China From the Inside: Biiiiiiiiiiig Buddha!

It is a fact that the sky has been so much clearer this time in Hong Kong than last time. It is absolutely beautiful!

Yesterday, we went to Victoria Peak. Victoria Peak is famous for it's view of Hong Kong Harbor. You take a tram from the ground to the top of the peak and then go up several floors of a giant tourist-trap shopping center to the look-out deck. It boosts a 360 view and it's pretty incredible. Since Hong Kong is made up of several islands, you can see the ocean from almost every side. I hate seeing the ocean and not swimming in it, but I don't really think I want to swim in the ocean so close to China. I'm not sure how safe/clean it is.

This next picture is of the last time I was here.

HUGE difference right?

While on top of the mountain, we ran into Hermione, the girl who set up the service project we did in Zhangye last June. How bizarre is that? China has over a billion people and we just happen to be in Hong Kong on the same day, on top of the same mountain, at the same time. I just can't express how crazy I think that is! People say, "It's a small world," but it seriously became so much smaller to me when we saw her. I literally saw the world shrink in my head.

Today, we went to the Cantonese ward sacrament meeting. It is really a unique experience that is just incredible to me. Someone translated into a microphone that goes to the little radio head sets that all of us had. It was a little hard to understand or hear, but the spirit compensated for that. The spirit really was so strong in that room. We sang the hymns in English while the rest sang in Cantonese. It sounded a little weird, and it was no MoTab but it was definitely awesome in its own way. The people were all so welcoming, as well.

After church, we went to the Po Lin Monastery and Big Buddha. Once again, the sky was SO much clearer. To get to the Buddha, we took a cable car ride. Last time I was here, it was broken so we had to take a bus along a really windy road that made you a little car sick, so this was a much better way to get there.

Of course, Tony flirts it up with all the girls here and they all just love him. All the girls tell me how cute he is, etc, etc. Tony is quite the charmer, that's for sure. He won't admit it, but he is also really good at teaching people Chinese. He accents his tones really well so it's easy to hear and repeats it for you when you say it wrong. He is a big reason I learned so much in China when I was here before. In the cable car we took, Tony was the only guy and the girls teased him the whole time. It got weird really fast and I think Tony was a little embarrassed, but he joked along and teased everyone anyway.

The most exciting thing happened when we got off the cable car. There were DRAGON DANCERS! I can't tell you how excited I was! I never saw the Chinese Dragons here last time and I wanted to so bad. There were 3 dragons and then some creepy person wearing a creepy head dancing. They were dancing to Gangnam Style and some other party rock song and it was seriously the coolest thing! Tony was also really excited so it's not a just a foreigner thing.

This picture is awesome because they are jumping

from that platform to another one and I got them

in mid air! Woot woot!

Sorry for the poor quality of this video, but I just

really wanted to show you how awesome this was!

We climbed the 8 million stairs to the Big Buddha and then walked the "Wisdom Path." Once you walk all of the Wisdom Path, you are supposed to have gained wisdom. I didn't feel any different afterwards so I assume it's because I was already very wise.