Wednesday May 26th
Today was our last day of clinical in Taiwan and our last day in Tainan. We are flying to Hong Kong tomorrow! I can't believe it! time is flying by so fast now. Before we went to the ICU, we all went and ate a Traditional Taiwanese breakfast in the hospice unit. They had a few good things that looked like dumplings and potstickers and a sushi thing that was breaded. Its still strange to me that the foods I would expect them to eat for dinner or lunch is actually their breakfast item too. They also provided some breakfast sandwiches that hada slice of bread, egg, bread, meat, bread, egg, and bread again. They like to serve sandwiches like that here in Taiwan with 4 pieces of bread. The meat is usually in the middle and the extra stuff is in between the two outer slices of bread. They also served warm soy milk with the breakfast... which I liked very much. While we were talking to the people in the hospice unit, we asked the head nurse what her favorite thing to do was. She told us to hold on a minute and left the room. When she came back, she brought in an old record player. The doctor that was there asked us if we knew what it was and described the record player as a "walkman that they used 100 years ago" hahaha It always cracks me up when the Taiwanese people say things like that.
The head nurse and the doctor
picture at the press conference with all of the nurses and directors
After the breakfast we went to the ICU for about an hour to wait for our press conference. Yes, we were on the Taiwanese local newstation and in the newspaper throughout Taiwan :) We were all pretty nervous about it, but it didn't turn out too bad. They created this presentation with all of our pictures in it that will supposedly be playing throughout the hospital for the next year. I'm pretty stoked about it :P
After the press conference we went back to the ICU. I was able to watch a bronchoscopy for the first time which was pretty awesome. Rainy and I were also happy because we finally got a patient who would allow us to take a picture with her. She was so cute and sweet.
After clinical we then went back to the tsua bing place and ate some more of that before we leave the city and said bye to the family who owns it. We had to go home and pack after that because we met up with Davit and Kyle later that night to hang out. When Kyle and Davit arrived, we went and got some pizza hut pizza (although none with squid or shrimp on it). then had a picnic outside of our dormitories, eating pizza, delicious mangos, and corn on the cob. Kyle showed us all how to cut a mango the correctly aka the Taiwanese way. :) We then went and played some ping pong, pool, fooz-ball, and darts on the 14th floor of our dorms. We stayed up way to late playing and will probably regret it in the morning because we have to get up at 5:45 am to travel! Good night!
Thursday May 27th
I am in Hong Kong! Woohoo! This trip just gets better and better as it goes by. We traveled all day... first we let a taxi take most of our luggage while we walked to the shuttle (questionable, but it worked) then took a shuttle to the high speed rail, then the HSR to Tainan, then a bus to the airport, then a plane to Hong Kong, then a shuttle from the terminal to the baggage claim, then a train to the Hong Kong train station, then a taxi to our housing. Whew! what a long journey. We took about every means of transportation possible in one day.
While on the plane today, I was sitting next to Rainy and she was doing everything wrong that she possibly could on an airplane. Poor Rainy could hardly sleep becuase the flight attendants kept coming over and telling her to do stuff. For example: put your bag under the chair in front of you, put your tray up, turn your Mp3 player off, slide the window shade up (we thought this one was a little weird :) The funniest was when we were talking to Tara and Katelyn behind us about how Rainy kept getting in trouble for doing everything wrong, and while we were talking a flight attendent came up and told Rainy she needed to put her seat belt on hahaha! We laughed so hard and probably made the flight attendent slightly confused :P
So while here in Hong Kong, our group had to split up into 3 ward members homes. Rainy, Christina Bohn and I are staying with an older couple who are here working for the church. They live in this really nice apartment which is about 8 stories high. The apartment buildings here are humongous! Its like sky scrapers all over the place. Our host family said to us "Welcome to vertical living" :) We went and ate dinner at a delicious chinese restaurant that night called 3-6-9 Shanghai. We ate fried rice, orange chicken, and pork buns.... yum!! We also went to the L.D.S. church building tonight. I was amazed at how nice it was... almost like a temple. I made the comment earlier of "if this is what the church looks like, I bet the temple here is made of diamonds!" :) But I guess I will find out tomorrow... We get to go to the Hong Kong temple in the morning and I am so excited!!
Oh, and some other awesome news is that Elder Oaks and his wife are in town for the week so we will get to see him speak to their district on Sunday
While in the airport we were coming up to what we thought was this huge hello kitty store...
It actually turned out to be our waiting area to board the plane lol. Everything was pink and had pictures of hello kitty. I have never seen anything like that in an airport before
In front of the church building
3.6.9 Shanghai restaurant
waiting to go in
The shut down market that we walk through to get to the apartment we are staying at
One of the sky scraper apartment buildings
Friday May 28th
We were able to go to the Hong Kong temple today! It was so gorgeous! It kind of reminded me of the Manhattan, New York temple because it kind of blends in with the rest of the buildings in the city. Its a smaller temple but looks big from the outside due to its height. After the temple we went to a daytime flower market. We went shopping for a few hours and then went to the house (well, its actually more like a mansion) that a few of the other girls are staying at. It has 5 floors with an elevator to get around. They also have a full-on staff! (drivers, cooks, security guards etc.) And it is beach front property. The beach is literally 20 steps outside their door. The coolest part, in my opinion, is that the elevator had a glass window facing the ocean so you can just look outside while riding the elevator. We hung out there for a while and then went and got dinner at a Thai restaurant. The last experience I had with Thai food was a date with a 30 year old man (strange how that came about) :) and I did not like the food very much. Luckily I had the chance to retry it, because I liked it a lot more this time. Afterwards, Rainy, Christina, and I were anxious to get back to our host families apartment because we knew that they were having a dinner for people in the stake. We thought that since Elder Oaks is in town and since our host "dad" is the district President here in Hong Kong, we would maybe get a chance to see and talk with Elder Oaks in person. but alas, it was the new district presidency and their families having dinner together. We then went and got some ice cream and that was it for the day.
Just an added tidbit of info... I really like the public transportation system here in Hong Kong. They have this card called the Octopus which can take you around anywhere on the subway, the buses, or the shuttles. You just prepay and then use it until your money is gone. The subway is extremely crowded and you get pretty smashed once inside the actual train... but its fun! Hong Kong is quite the bustling city. Very different from Tainan, Taiwan. Tainan is bustling but its not so big city-ish.
Another piece of info... today we figured out that Hong Kong is not apart of China. I did not know this about Hong Kong before. Its a totally different government than China and has its own currency. And the currency here is so weird!! I was really confused with all of their coins because some of them are dollars and some are just cents... and then they also have bills that are worth the same amount as the dollar coins. I'm getting better at it, but it takes me about 5 minutes each time I buy something to just count out the money I need haha Hong Kong is pretty fun... although I do feel slightly less safe here than in Taiwan. Today a middle-eastern man came up to Christina Bohn and whispered "hi... hello... pretty" to her. Yikes!
P.S. Did you know that the main language of Hong Kong is Cantonese? I didn't until this trip. I was still going around telling everyone Ni Hao (hello) and Xie Xie (thank you) in Mandarin
"I love to see the Temple...
...I'm going there someday"
That's me!
While at the flower market today, we saw this store that had an army of clones
A shirt we saw at the market. Hilarious! I love reading the crazy shirts that they have in Asian countries
Looking down at the pool and the beach from inside the elevator at the mansion
