Joyce’s Hong Kong Blog #3 Thursday, July 30 Now that we’ve moved, Ernest is only 20 min. from work, whereas before he was 45 min. away. He leaves a little before nine so he can arrive at work by 9:15 A.M. The cleaning lady lets him in because he is almost always the first one there. Nine thirty is the official starting time, but most of the workers come about 10 or 10:30 A.M., then they work until 7 or 8 P.M. Ernest heads home about 6:30. The others work on Saturdays for half a day or more, but they don’t expect Ernest to come in because his boss knows he didn’t work on Saturdays in the States. I chatted on the phone for a few hours this A.M. , organized a few things, and took a nap. What a life!! Ernest attends a small group Bible Study on Thursday evenings at the home of the elder from India, so we headed out the door as soon as he got home. We found a new set of stairs up the hill that doesn’t require us to walk up and over the flyover, which saves steps. This direction only has 110 steps and it’s through a mini-jungle with bamboo and trees lining the winding stairs. We got to the top and caught a bus. It turned into Aberdeen, which was the wrong direction. We jumped off and walked over a flyover and caught a different bus to the N end of HK island. We ran into a couple of stores to buy cables for our cell phones and my camera, then bought a McDonalds ice cream cone for $.30. Ernest usually shares a taxi ride up the hill with Mailing (we would think Mei Ling, but that’s not how she spells it.) Mailing didn’t come so we got into a taxi and headed up the hill. Rajiv and his wife, Sunita, serve dinner every week to our group of 10 or 15, depending upon the week. They have 3 helpers from India and their cook is quite good. Since several of us can’t abide the hot, spicy curry, the cook tones it down for our meal. Several of the dishes are still quite spicy hot, but the spread is wonderful. Often they serve 9 or 10 dishes. Dinner is at 8 P.M., then Bible Study begins at 9 P.M. At 10:00 we stop for prayer requests and prayer time until 10:30 when everyone heads out the door. They are wonderful, friendly, “down home” hosts, even though their home is quite opulent by our standards. They have ornately carved furniture, many ornate silver decorations like picture frames, animals like swans and hedgehogs, scrolls and even some silver tables. Their Armani statues are lovely. We are studying the book of Hebrews using guide sheets with a reading for 6 days per week plus questions for the following week. When Amelia and I were at the study in March, a man named Daryl was there from the States. He had come to thank everyone for praying for his 21 yr. old son who had fallen from a 4th floor balcony while in China. Daryl invited Ernest, Amelia and myself to attend the Rugby Sevens with him, which is like the soccer world cup. It was great fun. Well, his son, Trevor, was there tonight for the first time. He’s been through several surgeries but can now walk and can go up stairs, although not down very well. He has one more surgery to go to try to gain more movement for his right elbow. It was wonderful to have him there with his mother. Afterward, one of the lady’s in our group gave us a ride to the other side of the hill where we could catch a bus closer to home. It felt so strange to be sitting in the front of the car on the left side, but I wasn’t driving! Friday, July 31 Ernest interrupted my “very busy” day with a request to get to South Horizons quickly to look at a couch and a bookcase for sale. He looks through the Ikea catalog and then watches on the expat website for people who are moving out of the country and must sell cheaply and quickly or for those who don’t want to pay to move everything. Some great bargains are available. I hiked up the 110 steps to the bus stop and caught the right bus. I was a bit nervous about getting off at the right stop, so jumped off as soon as I got there. I forgot I was supposed to get off at the last stop. Not to worry. It was hot but not blazing hot, so I started walking. South Horizons is beautiful with marble planters and greenery everywhere, fountains and ponds and waterfalls, kids’ play areas, an exercise room, a large swimming pool, and a wonderful tiled walkway along the bay. They are expanding the walkway and by December it will connect with the promenade in front of our apartment. After twenty minutes I arrived at building 8, convinced the security guard (who didn’t speak any English) that I needed to be there, got to the 40th floor via the even numbered elevator, and found flat H. The couch was too big but I made arrangements to purchase the bookcase for $13 U.S. Tony and Sam (his wife) are from Australia and have lived in HK for 7 years. They are both teachers of English in English speaking high schools. They said that the beginning income for a native English speaker with experience is $6,500 U.S. per month. AND, the HK taxes here are about 15%. Not bad! (This is not TESOL.) That evening I met Ernest in Aberdeen (I rode the