"Dor Tse" pronounced Do Jay means Thank You in Cantonese

Saturday May 29th

Today started out pretty busy. We woke up early and took the MTR (subway) to go and see the Big Buddha. It is one of the 5 Big Buddha's in China. In order to get up there we took a cable car over 3 small mountains. That was really beautiful. It was tons of fun to be way up high. There is also this hiking trail that avid hikers can take in order to get there, but i could imagine that it takes a long time and its pretty steep. Once we got to the third mountain, we got off of the cable car and walked to the stairs that take you up to the Buddha. Even though the Buddha is huge, it was sometimes difficult to see it through the clouds and fog... it made it very mysterious looking :)
We were all so excited because we wanted to be able climb the stairs up to the Buddha which we expected to be like the ones on the movie Kung Fu Panda. sadly the stairs weren't that long, but we climbed 268 steps. It was a fun little trip.

Waiting for the rest of the group to show up to go to the Buddha

View from the Cable Car

Look how high we are!!

The village near the Buddha - those are paper cut out flowers hanging from the roofs

The mysterious Buddha from far away

The stairs up to the Buddha

The Big Buddha

After we visited the Big Buddha, I really wanted to go and visit the Disneyland here in Hong Kong (It is really close to the Big Buddha). Rainy and the two Christinas also wanted to go too. So we went and just took pictures out front... just to say we've been there :) Once we arrived on the MTR platform, I got so excited because they were playing all of the disney songs... oh how I love it!! The Hong Kong Disneyland looks very very similar to the one in California (at least from the outside). I really wish that I could have gone in though. everything about Disneyland is just so magical! :)

The train to Disneyland

woohoo!

The fountain in front of Disneyland

It looks exactly the same! We were so excited to see even just this. One of the difference about this park is that they don't check all of your bags and backpacks

We then went back to the mansion for a ward cookout. It was so delicious... just american food... but we haven't had an american dinner in quite a while so we thoroughly enjoyed it. I cannot wait to go home and have mom's home cooking! and her amazing cookies! (hint hint mom) ;)

At the party

the ward members and the view

The huge snail we saw walking home from the mansion. It was almost half of my foot and I wear size 10 shoes!

after we were at the party for a while, Rainy and I went upstairs and ended up falling asleep for about an hour... then we stayed at the mansion and watched a movie with the girls. They have a home movie theater... so awesome. I think I will need one of those when I'm rich.
We are having a blast here in Hong Kong. I think I forgot to mention earlier that Hong Kong is kind of similar to a European country... except Asian style. It tripped me out at first because the steering wheels are on the right side of the car and they drive on the opposite side of the road. Taiwans cars and roads are the same as the United States.

Sunday May 30th

Today was such a wonderful, lazy day. Elder Oaks came for Stake Conference this weekend in Hong Kong so we didn't have church until 3 pm. We slept in until 9 am, then got ready for church. Our hosts made us Belgian waffles with all of the toppings. Rainy, Christina, and I then went and took a nap before church :)
I feel so lucky to be able to be here and to hear Elder Oaks speak. It was a wonderful meeting. The host "dad" that we are staying with is the District President here in Hong and he gave a very good message. It was very interesting to listen to Elder Oaks topic. He began his talk by speaking about how he felt prompted to talk to the Filipino sisters who are living here in Hong Kong. This meeting really strengthened my testimony on the power of the apostles and prophets of the Lord. They are truly inspired.
After church, President and sister Berrett (our host family) invited us to have dinner with them so we went home. But they ended up being pretty busy taking care of Elder Oaks and other church authorities so we went home and took another nap lol I told you it was a very lazy day :P
We then had an amazing American dinner and then hung out around the apartment for the rest of the day.

At the Hong Kong church building