Visitors from India and Japan

Katie Sue, a cousin, lives in northern India. She happened to be in Shanghai and came to visit us for 24 hours last week. She's our second family visitor since we've lived in China. The first was cousin Karin who came last winter, and oddly, we took Karin and Katie Sue on the same excursion -- climbing a small mountain and sliding down the chute.

The next day Katie Sue flew back to Shanghai and we boarded an overnight sleeper train to Hong Kong. The trip was fine despite the (very nice) drunk guy on the bunk above us.

In Hong Kong we met up with Drew's older brother Paul, a marine currently working in Okinawa. Hong Kong is a special place because Paul & Drew's dad spent 10 years of his childhood here, as his father was a surgeon at Evangel Hospital. Our third and last day in Hong Kong we located the hospital, still existent today, and the address of a former residence. When dad was a kid he patronized this Star Ferry; I wonder if he found it to be as delightful as Titus did?

Hong Kong is shockingly unlike mainland China -- it's clean, rich, and very diverse. Outside our hostel, we kept wondering why there were so many Pakistanis. Then we passed the gigantic mosque. On one city block you can run into a hundred nationalities and languages. We found that, in this international community, sometimes our English was more helpful than our Mandarin Chinese. We were just dumbfounded at how Western the city feels -- cars are big and drive really fast, in their lanes, no jaywalkers, Starbucks is on every corner, clean playgrounds, people queue up; it doesn't feel like China at all. Another shocking difference: I was amazed to see special needs children in public.

Hong Kong is an advanced and beautiful city, but I found it's wealth to be repulsive. The gap between rich and poor makes me so angry. Fancy hotels, handbag and jewelry stores, exorbitant restaurants...to the natural eye these are lovely, pristine and comfortable. But in reality it's all very disgusting. There was a mother sitting on the ground in the subway, holding her baby girl and begging for a coin while upstairs billions of dollars of commerce is going on. Outrage. I've read my Father's feelings about this, and let me tell ya, He is ticked about it too.

St. Andrew's Anglican church welcomed us on Sunday, including a fantastic kids' class for Titus. He made a paper plate cotton ball sheep. I loved hearing the liturgy in British English.

Below: The local fare is sweeter and far less spicy that Changsha's chow. Guangdong residents are known for having one of the broadest palettes in the world. My first chicken foot was tasty.

February 2009

January 2011

By far the best part was three days of lovely weather and walking along the waterfront with Uncle Paul, enjoying Titus' excitement over the boats! Thank you Abba for filling our life with good times like these.