More about us...

So, after ten days of being in Hong Kong, I must say that I love it!! This is the most amazing place. And it's so great to actually live here and not just have 2-3 days to try to see everything. There is so much to see and do! I am glad to have the first week under our belts and have some more things figured out. I'll try to do less talk and more pictures this time. As for an apartment update, the manager moved us next door to a bigger apartment. It's still a one-room (including bathroom) studio, but is better. I don't feel claustrophobic every time I come home now.

Anyway, here are some of our adventures. (By the way, don't miss Adam's great story he posted last night. I'm glad he's willing to share some of his less flattering moments publicly!) Friday night we went across the harbor to Kowloon (the peninsula that is connected to mainland China). There is a bird, flower, and fish market all within a couple streets of each other. The bird market has people selling birds and also people just bringing their birds for an outing. They sell all sorts of bird paraphernalia. The flower market (in the picture) was my favorite--flower shop after flower shop. And the prices were great. Adam got me what we think are orchids for about $1.50. They've continued blooming over the weekend and are beautiful!



We also ran into a night market where all sorts of thing are sold. Adam and I got a kick out of this sign!



"For fat people." That does a lot for your self-esteem!
We also made it to the tail-end of the laser show done every night at the harbor. Buildings on the Hong Kong side flash laser and spotlights seen on the Kowloon side and vice versa. Here is Hong Kong seen from Kowloon--so beautiful! The building in the middle with orange outline is advertising the Olympics. We live about 2 blocks inland from there. Also, you can barely see the steeple of the church building lit up. If you look left of the tallest building (with a needle on top), you see a building with a row of 0range lights. To the left of the orange lights you can see a solitary light, about 1/4 the way up the building next to it. That is the church building (where Adam works) which is actually 13 stories high but looks tiny!



As Adam mentioned in his post, we went to Ocean Park on Saturday. It's a fun amusement park with some animal exhibits: pandas, sharks, jellyfish, birds, etc. There's an impressive 4-story aquarium. As you walk down each level you see ocean life get deeper and deeper. There really aren't a lot of flat places in Hong Kong so the park is built in 3 different places on the side of a mountain. From the main entrance you take a mile-long cable car ride to another section of the park then from there take a series of escalators to the third part. The setting is beautiful, as it overlooks the South China Sea. Here's the view from the cable car.

And here you can see how this roller coaster looks out over the ocean.



For sure the biggest attraction while we were there was an adorable one-year old with golden curly hair from Provo Utah. Holy cow!! EVERYONE wanted to take a picture with her. That was the funny part to me--people didn't just want a picture OF her, they wanted one WITH her. While Marian and I were waiting for Adam to go on a ride, we had an endless stream of people wanting to be in a picture with her. Because Marian cries if I hand her to some random person speaking Chinese really excitedly and loudly in her face, I ended up being in most of the pictures too. The people who didn't come up and ask for a picture with her pointed, stared, clapped to get her attention, yelled "Hi beebee!" from afar, or waved frantically to get her attention. I seriously started to feel like a circus act. Especially when Marian had an explosive messy diaper while we were still waiting for Adam. (I was thinking, "Maybe I could use her popularity to my advantage and get one of her devoted fans to change her diaper...") Don't get me wrong, I think she's the cutest thing in the world, but I had no idea what a sensation she'd be!



Yesterday we had such a relaxing Sunday. We came home from church and I napped, read scriptures, and wrote in my journal. Who knew that Sundays could be that relaxing? We went on a 2 hour walk to Victoria Park, which is downtown, not for from us. I've been there with Marian before so we showed Adam around a little. I showed him where I watched a man doing Tai Chi one afternoon (apparently there are people all over the park doing Tai Chi in the mornings).


I also tried out the pebble foot massage path. I think it would take a little bit of getting used to. (Physically and mentally, as I had a hard time thinking of all the other feet that had stepped on the path.)

Who knows what adventures this week holds. Adam goes to the Philippines tomorrow until Thursday. I love you honey and am going to miss you!