PIT, the Light Show, and the Night Market

Thursday - 1 May

Thursday was a holiday for Abby, Anne, and Dad. Anne spent the night at a friend's house so she came home later. We spent the first part of the morning cleaning up the house and moving me in. That was okay. Nothing too exciting.

KITCHEN AND COOKIES

Abby and I cleaned the kitchen and then made Mom and Dad lunch. Dad had, quite unfortunately, gotten Mom sick. So she was not feeling very well. I was feeling tired - as though I was getting sick- but still okay. So Abby and I made lunch and cleaned the kitchen. Then we decided to have some fun. So when Anne got home we made cookies! And they were, of course, AMAZING!. yummy yummy. We baked them while we played games as a family.

PIT

We had a pretty intense game of PIT going on. It was a LOT of fun. We are a pretty competitve family and the game was hilarious. I taught my family the fun of movie quotations on windows and mirrors. It was pretty crazy. We kept score on our porch sliding doors.

Oh, and I won, by-the-way...

THE FERRY AND THE LIGHT SHOW


After that I think we just sort of all did our own thing, and then got ready to go to the night market. The family had never gone so we planned to go as one of our many adventures for the weekend.

We took the ferry over to TST. We got on the ferry right before eight. I know because the light show is at eight and we were on the ferry when the lightshow began. It's pretty cool. All the buildings along the harbor put on a light show. There are those big search lights, laser looking beams of light and the whole building turns different colors. It's crazy.

THE NIGHT MARKET

Talk about PEOPLE! There were tons at the night market. I was expecting the same kind of crowd that was at the Wan Chai Market to be at the Night Market. No. That would have been wonderful. This was the Wan Chai Market times 1 million. OKay, maybe not a MILLION...but pretty dang close. You couldn't walk down the little pathway without touching someone! Not a fan of touching people I don't know so that wasn't exactly the coolest thing on the planet.

I'm pretty sure the market went on for three of four blocks. It was quite the walk. There were a lot of repeating shops: bags, shoes, shinny jewlery, shirts, paintings, purses, dragons, Buddha's, you name it and it was there - whether or not it was of great quality remains to be seen. But there were a ton of things to buy. I ended up getting a ring and a souvenir spoon.

It was a long night. It was the latest that I had stayed up since the first night I got to Hong Kong. It was good though because I started getting over the staying up late and getting up earlyness of Jetlag.

All in all it was a fun holiday. I really enjoyed spending time with my family playing games and going to the night market.

Sai Kung

Wednesday - 30 April

Mom asked Sister Collins and her daughter Heather if they wanted to go on an outing with us. So the four of us headed to Sai Kung Wednesday morning around 10:30a. We took the MTR and then a bus. Sai Kung is a fishing villiage on the coast of the New Territories.

It was a beautiful bus ride there. Very green and refreshing after the rush of the city. We walked around for a little while and then decided to go to lunch at Cru. I just got a ham and pineapple sandwich, nothing Chinese or super exciting, but it was yummy.

After lunch we rode on a Sanpan for an hour. It's a small fishing boat type thing. It was fun and soothing. I really enjoy being on the water. Mom, Carol and Heather chatted. I was quite most of the ride, just enjoying the scenery and the conversation. Carol and Mom together are hilarious! They are good friends.

Oh, I should tell you - Carol and Heather are British. They are citizens of Scotland, but Heather spent most of her childhood in South Africa. She just graduated from BYU in December and has since moved to Scotland after spending a few months with Mom and Dad here in Hong Kong. Brother Collins is one of Dad's counselors in the Branch Presidency. They have amazing cool accents. Heather has an accent, but she didn't grow up in Scotland so hers isn't nearly as thick as her parents are. And their accents are great! I love listening to either of them talk! It's amazing!

Extended Vaction

Tuesday - 29 April

Mom and I were tired from our adventures getting my visa so we decided to stay home. Our day was going great. I was relaxed. Mom and I were hanging out, watching movies and working on my quilt. It was quite fun. And then Mom checked her googlechat.

Dad was on and told her the most wonderful news! (This is said kind of sarcastically...) Dad told Mom that my Hong Kong work visa hadn't been applied for and it would take 4-6 weeks to get. The next hour or so of my life consisted of getting the extra paper work scanned so Dad could get it to HR before he left on his business trip. So HR could then submit my visa application.

See, originally I was supposed to start my internship on 5 May. My work visa should have been applied for and submitted before then so that I could start work on 5 May. Since someone in HR dropped the ball I was suddenly freed from any obligations...for the next month.

At first I was frustrated and down. The entire day I kept saying that I was unemployed and whatnot. It was quite entertaining. It wasn't so bad though, my Mom kept telling me that - because then we just had more time to go and do other things. That sounded like an okay plan to me.