Saturday, July 4

This has been an amazing week! It is really hard to believe that we’ve only been here at Holf a week – it feels like I’ve lived here forever. I’ve had two days off this week, as I will every week, and have definitely made the most of both of them. Anna and I were off-duty together on Tuesday, and started the morning off by going to Shatin to the Temple of Ten Thousand Buddhas. It was a great hike up, and very interesting. From there, we got on a bus to go to Lion Rock Country Park to see the wild monkeys that roam there, but no one was standing at the bus stop, so the bus driver didn’t stop there! We should have yelled “Yau Loc!” to make him stop, but we decided that we had time so we’d just be flexible. We wound up on Hong Kong Island, roamed around Causeway Bay, then went to Mid-levels to the Hong Kong Zoological and Botanical Gardens which was lots of fun. Then we went to Kam Shan Country Park where there were tons of monkeys. I almost got attacked a couple times…they wanted my juice box and camera! They were so cool! We hiked around there and around the neighboring Lion Rock Country Park before returning to Shatin. Yesterday, all three of us were off together, so we took the hour-long ferry ride to Macau. Once again, it was an adventure! Macau is a very interesting place; ruled by the Portuguese for a really long time (a few hundred years, I think…but I forget), it is a mixture of Portugal and China. All the signs are in Portuguese and Cantonese, and many include English. The architecture is also interesting, demonstrating the blend of these two unique cultures. From Macau, we traveled by bus across the bridge through Taipa Island and then across another bridge to Coloane Island, where we visited Hac Sa Beach, known for its black sand. We had never seen black sand before, and it was amazing! So pretty. We also toured the ruins of St. Paul’s Cathedral (built by the Jesuits in 1582 as a residence, mission, and seminary – the first Western-style college in Asia), Mount Fortress (built in 1617 by the Portuguese, now the home of the Museum of Macau), Garden of Vasco de Gama, a really interesting cemetery, the very old St. Domingo’s Cathedral, and a very old mansion built in the Qing Dynasty style. Simply walking the streets of Macau was terrific – the culture is so intriguing and the style of each building and street is beautiful. Macau has more casinos than Los Vegas, but we didn’t go (obviously).  Mindy went on a trip to China for a couple weeks last summer with a group from Macau, and we met them at 5:30. They were wonderfully hospitable, and took us for supper and on a tour of Macau and their church. It was such a blessing to meet and fellowship with them! They were so much fun, and we shared lots of laughter and wonderful Chinese food!

In the meantime, work here at Holf has also been amazing. I love getting to know the children better each day. We have a lot of fun. This past week, we took them into Tsim Sha Tsui for a walk (Valerie needed a ride there, anyways) and McDonald’s ice-cream. Thursday, we went swimming (Holf has a swimming pool!), which they loved. It’s so much fun to hear them giggle – and in some cases, shriek very loudly with laughter! They’re so full of joy…and often with a little mischief, as well. On Thursday morning, Sue took a child to an audiology appointment, leaving me with the other three for a few hours. While sitting on the toilet that morning, an entire roll of toilet paper managed to get unrolled by a certain child…haha! But besides that incident, things have gone well.   Shan leaves us Tuesday; pray for the family that will be fostering her for the next three years and for her speech therapist, also! (And us here at Holf…we’re going to miss her!)

Mom asked me what I’d been eating, so here goes. I’m eating very well. Lots of rice, and I’m glad I knew how to use chopsticks! I have toast every morning for breakfast with either coffee or tea, and rice with random vegetables, fresh fruit from our fruit trees (like mangoes and lychees), and some sort of meat (usually with eyes). Oh, yes, it’s authentic Chinese. Tonight I ate small squid. Whole. They were really quite delicious. I have also eaten, and enjoyed, jellyfish. Our fish also are put on the table whole, and we cut meat from them (eyes, head, tail, etc). But it’s all very good. In Sheung Shui the other day, I saw the market where the cook usually buys our meats because meat is cheaper in such markets. It’s very interesting; Chinese like their food fresh, so all of the fish are flopping in buckets of water and there are frogs and turtles in cages and such. And pig heads and intestines hanging everywhere (Chinese don’t believe in wasting anything)…it’s a great experience! So that’s about my food; I’m eating well and enjoying all of it.

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