ferry over) and we caught a bus to the French restaurant again for his conversation group. Cathy came back and Jimmy joined us this time. Saturday, August 1 Erica came over for 2 hours at 10:30 A.M. for English conversation. This week she brought mangosteen fruit. Yes!! I know what that is. The outside has a thick, purple skin and the inside looks like a small, white tangerine and is quite sweet. This is the fruit that is in XanGo, a nutritional beverage for which I am a distributor. It was great to be able to eat the fruit itself. It is highly perishable, so it is rarely sold in the United States. Then we went into Causeway Bay on the N end of HK Island, about a 30 min. ride, to buy a cell phone from a store that had advertised on the internet. The lady met us downstairs in the mall and didn’t even have us go upstairs to the store, which was interesting. After purchasing the phone, we hopped another bus for Stanley on the SE end of HK island to look at another wardrobe. Many of the wealthy people live in Stanley because there are nice beaches and most of them have cars so it’s not difficult for them to get to work from out there. It’s also where many tourists stay. We had to take a taxi from Stanley to get to the man’s apartment. The security guards were very suspicious of us and wouldn’t let us go up. They had asked if he were Chinese and Ernest said, “no.” Of course, we had never met him, but over the phone he sounded like a Canadian. Since he really was Chinese, they were suspicious. Anyway, he figured out what had happened and came down to fetch us. The wardrobe was huge so we decided not to purchase it, but it was beautiful. He was kind enough to ask the security guard to call a taxi for us and he waited with us until it arrived. Back in Stanley we walked through the market which is definitely set up for tourists. The small stores line either side of a small walkway with many touristy types of items for sale. I found some postcards so bought a lot since they are hard to come by outside of tourist areas. I also bought 2 blouses and capris. We headed home via bus then caught the ferry from Aberdeen. Ernest got a phone call at 6:10. It was Kelly. She was coming at 6:30 so Ernest could help her with a marketing paper she is trying to write in English. She had come early and we were still on the ferry. When we got to our complex, the security guard was upset that he had let her go up to our floor, thinking we were there. We assured him it was okay. As soon as we got in our door, our neighbor from China rang the doorbell. She had a gift of cashews for us. Also, she rattled on and kept grabbing her large bracelet off her arm. We figured out that she had been accosted in Aberdeen. She wrote something on paper and Ernest found out at work on Monday that it said, “Beware of pickpockets.” It was nice of her to warn us. Ernest and Kelly began working on the paper while I ran to the grocery store. It seemed very strange to be running to the store AFTER company had arrived, but here it’s okay. For one, the stores are only a few blocks away, and for two, the refrigerators are so small that people shop every day. Plus, the Chinese put a high value on fresh food. I fixed pork vegetable stir-fry for dinner. We ate about 8:30, which is common. She and I enjoyed chatting over dinner and Ernest said that her English improved substantially throughout the evening as she relaxed. She left about 11:30 P.M. and had a 30 – 40 min. bus ride home. In general, everyone here is on a much later time table. Sunday, August 2 We hopped a minibus a block from our house to take us to Aberdeen. There we waked up and over the flyover to the bus stop. Caught a bus to take us 10 min. up the hill and deposit us a block from the International School building in which Faith Community Church holds services. There were about 75+ people today. The speaker is from Japan, the assistant pastor is from S. Africa, and the 4 elders are from Malaysia, Singapore, India, and Hong Kong. Quite an interesting variety!! The teen mission team had returned and they gave a moving account of their week in the Philippines working with street kids. They built an outdoor playground next to a home for street boys ages 15-18. The mission feeds and works with all ages of street kids but only houses these boys. Afterward we attended the monthly catered dinner in the cafeteria. We ate with Chris and Rita Fung and she invited me to go swimming with her this week. She owns and rents out a flat near us that has a pool. It may not work out because it’s been a rainy week, but it was nice to be invited. Since we can catch a free bus the church hires to take us down the other side of the hill and into the main part of Hong Kong, we decided to go shopping. We stopped at Ikea and purchased a glass shelf for the kitchen and a small stand to get the computer off the floor. The computer store is several stories high with many, many vendors, each of whom has a tiny section for wares. It’s crowded and hard to move around within the stalls because