Kids, Smog, Lady, and Big Buddha

Hello everyone.  This week was interesting in that it was the first full week of school and Rochelle got to meet her students.  For me (Dirk) teaching PE outside, there is no gym at CAIS, can be a little challenging.  The outside courtyard at the school is a large cement slab with basketball courts drawn on it. By early afternoon it is as hot as a frying pan.  When it rains, and it did all day on Friday, the courtyard is slick as ice.  Thankfully there is an air conditioned fitness room and an air conditioned dance studio that are kept at Saskatchewan winter temperature.  It is a great relief for all.  I had to laugh when kids at recess were trying to sneak into the fitness room from the outside to cool off.  Back home it was exactly the same but for the opposite reason.  Cold to hot.

Rochelle finds her students interesting to say the least.  Almost all of them have had two years of kindergarten already.  Almost all of them are Chinese, but most speak English quite well, some even with a proper English accent.  A few can already read.  So out goes the well thought out curriculum for this year.  Rochelle works with a teacher named Helen who is from India.  They are getting along great and Rochelle is happy to be working with her.

On Tuesday and Wednesday a weather system out in the Pacific caused the air pollution to be trapped over Hong Kong.  Previous to that winds from the ocean had blown all the bad air to the mainland.  Wow was it bad.  The great views were obscured in a white haze, eyes and throats got sore.  Terrible.  Thankfully Typhoon "Liongate" blew some rain and wind in and by Saturday morning things were clearing up.

On Saturday morning Rochelle and I embarked on a journey to see the Big Buddha.  When we got out of our tower there was a Sheltie, that looked a lot like Lady, to greet us.  This Sheltie had mercifully been shaved, due to the extreme Hong Kong heat a normal thick furred Sheltie would have melted.  The only fur left on the Sheltie was a lions mane.  We thought of our own Lady and had a little laugh thinking how we would have had to shave her if she had been here. It was bittersweet.

The Big Buddha was interesting.  Buddhism is kind of crazy to me.  Buddhists are trying to reach the state of Nirvana, which basically means completely dead.  Buddhists believe in reincarnation so if we don't get it right,  that is enlightenment and perfection, we come back and back never dying always suffering until maybe we reach this state of enlightenment and really die and get to Nirvana.  Let me just say that a merciful God who forgives sin and promises sweet heaven if we just trust Him is much more appealing to me.

Nevertheless the journey to the Buddha on a 5 km long cable car over a river and some mountains, naturally air conditioned by the way, it said so in the brochure, was very cool.  The Disneyland like atmosphere by the Buddha, shops, shows and fake monuments to Buddhism was kind of interesting.  The actual Buddha is pretty amazing, although seeing the swastika on the Buddha, which the Nazis copied (stole) from Buddhism for their own symbol, was rather weird to see.  The nature around the Buddha was great and we took a walk along the "wisdom trail. " It went through a jungle and it was  quiet and smelled great.  Ahh.  We came out to these wooden pillars.  Not sure what they mean but they were interesting.  The view was spectacular.  Mountains, waterfalls, and jungles, it was all very serene, compared to the madness that is Kowloon.

I'm looking forward to when it starts cooling down a bit here and exploring the 100's of kms of trails that criss-cross throughout the Hong Kong territory.

Finally, I went to a church that was both in English and Chinese.  They sang familiar worship songs in Chinese first, then would switch to English half way through.  Was great to see how the Chinese enjoyed worship.  The sermon itself was first said in Chinese and then translated into English.  A little ponderous, a 20 minute sermon stretched into 40, but it was good.

Rochelle is spending Sunday afternoon clothes shopping with a teacher from CAIS whose mother was a fashion designer.  This teacher is an expert when it comes to clothes.  There are a lot of great clothing shops here in Hong Kong.  Should be interesting to see what Rochelle brings home.

God bless you all.  Till next time