HONG KONG 1

HONG KONG NEWS CONFERENCE

HONG KONG NEWS CONFERENCE
IN THE WAC'S MUSEUM
"Foreign English teacher, Jay Thelin, announces plans for a far east international relations trip to Hong Kong with his wife. He detailed his greatest hope which is to make a difference in the lives of literally billions of Chinese this year. He also introduced and released his lengthy Hong KongJournal, an integral part of his China Journal to an eager, even ravenous, foreign media. "

HONG KONG JOURNAL

WE’’RE IN HONG KONG, CHINA.

We did it. Success is so sweet. We arrived in Hong Kong on our own. Of course this was what we expected. Our success was because we received some help from the regular travelers and from nice people on the flight and on the bus by simply talking with them. Before we left, we needed to buy some Hong Kong dollars from the bank of China. But they told me that I could not do that myself and that I should come back with a Chinese friend.

We called one of our kind students, Gordon, who came right over and took me to the bank. He had some trouble too. First, they do not have any of those dollars at every bank, so we went to a larger bank. There, he took 4000. yuan out of my savings account and gave it to me. He got more Hong King dollars, like about $4, 160. Gordon had to apply for it and sign for it, after which they withdrew it from my passbook savings account, gave it to him and then he simply gave it to me. Hey, we’re in China. That’s China!

Gordon was good to do that for us. We are good and fast friends and he was glad to use his now rusty English. He said he had not spoken English for three weeks after our English classes ended. He went to both mine and Dana’s English class every day to learn more, faster. He wants to go to America.

This is Dana. We started out on our Far East, Hong Kong adventure on Wednesday, January 13th. morning with the finishing packing and then realizing that we need Hong Kong money. Our flight left at 4:00 pm. When Gordon and Jay went to the bank just before we left for the shuttle bus to the airport, I stayed home and finished up the last of the cleaning and the process of throwing away all the food that would rot before we got back in a few weeks. This idea of having a lot of food in our house really can have some problems when there is no where to put it and the freezer is the size of shoe box.

After being gone for about 45 mins. Jay called and said he was on his way home from the bank. I said that I would have everything outside and ready to go in the same taxi. I didn’t realize that I am becoming an old lady and that carrying suitcases and things down 3 flights of stairs would be harder than I thought. But I made it just as Jay was turning up our road. We went to a hotel downtown, where we caught the bus to the airport which is about 40 miles away. It took us 45 mins. to get to the airport.

Check in went quite easy and we totally thought this is really going to be easy. Well, it wasn’t that easy. We would go to one counter and be told in Chinese to go to another. This went on about 4 times until finally Jay insisted that they help us and slammed his hand on the counter top to get their attention. It all came down to a little red stamp missing from our boarding pass, which indicated that our bags had been opened and searched. China is famous for little red stamps on everything.

As were walking back and forth trying to get through the gate they announced, in English, that our flight would be delayed for another hour. So Instead of leaving at 4:00 pm we would be leaving at 5:00 pm. We had gotten there 2 hours early so that we would have some extra time if there was any problem. Now we had even more extra time.

We got through customs at the border into Hong Kong and took a bus into Hong Kong, which took about one hour. We were dropped off in downtown Couloon and took the final few blocks by taxi. We arrived at the YMCA Hotel, a five star hotel, near the waterfront, and after a room change, managed to get a nice non-smoking room on the top 14^th floor. Instanlty we were outside exploring. We were trying to find a grocery store to buy some fresh ginger for Dana’s cold, but got lost. We apparently made a large circle in our effort to find out hotel again. We welcomed a good night sleep as we arrived about 10:00 PM.

The next morning, we got up early, skipped any breakfast, because we were so excited to go across the bay into downtown Hong Kong and took the Star Ferry across for about .30 cents each.. We constantly look up and marvel at what has been built here. We walked up and down and across the downtown and up the hill to Soho, where we were happy to find a Mexican Restaurant on the 8^th floor. We dined on beef and chicken fajitas with green salad and Mexican dessert. Yum Yu.m. It all seems so American. We are no longer in China. We are in Hong Kong.

It is Friday after noon and we just spend a wonderful day at the Hong Kong Temple. All 80 BYU couples attended., They had to have two sessions because it has small rooms.. It really was a wonderful experience. Afterwards, in the temple chapel, we had a special fireside and we heard a talk from the Asian Area President and he showed us slides and told us about the growth of the church in Asia and thanked us for being such good examples for China. Of course we can’t talk about the gospel here, but we can be good examples to people living in China by showing them how we live.

After the talk, we stayed in the temple while Dad had a choir practice there for the song they will be singing at the East Asia District Conference on Sunday. Then it was off on our own to try to discover how to get back to our hotel in Kanloon as we wanted to do it via subway. We are actually are getting quite good at finding our way and we took the correct subway back, found our hotel, and then we went out for a light lunch at the Spaghetti Factory which we shared with each other. Our hotel is in Kowloon. We took the Start Ferry across the bay to island of Hong Kong.

More to come...

Jay played at the wax museum at the top of the tram which was a high light of the day. We both played there a long time and met so many famous people who had come to our News Conference.





Guess who these folks are who attended Jay's news conference on Hong Kong...



Mr. Obama was still not the president when these, some of the very last photos of our good president George W. Bush was here and talked with Dana.









007 was about to shoot someone and Jay stopped him at the last moment... James Bond was foiled this time.





We made this shot. A 150 foot left to right, downhill putt through a shallow, but wide, water hazard, yes, and it was a rice paddy.

Even the Beatles showed up. We jammed for a while and then just talked about the 60's. They are a a jolly bunch of English lads. Ringo was a little obnoxious, even rude, but I really got know and like the other three. We went out for root beer after the news conference ended. Then they sang "She Loves Me." to my wife and darling Dana.

Michael was quite friendly to Dana and sang for her. He sang: "Thriller" and she really liked it.

I was talking a shot of Tina Turner when a Chinese teen age boy got in my way. I don't know what for, but he was looking for something...Education I think. This was a shot I was not trying to get...it just happened so quickly...


We went to Forest Gump's buddy's restaurant and had a shake.








Prices were sky high. these are Hong Kong Dollars and prices were high, even after you divide by 7 to get American dollars...

This bag lady wore bags. This was unusual for us to see. She had a small hole to breathe and see. She wanted money and attention...
THIS IS HONG KONG.