back in Hong Kong

We're back in Hong Kong now. We had only slept 3 hours the night before in Korea (went to sleep at 1:30 a.m. and woke up at 4:30 a.m. to catch our flight) so after arriving in Hong Kong, we had a 5 hour nap! Then we went out to eat. The food here is so good! We really need to diet when we get back home! We had sushi. I had never seen this kind of sushi restaurant before, but apparently they're popular in Japan. The different sushis, etc., keep moving around in front of you on this circular conveyer belt thing. It's really fun. You just pick off what you want as it passes around in front of you. We enjoyed the surf clam and salmon and deep fried prawn sushi. I had a tiramisu dessert after - that was really good too! After sushi, we hit the night market which is always a lot of fun. We've accumulated a lot of stuff! Thankfully we only have to pack it all 1 more time!
Today we had dim sum. I love shrimp dumplings - so yummy! We then went to the Hong Kong Museum of history (for 4 hours!). It was kind of interesting (for me) and Bill really loves his museums. I found it interesting on the parts about the folk culture in the Hong Kong area, the junk boats (where people lived solely on boats and they were a whole people group in and of themselves) and the more recent history of Hong Kong (with the British, Japanese occupation, typhoons, water shortages, etc.). There was this picture of this car pile up that was just crazy (I think it was from a typhoon or mudslide) - must have been 50 cars or something.
2 more sleeps til home! Yeh!

More fun in Korea

Hard to believe our time in Korea is almost done. Tomorrow we're off to Hong Kong (God willing) for a few days before we head home!
I'm going to talk about this pictures in reverse order. This morning Kelly & I got up early and went to a prayer service at her church (this is a picture on the church wall - sorry still sideways). Every morning they have worship, the Word & prayer starting at about 6 a.m. It's a great way to start the day! On Sundays, they have about 5-6 services with 2,000 coming just to the young adult service. Makes our church at home seem really small!

Yesterday we had fun with Kelly & her parents. We went to a part of Korea that has the most green space. It was really pretty there. We went to a Korean movie set - where they film Korean history movies. Bill is throwing a fake log! Earlier in the day, we went to a village from 500-600 years ago and we went to a mask performance. This was pretty funny as I was picked to do a Korean dance. Bill actually said I danced good! (that's a first - dancing is not my strong point) I kept thinking of Greg Erickson cause they do these slow movements in the dance so I just tried to copy the guy with the mask. It was embarrassing but fun! There were also these guys dressed up as a cow and they kept "peeing"/spraying water on the crowd with this pretend bull's "you know what". They tried pretend selling it to Bill! He had a good laugh about that.

Bill & I dressed up like Koreans. Bill thought he looked like he had Mickey Mouse ears on - haha.

We had more great Korean food.

The day before (Saturday), we went to a Yodel performance. Yes, they do have Swiss yodelling in Korea of all things! This was most enjoyable. Kelly is an excellent yodeller and has been a part of this group in the past. I especially enjoyed the Yodel blues singer.

Earlier on Saturday we went to the "poor church". We had a great time there. This is in an illegal dwelling area where there are many people with mental problems, alcohol problems, etc. Kelly does prayer & worship ministry on Saturdays with some other young people from her church. Bill found the wiring somewhat interesting. The gentleman in the photo is a neat story. Usually he's not open to people from church talking to him and definitely not praying with him (usually he just walks away). Bill asked if he could pray for him and he agreed to prayer for the first time! That was pretty exciting - yeh God! There was a great service and prayer time, then Bill had the opportunity to share with the church volunteers after the service. It was neat to hear that it agreed with what the leader had shared in service even though Bill couldn't have known what it was about (but God did).

Mr. Lee

Guess what we had for breakfast today? Octopus pieces & Seaweed Soup! Not exactly your typical Canadian breakfast but we like it (sort of) !

Later this day, I went shopping with Kelly. I was feeling really out of it with how dressed up women are here in Korea so I felt I needed to buy some "asian" shoes and skirts, etc. Plus I was really tired of museums ! so Bill went to the museum with Mr. Lee. He's someone we met previously in Korea and has visited us in Canada.

Mr. Lee has a really interesting and difficult past. He was born in North Korea before the Korean war. He said he doesn't know how he survived it as he remembers being so hungry and eating dirt and animal dung (nasty) to survive. His family left in a truck with the Americans to South Korea. He's really thankful for the good life he has now.

One funny story about Mr. Lee's experience in Canada is that he saw the sign "Subway" and he naturally assumed, as a Korean, that meant there was a subway train like in Korea (there's a huge subway system here and we've ridden it for hours in the time we've been here). He asked where is the subway and a lady directed him to it. He went in and there was a restaurant but no subway! He went back and asked again where is the subway, as in train. The lady started laughing hysterically as he saw the sign for "Subway" the restaurant and he was in Kelowna (where there is definitely no subway train system only "Subway" the restaurant). I thought that was really cute.