they are so small. But, Ernest found the cables we needed. That evening we went to pick-up a cabinet we had purchased from a lady in South Horizons. It was a 20 min. walk over there, then it took Ernest about an hour and a half to break down the cabinet and get it ready to be moved. We took down the smaller pieces with the lady’s help and caught a cab home. Then we walked back with a hand truck for the sides which were too long to take in the cab. Ernest wrapped them up and tied them to the hand truck. We had to walk home the long way in order to avoid stairs. We were both sweating profusely even though it was 10 P.M. Ernest’s shoulder was sore since he was resting the tops of the boards on it while carting it home. I’m sure we were quite a sight!! Not a very restful Sunday! Monday, August 3 When you get up to the 18th floor of our apartment, it’s 8 steps to our door. We are at the north end of the hall and our neighbors’ doors are to the left and to the right of ours. Their doormats take up most of the floor in front of our door so we won’t need to get a doormat. If you go the other way from the elevator, there are 3 flats, as they say, at the other end of the hall. Each flat sticks out so that there are windows on 3 sides. Since we are on the front side of the building, we have a view of the bay. Those on the back side have a view of the side of the hill and the road on the side of the hill. To either side you see the buildings and roads in our town. While the South side tenants get to watch the buses on the road, we get to watch the boats. At night the bay basically empties out as the fishing boats head out to sea. The sampans are always busy, darting here and there. Sometimes a nice yacht will go by. It’s fascinating. It’s like watching a busy ant colony moving around. When a typhoon comes through, and we had another warning today, the bay is filled with boats seeking shelter. The lights of Aberdeen, the town across the bay, are pleasant. There are about 30,000 people in Aberdeen and about 15,000 people in our traditional fishing village which is 9 blocks long and 1 1/2 blocks wide. In the hall we can hear people talking in their apartments and we hear their televisions or music. However, once inside our apartment, we rarely hear anyone. However, tonight our tranquility was disrupted by angry yelling and door slamming at the other end of the hall. This went on for several minutes. My take is that the boy, about 5 years old, was whining so Dad put him out in the hall and slammed the door. He started screaming. Mother went into action and flew into the hall to rescue him and the door slammed behind her so they were both stuck out in the hall, yelling. Dad opened the door and let them back in again, and he joined the yelling for good measure. Hmmm. We’ll trust this is a rare occurrence. We hopped a bus for 10 min. then walked for 20 min. until we found an apartment where a lady was selling dining room chairs. We brought folding camping chairs from the states, and in addition we have one large chair. Her chairs were quite comfortable and not too large, so we purchased them and carted them downstairs in the elevator. The security guard helped us carry them out to the curb where he hailed a taxi for us. The taxi drivers are used to hauling cargo, so he already had a bungee cord attached to the trunk. Two of them fit in the trunk, one in the front seat, and we had one with us in the back seat. It just seems so funny to me to always be hauling things in taxis and on buses rather than in cars. Tuesday, August 4 Ernest’s coworker, Juliet, wanted to meet me in Aberdeen for lunch. I’m quite pleased with myself that I got on the right minibus (we load only 1 block from our place), got off at the right stop, and walked the two blocks in the right direction to find our meeting place. We ate at Yoshinoia’s, a Japanese fast food restaurant. She is really sweet and offered to take me hiking near her place (an hour away) when it cools down. Ernest went straight from work to a Thunderbird dinner/meeting, his grad school alma mater. Only 4 people showed up this time so he didn’t stay long. Instead he purchased some towel bars. When he got home he used the power drill to install the towel rods in the bathroom. It made quite a racket. A few minutes later the doorbell rang and there was our security guard. “No noise, it’s the law,” he said as he pointed to his watch. We found out that we aren’t supposed to make much noise after 7 P.M. and it was already 10:30 P.M. I guess the neighbors below us and called and complained. Oops! While Ernest was at his Thunderbird dinner, I called Nok and we went to Aberdeen to look at shops. This time she treated me to a cone at Mickey D’s. Wednesday, August 5 I spent about 4 hours on the phone this morning. Thank the Lord for Skype! The U.S.A. doesn’t seem so far away. Nathan leaves tomorrow for a vacation in Belgium where he’ll stay with a coworker who has been transferred there for a year. They’ll hike in Norway then take a boat trip on a fjord.