Hong Kong

Day two and part of day three! Kimee was supposed to do this blog post since I did the last one, but she didn't want to so I will!


Yesterday morning, (Saturday) we went to the Hong Kong Temple to do baptisms and sessions. There were 25 of us total and all the guys with us are endowed so they took turns helping in the font. The font itself is so beautiful. Mirrors everywhere and gold designs. The room was pretty small and the dressing room even smaller, but the spirit was the same. Kimee did baptisms once and two or three confirmation sets. I did baptisms and confirmation sets twice. We had lots of time.

After the temple, we went to Victoria Peak. In order to get there, you have to ride the tram. It's really steep and it's a huge tourist attraction so it was so crowded. We waited in a line for two hours. The ride is right near the US Embacy so there were all these weird signs around against the CIA. Stuff about mind control and electromagnetic scissors.

The smaller words say "I'm 80% moron now due to surgery by CIA on Nov. 4, 2011." What the what!?

We also went to the Festival Walk mall here and had lunch. It was interesting since you can't read any of the signs. Luckily they have English underneath for us foriegners. That won't be the case in the rest of China. Kimee and I both got a noodle soup with shrimp and some sort of green plant in it. Couldn't ask what it was since we don't speak Mandarin. :)

This mall was really cool because it has an ice skating rink in it and tons and tons of escalators like everywhere. There was also an import grocery store that we visited. We found some good American stuff and lots of really weird other things. The meat section smelled SO bad. I almost threw up my lunch. It didn't bother Kimee though.

Back to Victoria Peak. Sorry. :) So we rode the tram to the top and then you ride 80 more escaltors to the top of the building where the look out is. It wasn't super clear so you can't see the whole view in our pictures, but it was still really cool and just as we left, the city lights went on as it got dark. 

After that, we returned home for bed. Poor Kimee had to deal with me being tired and ornery. Haha! Lucky for me, I have a great friend who puts up with me. :) We went to bed at about ten o'clock and I have never fallen asleep so fast in my entire life. I closed my eyes and seriously, that was it. Regardless of the hard foam mattress, I slept straight through the night until it was time for Church this morning. Kimee didn't sleep well last night though. :( It's hard to adjust to things here and we are all experiencing different discomforts). If you were wondering though, McDonald's in Hong Kong tastes the same as at home.

We went to Sacrament in one of the Hong Kong wards and it was an interesting experience. We were given these small translator head sets that the translator talked into so we could understand what was being said. One of the speakers talked about visiting Utah and that made us excited since we live there usually. It was fun to hear everyone singing in Chinese (we sang in English with our English Hymn books). The Gospel is true no matter where you go and what language is spoken. It's a beautiful thing.

Up next: Big Buddah and the Cable Car ride! We love you all very much! Be safe while we are gone!

China Day One

Hard mattresses, fire alarms, tall buildings, fog or is that pollution? Driving on the wrong side of the road without realizing it, tiny apartment, weird smells, a temple, a double decker bus, and lots of adventure.

Today, we embarked on the adventure of a lifetime. We got to the Salt Lake Airport at 7:30 and flew out to San Francisco. To start out, our flight was delayed and we ended up arriving after our international flight was due to leave. Lucky for us, they held the flight because we were such a large group. We ended up not sitting by each other on the plane in our rush to sit down. We were on the same ailse with a guy in between us. They played one good movie and three lame ones. The plane took us up near Alaska and then down. If anyone is wondering if Japan is real, we saw it. It's real. :) Also, if you were thinking that it was foggy in Hong Kong, it's not fog. It's SMOG. Pollution that you can see just floating in the air around you. It doesn't smell too bad, but I (Sarah) still think it smells bad. Kimee can't smell anything. We went through customs and exchanged our money. Hong Kong has it's own money system like Beijing does and the exchange rate is higher here than mainland China. So right now, we have more money than we will in Nanjing.

From the Hong Kong International Airport, we caught a double decker bus and road around lots of round-abouts and watched the Skyscrapers rise and fall around us. We then stopped in front of the Hong Kong Temple and crossed the street to the temple housing unit. That is where we are now. Kimee slept quite a bit on the plane but I got less than an hour. Here it's 12:10 AM Saturday morning. Friday basically didn't happen. We have an early start tomorrow because we go to the temple first thing. They have asked us to stay as long as we can and do as much work as possible so we will be there for a good four hours before we begin touring around Hong Kong. It's such a great opportunity and we are both really excited!

On the bus, Kimee was all smiles and giggles. I'm in shock or something. It doesn't feel real and it hasn't hit me yet that we are in CHINA. Half way around the world. You know, home is on the other side of the planet. CRAZY!

We are the foreigners now and it's totally weird. We can't wait for tomorrow and all the adventures we will have. We are safe, happy, and completely exhausted since we've been up all night long and I hope we sleep some tonight!

We love you ALL and will post again tomorrow. We have facebook and wi-fi while we are in Hong Kong but Nanjing is in the unknown.

Also, if anyone told me I had to fly in a plane again tomorrow. I would cry. Literally. 14 1/2 hours is TOO long. It was relaxing too, but cramped and LONG.

Lots of love! Have a good Friday for us since we skipped it. :)

Where it's at!

This is our China blog! We'll try and update it at least once a week if not more to tell you all about living in China. For anyone who doesn't know, Kimee and I are going to China on the 26th of January to teach English to the children in Nanjing, Jiangsu province which is a 70 minute train ride west of Shanghai. We are going to be there for a little over 5 months at one of the more prestigious schools in the city. We are really, really excited and We can't wait to get there! Before going to Nanjing, we'll spend 5 days with a group touring Hong Kong. We get a couple days of training before they send us to our schools. We'll be in Nanjing with 4 other people. We will put pictures up on here and our mom will post things on our Facebooks because China has a censorship program where Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter, and Gmail are unavailable. we also have set up new email addresses through Hotmail that we will put in our info on Facebook.

Thank you to everyone who has supported us!