November newsletter

Here is my newsletter for November. Enjoy!

Hiking!

It has been quite a while since my last post. I have finally started exploring Hong Kong more. Being one of the most densely populated cities in the world I have been surprised at some of the beautiful nature hikes.

So far, I have hiked on Hong Kong Island, Lantau Island and this weekend includes a hike on Lamma Island.

All of the islands are slightly different. I was very surprised on my hike last week on Lantau when I saw cows walking along the path. One cow did not get out of the way as we hiked by, and even let me touch it.

I have more photos on my picasa account.

A different world

This weekend was my first time out of Hong Kong since my arrival just two weeks ago. I traveled to a few different towns and villages and got my real first taste of Asia.
I knew that Hong Kong was not very similar to the majority of Asia, especially compared to the poorer areas, but the chaos still shocked me. As we walked along the side walks we had to dodge the scooters/motorcycles who use the sidewalks, store fronts and street corners for parking lots. All of the parked scooters had alarms and they sounded every time the front of the scooter was touched. It was a bit of sensory overload to say the least.
The villages were much calmer. Although the group of ten foreigners drew a fair amount of attention, it was not nearly as overwhelming. Over the course of the four and a half days, the group passed out twenty scholarships to middle and high school aged students and taught a variety of English classes.
We stayed in three different cities and spent a great deal of time riding in vans. At one point in our journey we went through what has to be the worlds longest, poorly ventilated tunnel. Driving at highway speed it took almost five minutes to get from one end to the other. Unless there was another vehicle going the opposite direction the tunnel was completely dark. We were all relieved when we finally saw the daylight at the end.
I was glad that we were able to spend two days in one of the cities. The first day we saw many of the students as our group split up and made house visits to give personal care bags to the scholarship recipients and to meet the families. These scholarships were based on need only and so nearly all of the students had a great deal of adversary in their lives, but most were still happy and excited to be able to continue with their education.
Overall, it was a great learning experience. It was my first real assignment and I was able to see how other people live in Asia.