Today was exhaaausting. It was my last day in HK so I tried to pack in as much as I possibly could. I got up at 7 am and went hiking with Yvonne, Sophia, and Christina. Yvonne warned us that it was a hard hike….but we were definitely not prepared for how hard it really was ha ha It was called “Twin Peaks” and the trail was just steep stairs….no flat areas at all….just stairs….It killed us lol We probably climbed a couple thousand stairs. 
My legs were wobbling the entire way back….i’m surprised I didn’t collapse ha. The hike was gorgeous. It was through tons of greenery, reservoirs, rivers, and beautiful lookouts. We even found lots of frogs, turtles, and fun insects! 
The whole thing took us about 3 hours and as soon as we got back we headed out to the famous Hong Kong City Hall for Dim Sum. Hong Kong is famous for its dim sum and the #1 place to get it is the City Hall. We heard so much about it and every list of top things to do in HK has it on it. And it was for good reason. It was so absolutely delicious. The best meal that I’ve had on this trip. Dim Sum is directly translated to “little hearts”. It is actually little snack foods like steamed dumplings, spring rolls, veggies dipped in sauce, etc that you eat until you get full. At the restaurant a person walks around with trays or carts of little dishes and you point at what you want as it goes by. 
It was Christina, Sophia, Kris, and I (because the other girls wanted McDonald’s…lame) with Yvonne and her Mom. The Lai’s go all of the time so they knew all of the best stuff and ordered their favorites for us! It was so yummy! I tried a lot of new stuff like lotus leaf rice, congee, char siu sou, mango pudding, sesame soup, almond soup, dou fu fa, some choy thing and lots of others!
After lunch Sophia and I went out on the town with Yvonne. It was a blast because she’s grown up in HK her entire life so she knows all of the little places that tourists don’t know about….so she took us everywhere that we needed to do, eat, and see! We first went to “Central” which is a high end shopping center. This is where all of the designer stores are. After, we went to “Causeway Bay”. This is another shopping area with lots of dessert shops and restaurants. We went to the famous “Hui Lau Shan “.
This place is known throughout all of China. Everyone that I have met so far has told me to go here. I got this delicious mango drink that had rice balls on the bottom (different from tapioca pearls…and better!), with a slushy mango drink in the middle, topped with cream and chunks of mango!!! It was sooo good! Then after we went to a delicious crepe shop and shared one. 
After stuffing ourselves we headed out to Stanley Market. This is the most well known shopping street in Hk because it’s SUPER cheap and good quality (all of the knock off stuff). I bought lots of stuff. The picture below is of the building that they filmed a lot of "Dark Knight" on.
My legs were wobbling the entire way back….i’m surprised I didn’t collapse ha. The hike was gorgeous. It was through tons of greenery, reservoirs, rivers, and beautiful lookouts. We even found lots of frogs, turtles, and fun insects! The whole thing took us about 3 hours and as soon as we got back we headed out to the famous Hong Kong City Hall for Dim Sum. Hong Kong is famous for its dim sum and the #1 place to get it is the City Hall. We heard so much about it and every list of top things to do in HK has it on it. And it was for good reason. It was so absolutely delicious. The best meal that I’ve had on this trip. Dim Sum is directly translated to “little hearts”. It is actually little snack foods like steamed dumplings, spring rolls, veggies dipped in sauce, etc that you eat until you get full. At the restaurant a person walks around with trays or carts of little dishes and you point at what you want as it goes by. It was Christina, Sophia, Kris, and I (because the other girls wanted McDonald’s…lame) with Yvonne and her Mom. The Lai’s go all of the time so they knew all of the best stuff and ordered their favorites for us! It was so yummy! I tried a lot of new stuff like lotus leaf rice, congee, char siu sou, mango pudding, sesame soup, almond soup, dou fu fa, some choy thing and lots of others!After lunch Sophia and I went out on the town with Yvonne. It was a blast because she’s grown up in HK her entire life so she knows all of the little places that tourists don’t know about….so she took us everywhere that we needed to do, eat, and see! We first went to “Central” which is a high end shopping center. This is where all of the designer stores are. After, we went to “Causeway Bay”. This is another shopping area with lots of dessert shops and restaurants. We went to the famous “Hui Lau Shan “.
