Nihao,
I Left O’Hare at 1:00pm today, and landed in LA around 4:00 LA time, which is like 6:00 Chicago time, with a perfect landing by the pilot I must say. Then I ate a ton of McDonalds while there, that being my first meal since I totally forgot to eat in Chicago. Then after waiting around and meeting some of the people that were going along for the trip, we met at the International terminal to fly Cathay Pacific to Hong Kong, on a 15 and ½ hour flight.
The long trip was fun, where we had dinner, breakfast and snacks throughout the flight. Everyone also had their own 8in LCD display with lots of music, movies, games, TV shows, etc to watch throughout the flight. I tried to get some sleep, but I probably only got about 3-4 hours on the entire flight.
We arrived at 7:30am on Wednesday morning in Hong Kong airport, around 14 hours ahead of Chicago. First thing we did was we were introduced to the program director and we were also given our food allowance for the week, and we stayed in the airport for about an hour, where we also had internet. Then we took a bus to the YMCA camp, where we will be staying for the next 7-8 days. As we entered the YMCA, a large soccer field was my first sight……I’m gonna enjoy this camp. After a Hong Kong style lunch in the YMCA cafeteria, we took the train to down town Hong Kong, and checked out the big city you see in pictures, and also the sweet tower that batman jumps off in the movie “Batman Begins”.
After downtown, we came back to the area where we were staying and were showed the market, where the local Hong Kong people shop, and eat. This is where we ate dinner, and bought whatever we needed for the next week. My meal cost my 20 HKD, and the exchange rate is about 7.5HKD to 1 US dollar, meaning I ate dinner for around $2.00. Crazy! Anyways, after not sleeping the last couple days and eating a great meal last night……By 8:00 HK style, I was out.
I must say I really have enjoyed it so far, and the people I have met and will be hanging out with are pretty awesome, and I’m excited to get to know them all. The language scares me a bit, but right now in Hong Kong everyone speaks Cantonese, and I’ll be learning Mandarin, so I can’t even start yet. Also, I’m missing Taco Bell a little. I'll add pictures to this post later.
so be it,
