Tuesday Jan 31,2012 we left Tianjin at 7:00am to catch a 9:00 flight to Shenzhen. When we reached Shenzhen our directions said to and look for the shuttle bus to go to Hongkong.We were going to the temple and I assumed we'd tell the bus driver where we wanted to go and he'd drop us off close to it. On the plane we sat next to a cute young woman from Tianjin,Amanda, who lived in Hongkong. She wasn't familiar with our directions so she wrote out a diagram...airport - bus - customs-railroad to Kowloon. When we landed she took us outside the airport to get tickets for the shuttle bus. The bus made a couple of stops and then at one stop everyone got off, so we did too. No place was there any sign about " customs". I made Dad ask someone and they directed us to climb a hundred stairs and go over the highway to the pink building. We did that and when we got to the pink building there were no other signs about customs. Luckily we found an American and he told us to take the escalator, that was around the corner, and go upstairs and follow the signs that say foreigners. We did that. Filled out a card for customs and got in line. When we got up to the window we had to fill out another card. Then we followed the crowd to buy railroad tickets to Kowloon.Kowloon is actually part of Hongkong, but it's on the mainland and Hongkong is an island. Nothing like learning as you go. And we did have a map.
So we took the train and successfully got off at Kowloon. Then we got a taxi to take us to the temple. He charged 5 yuan for every bag he put in the trunk. We had three. Then he drove about five blocks and we were there. An easy walk if we'd realized how close we were! He probably thought we were crazy or disabled. Anyway, we had arrived safely!
We went into the temple to register for the patron housing. It's across the street on the second floor of some church offices. The housing was nice. It had a huge kitchen where we could cook for ourselves, but there were two Chinese women who were visiting the temple and they cooked for us all the time, even when we weren't hungry! The beds were as hard as ours here, but we had our own room with a bathroom. If they're busy the patrons are separated by men and women. Jeanne and Nelson showed up too. to stay in the patron housing you're asked to do two units a day. Tuesday we did an endowment session in English and some initiatory.
Wednesday we did an endowment and sealings. The endowment was in Chinese and we used head phones.There were 10 people in the session. The room holds 40. There was the cutest old Chinese man there. His cheeks were hollow and his hands all gnarled and arthritic, but he was at the temple. How neat! We also met another couple from the China teachers group and we went with them to Hongkong island and shopping at Stanley Park. We took a ferry to the island and a bus to the shopping area. What an adventure.
Thursday we did an endowment session that was full of missionaries.It was their "p" day.That was great too. Then we packed up and took the subway to our hotel where our workshop was held. I'll write more later. So much to write about!
XXOO Mom
No comments:
Post a Comment