Later that day, we went by subway to Mr. Lee's town which is right by the Yellow Sea where you can take a ferry over to China. We went to a monument dedicated to a Korean war hero. His name was Yi Sun Shen and he was a navy admiral that headed up the building of a kind of armoured ship (turtle boats). He was the leader of many victories over Japanese invasions in the late 1500's.

Worship, Dinosaur eggs & Parting of the Red Sea

We had a fun day yesterday. Kelly & I sang some worship songs in the morning. Then her friend, Sara, took us to look at some dinosaur eggs. It was such an open space with so few people, it felt more like Canada than Korea! They drained the water out of this area and uncovered some dinosaur eggs. I teased Kelly because there was supposed to be some big snakes in the area and she was a little scared about that.











Green tea shakes are so good!

Later we went to Jebu Island. We had some dinner first (home made noodles & clams in a soup broth), then they have this neat phenomena happen where the water level drops and you can drive over to the island (when the water was high, you just saw the road sink into the water). So Kelly said it's like when Moses & the Israelites walked on dry land at the parting of the Red Sea! We walked by the water on this walkway for a while, then we went to have dinner #2. It was shrimp and sashimi. The shrimp were really fresh, actually alive & kicking when they stuck them in the pan, and we watched them slowly die (kind of different for us westerners but asians really like their food fresh!). The sashimi we ate dipped in soya sauce & wasabi with maybe a piece of garlic and in a sesame leaf instead of seaweed. We passed up on the live octopus. They were fun to watch though. We had a lot of laughs and a really fun time. It's good that Kelly hasn't spoken English for a while (although we're giving her headaches having to think hard) cause she says some of the cutest things still. She said she likes being in a car in Korea because she doesn't need a seatbelt in the back side (back seat). Cute!

In Korea

It's nice to be back in Korea! Feels like a home away from home. It's so nice to see Kelly and her family again. The first night here we went walking (& bicycling) around a park at about 11 p.m. - 12 a.m. This is Kelly's parents on the bike. We commented on how there's not nearly as many people walking in a park at that time of the night in Canada! The difference here I think is how many people work very long hours. Kelly's parents usually get home at about 9 p.m. from work.

Today we had sweet potato pizza. I love this stuff! It's SO good! I want to try to duplicate it when we get home.

Bill is in my bad books today. He took my backpack onto the bus and left it there. Aaaargh! Thankfully there wasn't anything of much value in it but I was pretty frustrated about it regardless : (

We had a fun time walking around a flea market, then we went for pizza and, after that, we went to this really great little tea shop with little birds in cages just outside the door. I love plum tea. You can buy this hot or cold. I had it cold during the day, then had a hot one at the tea shop. I just love the taste of it.

Korea feels so comfortable. They seem to really care about the environment here. The streets & water are cleaner, they recycle, etc. I feel so safe here more so than when I'm in Canada - unfortunately! I don't notice "scary" people. You see crosses and steeples everywhere. The influence of Christ in the people here makes a huge difference and it's noticeable.

English Corner

These are some of the young people we met at English Corner. This is a very interesting phenomena in China. It's an open invitation for Chinese who want to speak English with other Chinese or with foreign English speaking people to come to numerous meeting places in the cities of China to talk to one another in English. This is so that the Chinese people can hear the English language spoken and correct and practice their own oral language skills.

We had such an enjoyable time here with our friends. We went to church (an international fellowship) where we had to show our passport to attend - it's for foreigners only. Felt strange. It was really fun bicycling around. Our first experience bicycling in China! Definitely can be a rush at times! We went for this awesome food - a little hard to find but it was worth it! It was ribs and they were really tender and tasty. Then we went to this coffee shop that made us feel like we were in Canada and had a great time visiting with other people. It was a lot of fun to gab with our friends and meet their Chinese & foreign friends.

Tianjin

We take no responsibility for the previous post (courtesy of Charlie) - at least not while we're still here !!!

We took the train from Beijing to Tianjin yesterday (about 1 1/2 hours). We are having fun visiting with our friends here. On Monday, we plan to fly to S. Korea.

please give a round of applause to this brave Canadian, it sure is a suicidal act in China.

Great Wall

We went to the Great Wall (at Mutianyu) today. It was great to see the Wall and walk it for real (instead of just hearing about it and seeing pictures). I enjoyed it and was excited to be there ! Was dripping hot from walking up and down a lot of stairs, but actually would've been hotter if it was sunny. I enjoyed the ride down, too, on a tobaggan/luge type thing.

