What I Learned In Hong Kong

I learned a lot on our international adventure to Hong Kong. Here are a few of them.

• Monkeys are not cute but are scary.
• Injured eyes hurt like heck, but they heal fairly quickly. (I forgot to include this in the hospital post, but they gave me some pain medication for whenever it hurt, some antibacterial eyedrops for every three hours, and some eye neosporin that I had to put on my cut four times a day.)
  
• It's hard when you don't speak the language BUT you begin to recognize some words AND you can sort of understand a conversation based on facial cues and body language.
• Interpretation is an amazing skill. So many people speak good English and helped me at Church or in other conversations.
  
• Normal Chinese food is not what people who love you want to feed you. You will eat a lot of meat and not lose weight.
• My feet hurt more than I ever thought possible by the end of the trip. Each day it seemed like it was earlier and earlier to when my feet would reach the peak of pain of the previous day, and then it would just get worse.
• I don't really like shopping. Probably cuz it made my feet hurt more than walking.
• Humidity makes things super hot.
• Humidity is nice cuz my hands didn't crack and my nose never bled. :)
• The Pacific Ocean is huge and that plane ride is insanely long. My feet swelled up and my knees ached. But I learned that an extra pillow on my low back helped my tailbone to not hurt on the ride--not once.
  
• There are so many beautiful things to see in the world and you just need to appreciate the things around you, wherever you are. Hong Kong is so beautiful, green, lush, and the mountains are stunning, but when we got back I had an appreciate for the diversity and natural beauty existing in the Great Basin. See? Find the beauty wherever you are.
• Chinese people are really nice and clean. I never felt uncomfortable on a really crowded MTR train like I have in the U.S.
• Many people think we are so wealthy and lucky to live in the U.S., which sometimes made me a little uncomfortable. Being in Hong Kong gave me an appreciation for being an American, especially where I study negative things in the U.S.'s past that make me critical of the nation. But I am healthy, I have more money than most of them, I can get a college education, I have many opportunities for work.
  
• The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is true--and it is the same all over the world. Going to Church was really fun, and because it was all through an interpreter I had to pay more attention and I got a lot out of the meetings we went to.
• I am also really lucky to have a Temple near to me. There is one in Hong Kong, but LDS members from China, Thailand, Indonesia, Mongolia, Singapore, India, Malaysia, Cambodia, and Sri Lanka have to travel to Hong Kong to receive the ordinances of the Temple. (see http://www.ldschurchtemples.com/hongkong/district/)
• You can come to love people very quickly.
• I love Andrew and I loved getting to know a place he loves so much.
• My trip to Hong Kong didn't go the way I imagined it would. I was more tired than I thought I would be. Weird situations came up that made parts of the trip downright unpleasant. It smelled funny a lot of the time. The buildings were tall and overwhelming. There were SO SO many people everywhere and a lot of noise. The weather was hot and sticky and humid and it made me cry. Andrew even said he didn't think I liked being at Hong Kong very much. Well let me tell the world: it was a lot to take in, and I was a little stunned, but I think I don't have a romanticized vision of Hong Kong. Because some bad things happened, I was able to see the good and bad parts of Hong Kong, just like any place.
• My favorite thing about Hong Kong was the people we met that meant to much to Andrew. Now they mean a lot to me. I love the Chan family, the Los, Angela, and his younger friends Calvin, Dick, Elma, and Chris.

Hong Kong is such a interesting place. I am really glad that we leaped on the opportunity to go. I hope we can go back so I can have another experience there, one that will hopefully go better with less mishaps. But despite the things that went wrong, a lot of stuff went right and it was great. Plus, I got to spend a lot of time with Andrew and see him be really really happy.