.

So that's the story of that one time I went to Hong Kong Disneyland with Harry Sparks! How was your weekend?