Each day we meet so many interesting people. I met a guy from Ontario that was teaching English in Japan, a lady teaching English in another part of China who was originally from Colorado, a couple from Russia and Poland travelling here that we shared a taxi with to the Wall, a couple of Finnish guys we met on the Wall, a girl from Calgary here at our hostel, etc. Bill has such great conversations every day it seems like with multiple people about the history of China, evidences of a Creator that we see in China, etc. It's been awesome how many neat opportunities God has given and how many interesting people we've met. It's great to hear him having debates with seekers, throwing out things to encourage them to think, etc.

The vendors in China are so aggressive. Bill has this funny thing he does when they're harrassing him. He starts running and yelling and flayling his arms in the air like a crazy person. For some reason, they seem to leave him alone then (haha). As we're walking along where there are souvenir sellers, we always hear "hello, hello... cheaper price". Bill was telling some of them today, "don't touch me" as they tried to drag him into their store (I'm not kidding when I say aggressive). They also cornered me in one today and I had to jump over stuff to get out. We've been to Mexico, etc. where people try to sell you stuff, but by far the Chinese are the most aggressive at it! One funny thing happened today in regard to this. Bill was getting so fed up with people bugging him to sell him something, give him a ride somewhere, etc., he just kept telling them "bu yo" (don't need) and brushing them off that he didn't realize it was a worker at the bus stop actually trying to help him get his bus, that he'd brushed off (oops).

Bill commented today that he'll never get used to girls "horking" and spitting in public. One thing I also notice is how loud everyone is with talking and loudspeakers in front of stores and honking. Never a dull moment! I pray a lot when we cross the road too - there's so much traffic and bicycles.

For dinner today, it was the old point at what we want trick. We found most of it to be edible. Yesterday, Bill accidently ordered this dish that we just could not eat. It had a ton of hot peppers in it and looked like fried chicken skin or something. It made my tongue numb from 1 bite. For some reason 1/2 the Chinese people in the restaurant were laughing "with us" at our reaction to it. I love the street vendor foods. Today we had some different bun type things with meat & veggies in them. After dinner, I went to Dairy Queen. Not a big deal, except it's not every day I have a Green Tea blizzard at DQ in Beijing! It was really good.

Forgot to mention sooner that I can access our actual blog here, in Beijing, and comments people put on it, for the first time since Hong Kong. Yeh!

Tomorrow we're off to Tianjin (about 1 1/2 hours outside of Beijing). We plan to take the train for the first time in China!

me & Jackie Chan

These ones are a wax look alike we saw at the museum today.


Doesn't this guy look like Jackie Chan?
He said he gets that a lot from people. This is a guy that was on our boat trip.

Temple of Heaven

This photos are from the Temple of Heaven. It felt like we were in Jerusalem in the Old Testament. This is where the emperor would offer sacrifices to the God of heaven on behalf of himself & the people. It was really fascinating how much of it corresponded to what the Israelites would do. They mentioned that Henry Kissinger came here 12 times.

We had an awesome time at a bible study/care group on Tuesday night. Someone we met at church on Sunday invited us to come. It was SO wonderful to have fellowship with Chinese brothers and sisters! It had been a long time since we were at a bible study, etc., and have had so little opportunity for fellowship while in China. I loved the way they read scripture all together loudly and sang with so much enthusiasm (we're so timid often in Canada). They were so nice to interpret for us and sing songs that we knew in English (Amazing Grace, etc.). We had a great time reading the Bible together and sharing about what God has shown us in China and praying together. It was great!

Some Pictures from Charlie

These are photos from the Yunnan Bus trip. This blog entry is courtesy of Charlie. It's a dangerous weapon to give someone your blog access!! I let him upload (from his home in Taiwan) pictures from our Yunnan trip together and he was a little naughty at his picture selections ! But that's to be expected from Charlie. Parents are to be mocked right ? even Canadian parents... oh well ..... Charlie loves it when I say that.... I really badly want to delete the nasty picture at the end, but I know he'll just put it back in so I'll have to just "grin & bear it". Thanks Charlie for the opportunity to be humbled, once again! Just remember.... cat food.... haha





That's right! That is his belly.





Bill just loves his umbrella












What a cute picture. They were both snoring.

Peking Duck

This was a fun experience today. We had to try Peking duck while we were here. We were wandering around all these "hutongs" or alleys and eventually came across the restaurant we were looking for - it was in the middle of all these alleyways, tucked away in the middle of nowhere. We at first took a seat right beside some hanging ducks and thought maybe that wasn't the best spot for our appetite (to have a dead duck looking at you - poor quackers!). But the duck tasted so good! I really enjoyed it. We got to see them roasting over a fire. Then the cook cut the duck in front of us and they served it with some sauce, onions & cucumber and in a kind of light tortilla type thing. Really tasty - yum!

Forbidden City

We went to the Forbidden City today. Too bad that the biggest building was really forbidden. They were renovating it and it was off limits. But it was still pretty impressive.