Flight of the Chindian

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.

1/19

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,

Sam Mahtani

Night on the Town

Today we started classes, and I learned about the language Chinese mandarin, which was an awesome and interesting part of my day.

After lunch in the YMCA (Young Men’s Christian Association) where we are staying, we had a brief afternoon class, then played soccer in an outdoor enclosed indoor soccer area…hope you followed that. Then we went downtown for a light show and dinner, which turned out to be a crazy event:
Basically, five of us walked around Hong Kong and ended up at a tiny little hole in the wall noodle shop in a building, and ate there.

While there, everyone but me ordered something extremely spicy….and I saw grown men cry. After that, we realized we would be late for the light show, so we ran, trying to find the harbor to see the light show that is on Hong Kong Island…we were at the time on the mainland. We ended up trying to go through a very expensive hotel…..the kind with Lamborghini’s sitting outside in the lot. We could not make it through, so we ended up getting out and catching the last 10 minutes of the light show.

After the light show, and taking many pictures, we boarded the ferry to go to Hong Kong Island, on which the huge tower that is in the movie the dark night is in. We walked around a while and decided to try to get in the building….but to no avail because of the guard. We ended up in a strip mall adjacent to the building, and then we found ourselves at a high end club/bar/restaurant outside 10 stories up, which had access to the batman building. So, naturally, we went inside, and ended up eating a very pricey desert there….around 5 US dollars…..In the end, we ran through a fancy hotel, got into the batman building, and had awesome deserts….day well spent


Tomorrow classes start at 9:30 again, learning more Mandarin….I’m excited…..Pictures still to come.

So be it,

-Sam Mahtani

Cable Car

Today we had the day off, so we were able to relax or go and do whatever we wanted, which was exciting. Some of the group went to Macau, an island similar to Las Vegas, others went to Disneyland in Hong Kong, and me and some others went to a different island, where the largest Buddha is located, on top of a mountain. We got to take a cable car then went really high up in the hair to the top of the mountain.

So we took the train down to the edge of the mainland, and then hopped onto the cable car/gondola, took the cable car to the island. It was a 10-20 minute ride going up.....very high up. The visibility was also very low, and once we got up into the clouds, we could see about 5 feet around us, then just white. It was both crazy cool and somewhat scary. :) At the top, we walked around and saw the temple there and also checked out the Buddha, which was huge.

However, we couldn't see much more than the outline of it cause of the fog. After walking around for a long time, shopping, checking out the sights....drinking a cup of starbucks, and visiting about 6 bakeries with Dave (a cool guy from Brazil who I'll be rooming with in Xiamen), we then headed back to (Shah on Mun) to the wet market for dinner. At night we played some basketball, which was a lot of fun under the lights at the YMCA. By 10pm, we were ready for bed. Tomorrow we get to check out a Church in HK. Uploaded pictures to older posts as well as this one....enjoy!

so be it,

Samuel Mahtani

A Day of Rest

Today was Sunday, and the group of us went to church in the city of Hong Kong, at another YMCA which hold’s services there. The service was in English and for those who spoke English, so there were a lot of “foreigner’s” there, including us. Basically the service was identical to a CRC service, or at least very similar to the Orland CRC church I’ve been to, which I found ironic. Sure there was on Greg Hartnett or Brian Bouchek, but I mean, very similar. After the service and a quick lunch, we headed back to the YMCA and relaxed for the day, spent some time at the library, and that’s about it. Overall it was a very nice relaxing day…..minus my nap. Monday meant classes, so we all went to bed early.

The sunrise brought classes from 8am to noon, which was very exciting to learn a lot about Chinese language, and start learning even more about it. By noon however, I was ready to be done for the day, and study hard for my quiz the next day. However, Aaron Stuvland and Deb Kim, two of the directors of the program had flown in for the next week, so we went out with them. We went to “The Peak”, where you are basically at the highest point on Hong Kong Island, even higher than the batman building I believe, and you basically can look down on all the buildings….makes for an awesome night shot, as you can see in the pictures. Then we had Burger King for dinner, showed the directors a bit more of Hong Kong, and headed back. Got back at midnight, and memorized 1-10 in Mandarin. Yi, er, san, si, wu, liu, qi, ba, jiu shi. Don’t bother trying to pronounce it, because I guarantee you will pronounce it wrong.

We leave for Xiamen Wednesday, so basically tomorrow we will be relaxing and relaxing. I’ll update from Xiamen. This blog may be blocked in China, as well as Facebook and what not, so I may be changing to another blog, which I will try to send out somehow. If it looks like I just stopped updating, email me at Samuel.mahtani@trnty.edu and I’ll let you know the new blog site if I have to switch.

so be it,

Samuel Mahtani