Walk to Work Past the Mission Option

200 Up and 500 Down Part 4

The last of the photos.

200 Up and 500 Down Part 3

The comes the 500 stairs down with ramps and roads. The final road we pass the Shik temple. Total time 45 minutes/a bit longer with my cute little wifee. Note the size of stairs. My shoe is at the back of the stair. They are designed for smaller feet.

200 Up and 500 Down Part 2

So we are about 20 minutes in and you are now at the same height as the skyscrapers of HK. This path is called Bowen Road it takes about 20 minutes to run it. The path runs across the hills about half way up. If you don't like heights you won't like this run. Beautiful run through trees and plants with water falls and the occasional personal Buddhist temple. There is a park in the middle where if you look closely you can see the elderly are doing their hand movement exercises in the park. Then comes the 500 down.

200 Up and 500 Down

Before coming to Hong Kong, I wondered if there was enough space that I wouldn't be tripping over people to get in an early morning run. This idea of people everywhere I found isn't really true. Now if I had to deal with rush hour then maybe but I find that New York is a good comparator to Hong Kong. We now have 3 routes to run. i thought you might enjoy coming on a run with Kel and I. Its called Bowen road. Let me give you a brief geographic location on where this is. We live on the island of Hong Kong. When ever you see the ocean, it is the water between Hong Kong and Kowloon(that is where the temple is located). That is North from where we are. To the south we have these very green hills. If you go over the hills you will come to the beaches that face the pacific ocean. The run is half way up those hills and then we run across a path that is built through a beautiful jungle. I will need to add pictures as we go along. The first part is a gradual up hill along Kennedy Road. Note the trees and the lack of people. This run was between 6:00 and 7:00 AM. For my sister Jen you would have found this a steep run up. Now the fun really begins. You con to "Mothers Choice" - 200 stairs plus ramps straight up. Note the little plant growing out of a rock.

A Master in Action

Peter has a new friend and he has been a great example. Elder Linford is only 81 years old and is the bread maker in his home after retiring from being the bread winner (he is a retired ophthalmologist). Elder Sackley claimed he was going to do some of the cooking on our mission so when the challenge of being a bread maker was put before him he accepted. The training took place on a friday night and saturday Peter swung into action and made his first 3 loaves of bread. Look out Nathan you might have competition in the kitchen when we return!!

Time to Get back to Work

So I think we are beyond the days of "fun" and have begun to get more yoked in the work. During this past week we were involved in getting approval the following projects that I thought you mind find interesting to both learn what we do and understand how much the church is doing in these countries. Realize the is only week. This goes on every week from what I can see.

The first project had 2 steps. We helped to setup a sewing training center in Nepal for disabled women. We provide materials, machines ,other equipment and transportation as needed for the women to be trained.

There were two projects in Indonesia. One was the repair of a health center and the second was the repair/reconstruct five sanitation facilities. They setup these units where they clean themselves, clothes and get water for daily living.

We are also providing funding for a group of MDs in northern Indonesia to preform 150 cataract surgeries for the poorest of the poor. We spend about $47 per person to have the surgery completed.

These photos are pictures of a water project in Indonesia. You will see they build the concrete tanks to hold the water and pipelines to bring water to and from the holding area. The church mainly focuses on wheelchairs, water, vision and neonatal resuscitation training but you can see we do many other kinds of things. I am entering this today because I also have a calling in the branch. The branch president is away for the month and he was speaking with his wife on Sundays. So guess who is filling in. Tomorrow are should also get our assignment in the temple. It is great to be used in the gospel. We have been treated like gold since we arrived. Everyone has been so very kind and helpful.

Part 2 of the Office Building

Notice what they put in the evelator. It is only a matter of time a fire will occur? No they don't have any more fires than Canada, they just use different English.

Where we Work

Mother you were asking where we work and later I will tell you more about the work we are doing. So in these photos you will see us walking to work. It takes about 10 minutes and we walk by all the high end sports car dealers. Porsche/Maserati/Ferrari/Lamborghini/and a number of other smaller sports car companies. Always a fun walk. The challenge is the heat everyday the low is 27 and the high is 31 with about 90% humidity. The office is located in a key part of downtown Hong Kong Island. You couldn't ask for a more important bit of real estate. If you look you can see the chapel steeple. Our desks look out over the harbor. We are located on the 8th floor. There are about 12 couple missionaries in the building and maybe 20 full-time employees that run everything to do with the church for Asia. Of course you have the area presidency etc. who work there.

Our Saturday Outing

Saturday we decided to take a bus and go to an area called Stanley. It was a nice little bay with shopping, restaurants a Buddhist Temple and an old building that they moved brick by brick from Hong Kong where they wanted to use the land for a high rise.

More action from the wet market

Who Needs Superstore

This is about a block away from our apartment and it is where we buy our fruits and vegetables. You can see by the pictures that they sell all kinds of yummy things there.
It is apparently called a wet market because they hose the place down every night.