This place is known throughout all of China. Everyone that I have met so far has told me to go here. I got this delicious mango drink that had rice balls on the bottom (different from tapioca pearls…and better!), with a slushy mango drink in the middle, topped with cream and chunks of mango!!! It was sooo good! Then after we went to a delicious crepe shop and shared one. After stuffing ourselves we headed out to Stanley Market. This is the most well known shopping street in Hk because it’s SUPER cheap and good quality (all of the knock off stuff). I bought lots of stuff. The picture below is of the building that they filmed a lot of "Dark Knight" on. 
Yvonne’s driver then picked us up and took us back home and we had a delicious dinner that her cook made for us. Authentic home cooked Chinese. I loved it. Then we headed out to Kowloon to watch the “Symphony of Lights”. The Symphony of lights is a synchronised building light and laser show , featuring 44 buildings on both sides of the Victoria Harbour of Hong Kong accompanied by music. It is currently the world’s largest light and sound show. We took a ferry to Kowloon (another island in HK) and watched the show from there. It was so cool! 
After this we came back to the mansion to meet Mr. Lai! He got back a day early! He’s sooo cute! He’s orginally from HK and he’s Chinese. He’s a really nice guy. Now we’re about to head to get some ice cream and go hang out at the beach. Tomorrow we head back to Taipei. I’m so sad to leave HK but it’s been a blast. I officially did all of the “Top ten things to do in HK” so I think I made the most of it. 
The sky lift ride was gorgeous. It takes you really high up over all of the mountains on the island so you can see all 200 islands of HK and the mainland. It was about 25 minutes long. There is also a hike that you can take. This is part of the trail. 
When you get off the lift you arrive at this little village full of shops and restaurants. It was so cute. We spent some time shopping around.
Then we began the ascent up to the Buddha. It was super cool because we were really high up on the mountain so there was fog all over. Even at the base of the stairs you could barely see the Buddha, just the silhouette. 
But as you got closer he slowly appeared! (you can barely see the silhouette in the picture at the top of the stairs) He was GIGANTIC lol and beautiful too. There were a bunch of statues surrounding him also (symbolizing offerings towards him). We toured around up top but then all of a sudden it started pouring like no other. We ran down all the steps to try to find cover..but it was pointless because we were dripping wet by the time we did.
Saturday afternoon the branch had a closing social at the Lai’s (the family that I’m staying with). About 150 people showed up to swim in their pool (which hangs over the ocean), kayak, eat, and play games. I had such a blast meeting tons of new people. The members here have the craziest lives and they are ridiculously wealthy lol. One man I met graduated from Harvard, has traveled the world, and now he’s a professor in the MBA program at the University of Science and Technology. The University of Science and Technology is basically the MIT of Asia and the MBA program is ranked #1 in Asia and #9 in the world! One man is the church lawyer for ALL of asia. Another man works for JP Morgan and he travels EVERYWHERE. A lot of them were wealthy political leaders and diplomats.
I felt so lame after meeting all of the younger people at the party. They’ve all grown up in several different countries and know a couple different languages. Their experiences growing up were so different from mine. But it’s cool because my life growing up in Annabella is just as foreign to them as their lives are to me. They were fascinated by how I grew up. I hung out with some of the young single adults all night and I got to know them pretty well. One girl just randomly moved to Hong Kong for hotel development as an adventure and she’s been here for 2 years. She travels all over including Thailand, Mongolia, Singapore, Vietnam, Korea, and India…and she’s only 25! Another guy just got here two days ago. He’s been living in NY for the past few years working for a huge company and was reassigned to Hong Kong for 10 months. Another kid grew up in HK for a while and he’s about to start in MBA at BYU this fall so he just randomly moved back to HK for a year. It’s so crazy. A couple of investigators came to the party too. One kid is from Nepal but he moved to HK because has been modeling for designer companies for the past 7 years….he’s ridiculously rich…it’s just so interesting how different each of their lives are. They each have a story about why they’re in HK and it fascinates me. 
I thought the conference was going to be some huge conference room with tons of people…but it was just a normal chapel with only one stake. So it was really cool to see Elder Oaks when there really weren’t that many people there. 
The flight to Hong Kong was only about an hour and fifteen minutes. As we took off we flew over a small group of whales! We could see their backs and fins and the water spouting….it was SUPER random but really cool! The flight was fun because we flew over TONS of beautiful islands. Landing was cool because the airport is on an island all by itself so it seems like you are going to land in the water! After landing we got on the MTR (Mass Transit Railway) to head to Hong Kong Island. 
