Hong Kong

Hong Kong was fabulous. Nothing was planned so we had some free time to enjoy and do what we wanted to do.

The day we arrived in Hong Kong we went straight to Ocean Park – a massive theme park. We spent hours there going on all the rides. We thought about going to Disneyland, but after hearing from the locals that we made the right choice, we’re glad we did Ocean Park. We went on all sorts of roller coasters and water rides. They even had some animal exhibits interspersed throughout the rides – like an aquarium, a penguin house, a house for walruses, seals, and sea lions, and even a house for panda bears! We had a blast, and the scenery was amazing because it was on the backside of Hong Kong island and over looked a bunch of other islands and the China Sea. The day we arrived also happened to be the USA’s Independence Day so thankfully the park had an evening show with a few fireworks. So we felt like we celebrated a little.

Our second day there was the day we went to the Hong Kong LDS temple and participated in an endowment session and some sealings. It was beautiful. I loved hearing the sealing ordinance spoken in Chinese (I think). It reminded me of the Lord’s promise that he’ll speak in our own language so that we might understand.

After the temple, Catherine and I went to the LDS Church’s area office building and visited with an acquaintance of hers that is the Executive Secretary to the Area Presidency (which includes Elder Gerrit Gong who used to work at BYU). He told us some fascinating things about the work of the church there in the Asia area.

• Their area covers half of the world’s population and 25 countries, while they only have 1,100 missionaries (out of 70,000 worldwide) and the church only has a presence in 18 of the 25 countries.

• They have an “everyday branch” that holds worship services Tuesday through Sunday for all of the Filipino women that work in Hong Kong. It sounded like they worked in the service/hospitality sector and don’t have any say in when their one day off of work is. So the church holds church services all those days of the week in order to accommodate those sisters.

• The church is looking at a new model of holding church services for those that are too poor to send their whole families to church every week. They are thinking of holding “group services” with 10-15 people in a neighborhood/village on three of the Sundays each month, and then gather the whole branch/ward together once a month for more traditional services.

After meeting with the church, Catherine and I visited with NetDimensions with whom I work for my job at BYU. They host and provide our learning management system that houses all of the online training courses we have. It was so fun to meet all of the support people that I regularly correspond with. They were so nice. They stayed with me for 1.5 hours and answered all of my questions. They seemed excited to see me, especially because they said that they don’t get very many visitors from their clients.

Then Catherine and I headed off to Stanley Market on a bus that took us along the coast of Hong Kong Island. The market wasn’t all that impressive, but it was still cool to get around to the less busy side of Hong Kong Island. Then we came back to take the train/funicular up to the top of Victoria Peak and see the city lights at night – which were beautiful!

On Saturday, Erin, Kara, Bryce, and I took a ferry to Lamma Island. It was a much-needed laid-back kind of day. We slept in. Ate breakfast to our heart’s content. Left to catch the ferry when we felt like it. And then once we got on the island, we just wandered around. We had some of the famous seafood that the island is known for. And then we started walking to the other village on the pathway that takes you there. The cool thing about this island is that there are no roads on it nor are there any high rises. It was truly a tiny little island. The paved pathway between the two villages is how you get to each one. We did see some tiny little vehicles on the island, but they had to be tiny to fit on that pathway. We also stopped by a beach and stuck our toes in the water. The most interesting sight on the island is when we got over to the other village and found that people apparently live on some sort of floating dwelling out in the bay. There are a ton of these humble little floating houses. I also loved all the little houses along the pathway. But I did not love the huge, freaky spiders that hung over the pathway.

We stayed in Hong Kong for Sunday so we could go to church there at one of the international branches. The church services were held in the area office building that Catherine and I visited previously. Then we ended our stay in Hong Kong with some very hot and spicy Indian food before heading off to the airport to catch our flight.