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. :)