Hong Kong is not what I expected AT ALL. I was expecting some huge, stinky, dirty, city that was very industrialized but it is the complete opposite. It is the most beautiful city that I have ever been in. New York is a complete shame compared to Hong Kong. A girl that I know put it perfectly by saying “Most cities are a city that overtakes an island…but Hong Kong is an island with a city spread throughout it”. It is a beautiful green island that has tons of small mountains with tropical trees and shrubbery covering them.
Then huge skyscrapers are set randomly around the island among the mountains. So the buildings are on all different levels on the island so there’s not a straight skyline. It juts up and down. Its soo cool!!! And its spotless. All of the streets (even the backstreets) are super clean and all of the buildings are newer and very well kept. Everything is very classy too. It’s an extremely wealthy city. 
When I first stepped out of the MTR, the first thing I noticed was how diverse this place is. It is definitely an international city. There are people from ALL OVER, tons of Indians, tons of Europeans, etc (surprisingly hardly any Americans). Every time I go anywhere I just sit and people watch because they’re so fascinating. The majority of the people here are very wealthy. Everyone dresses in designer and the entire city is kind of tailored to that way of life. Also, the Chinese people are COMPLETELY different from Taiwanese. In SO many aspects. The Chinese people are much more forward, pushy, and a lot less helpful lol. It’s not because they’re rude people. It’s just simply how they are. When we got off the plane we were shocked that no one was willing to help us and that people didn’t even look at us ha ha On the MTR I sat next to a man that just started talking to me…I was so surprised…until he told me that he was Taiwanese ha ha So it figures. Now every time I meet a super nice asian I automatically assume that they’re Taiwanese…and they always are. The guy I met was named Brian. He gave me TONS of advice for Hong Kong and Taipei even down to what restaurants I should try and what I should order from them. It was so nice of him. He even walked with us to our next station to help us out. 
The house is like NOTHING I’ve ever seen before (google map 20 Southbay Road in HK..and be amazed). It’s seriously equivalent to a celebrity home. We arrived at the house and there’s a HUGE gate on the outside. They have three 24 hour guards set around the house and a personal guard at the front gate. The guard let us in and we walked on in. This is the view from their garage and these are pics from inside. 
It’s a five story mansion set literally right on the beach. They even have their personal strip of beach with a guard dog on it. They have a personal cook, 2 housekeepers and a personal driver for each member of the family. Pool, Spa, Hot tub, elevator, gym, and movie theater. These people are ridiculously wealthy. They also have traveled everywhere in the world. There hasn’t been a single country that I have asked about that they haven’t been to. Apparently he works for some antivirus company….I haven’t met him yet because he’s currently in Jakarta. They have been living here in Hong Kong for 22 years. The wife is American (from Utah) but the husband is Chinese. None of their children live with them but Yvonne (their daughter) is visiting for a couple of weeks and she’s a year younger than me. This is the view from their living room. 
After we met everyone and got settled in we went out for our first authentic Chinese food experience. It was an adventure. We COMPLETELY got lost. We took the wrong train and got off at a random spot in the middle of downtown. We walked around searching for the restaurant we were meeting at for about an hour. We probably looked so pathetic aimlessly wandering and asking people if they knew where we were supposed to go. Finally we just hailed a taxi and gave him the address. He read the address wrong and took us to some random place…then he finally understood and took us to it. We were 2 hours late! Ha ha The girls were just finishing dinner so they all left and it was just us. The restaurant was called 3.6.9 Shanghai. It was absolutely delicious and completely packed. It’s one of the more famous places here. Right when we sat down they brought us tea and these hot rags to wipe our hands. We ordered then they brought us our food and some random extra dish. Being the naïve Americans (and being used to Taiwanese hospitality), we thought they brought it to us for free….but that definitely wasn’t the case. They charged us for the tea, rags, AND rice even though we didn’t order any of it! They just kept saying “English is bad”. Let’s just say it ended up being an expensive meal…but all part of the experience.
We got lost again trying to get back to our place. We walked around aimlessly for another hour trying to find it! Ha ha It was so ridiculous. We finally made it at like 12:30 am!
We got there earlier than the other girls and right as we were walking in a big group of older ladies walked out. We started talking for a bit then we said that we had heard that Elder Oaks was in town. A lady stepped forward and she was all “Actually….I’m his wife…and this is Sister Burton (Bishop Burton’s wife)”! ha ha So we got to meet both of them and chat for a bit. Baptisms were a lot of fun. Very similar to what I was used to…except we each got dunked like 20 times! We also got to see a family pick up a missionary to go back home. It was so cute!!
After the temple we went to Fa Yuen street (this is one of the best and cheapest shopping streets in HK). While eating here, the waitress tried the same trick of bringing out random food…but we caught on and called her out on it). We spent about three hours shopping there and headed back to the Mansion.
What I loved the most about it is that you’re on top of a mountain surrounded by tons of greenery and tropical trees. You can hear tons of crickets and frogs croaking….yet right below you can see the huge bustling downtown. I loved it. It was so peaceful with a nice cool breeze. At the top there are a ton of shops and international restaurants. We just sat at the lookout eating crepes…what a life . We made it home much more smoothly than the night before…but we didn’t get in till after midnight again. I’ve gotten no sleep at all. 
We went back to clinical for a bit but then we were told that we were to attend a “Press Conference”. This was the only information that they gave us so none of us had any idea what to expect. We were lead to a room in the hospital and TONS of stuff was set up. This huge projector was in the center of the room with a long table going along all sides of the room. They lined us all up in the front of the room and sat us down…..then the craziness started…TONS of people with huge video cameras and photographers started pouring in. 
They just kept coming and coming. We were then informed that the presentation about to be given would be on live tv then replayed every day for about a month on Taiwan TV. Also that all of the national newspaper reporters were there, various national news stations, online news stations, and magazine reporters were there….(Americans truly are celebrities here ha ha). All of a sudden…a huge group of people started cramming around me shoving microphones in my face. Out of all of the girls sitting there (of course, it's just my luck), Wei Ying (the nursing director) walks up and says “ Sarah, the reporters would like you to say a few words about your experience here in Taiwan…ok go “ (and about 3 cameras literally started filming me right then and there! Ha ha). I was sooo taken off guard. I normally don’t ever get nervous for anything like that but I totally was. I was on National television in Taiwan completely on the spot. The other nurses and girls crowded around me just laughing because it was so unexpected. I don’t even remember what I said….ha ha luckily it all had to be translated on tv for the public so no one knows exactly what I said….I probably made a fool of myself. Sophia got a video of part of it so ask if you'd like to see it. 
After this, they gave an impressive presentation about us and it was so touching. They had all of our pictures on the projector and introduced each of us to the press. They seriously love us here. It’s so overwhelming. After the presentation we all had to speak with the newspapers and answer some questions (no one else had to be video taped for tv…not fair!). It's funny because the Taiwanese loooove Obama. They think he is the best thing that ever happened to America…so it was definitely interesting when our professor Kris kept getting questions about her opinion on Obama…ha ha ha We then spent literally 20 minutes just taking pictures….there were flashes every where every second. I felt like some crazy famous celebrity…and they just kept coming and coming. I’ve definitely never experienced anything like that before.
After clinical we went to say goodbye to our Cua Bing friends. We showed up and they now have a blown up picture of us with two fans on the sides with our signatures on them hanging up on their wall! Ha ha They are planning on keeping it there forever so they can show people their “American friends” ha ha I thought it was so adorable.
We took them out to pizza hut (because it is Davit’s favorite) and then just hung out at our apartment complex (we finally convinced the security guard to let him in). We played ping pong, fooze ball (neither of them had ever played this in their life) , pool, and boxing. We then had to say goodbye to them too….this was definitely one of the hardest ones…I love these guys and I’ll miss them so much! I really wanted you guys to see what they're like...so I got a video of them!
It ended up not being too bad…the smell wasn’t that great…but the taste was a little bit better. It kind of tasted like rotten mashed up vegetables that were frozen….mmmmm……but they say the actual fruit is even worse. I think I’ll pass on trying it. 
After the buffet we went back to our unit and just hung out with the doctors and nurses. They’re so much fun. Every time we have a problem, everyone drops all of their work to help us. It’s so funny because literally every single nurse and doctor crowds around us discussing the situation. They leave the patients completely alone. We had to say goodbye to our preceptor Yen because she will not be here tomorrow. Here’s a picture of us. 
Tonight we had a girls night with Jane and Ya ling (they are two Taiwanese girls that help us out all the time and we hang out with them a lot too). We decided to do face masks and a chick flick…. things are NEVER the same here as in America. Even such a simple thing as a face mask…you would think it would be normal…but no. Here in Taiwan, a face mask is LITERALLY a face mask. Ha ha Enjoy….. 
