52nd Birthday

Dear Great Ones,

Thank you to all those who wished me a Happy Birthday!  I totally and completely appreciate it.  Thank you to those who have been praying for me.  I had a nice birthday.  Celia took me to the peak on Sunday night for a lavish meal and a great view of Hong Kong.  On Monday, my actual birthday, I got several hugs and happy birthdays from my school kids, a little teacher party, and then in the evening, when I went to a very cool Passover Meal, I got congratulated again.   So I feel very blessed and happy.  Thanks again and God bless you.

Love adios and peng on!

Dirk

From top to bottom left to right.  View of Hong Kong.  Me and Celia.  At the Passover meal.  Me and the birthday people.  Celia before our meal.

Animals Seen in Hong Kong

Dear Fantastic Ones,

Hong Kong has some pretty interesting critters.  Wild and in captivity.  Today I will let the pictures and captions do the talking.

Have a great week.

Love adios and peng on!

Dirk

Fat  domestic pug saying hey.

Seen at a seafood restaurant at Sai Kung.

Also seen at a seafood restaurant in Sai Kung.

Egret ?  Hong Kong  wet land sanctuary for birds.

Poor dog has seen better days.  Seen on a beach.

Wild cows on Lantau island.

Seen on Lantau.  A water buffalo saying hello.  He was running wild.

Seen on a bike ride.  A wild boar being heckled by some monkeys.  Crazy.

An owner taking his tortoise for a walk.  Wow.

Mr. Tortoise going for a walk.

Either the dogs are wild and sad or spoiled rotten.  Seeing dogs in coats is just wrong.

Just chilling at Ocean Park.  The ocean part of the park is minor compared to the tons of other attractions and animals.

Jelly fish at Ocean Park.  A must see when you come to HK.  The lighting in the tank makes them look a funky blue.

Macau monkeys are everywhere.  They kind of scare me, but are harmless if you just ignore them.

Wild dogs roam the jungles of Hong Kong.  They are the offspring of dogs left to fend for themselves when owners grow tired of them or move on.  Rather sad.  The weird thing is that the dogs are really shy and not aggressive at all.

Awesome Trail

Hello Great Ones,

The weather this month here in awesome Hong Kong has been a comfortable 20-25 degrees on average.  Great for biking.  I have found some excellent trails near my new place.  One of them is a roller coaster ride on a side of a jungle covered mountain.  It ends up at Shing Mun reservoir and it was a brutal workout climbing the steps to get up to the top of it.  Yet it was great fun and well worth the view.

I wish you all a great week.  God bless you.

Love adios and peng on!

Dirk

 Shing mun reservoir.

A few steps.

A view from the top of the steps.

Behind the dam.

Lovely path on the way to the reservoir.

Way in the background is my new home: Tai Wai.

Hockey Night in Hong Kong

Hey Hockey Fans,

While I love exploring and discovering new cultures clinging on to some familiar  things is important to me as well.  It is hard to really explain why I love hockey so much.  Mainly though I just find it fun.  I love the speed of it even though I am not really fast out there on the ice.  I love watching NHL hockey too.

The game is also the great Canadian winter diversion and I have a million memories, most good, playing in bitterly cold conditions with friends and kids, then hanging out later at home nicely tired, warming up.  It is a great social time, locker rooms can smell pretty bad and so can the language, but it is a great social time.   I am sure a huge percentage of Canadian men have forged great friendships in those horribly smelling change rooms.

So to be able to evoke those old memories and have a good social time while playing hockey here in Hong Kong is a wonderful thing.  Still there are a few differences.  Namely: the rink is on the tenth floor of a department store.  You get to it by an elevator or esculater.  Half of my team is Chinese, great guys, many are Canadians, but still kind of weird to hear Cantonese spoken amongst some of them. There is a head of a dinosaur T rex that hangs over the rink.  Its an ad for a movie theatre, but what the hey.  One side of the rink has a giant window with a great view of Kowloon Bay.  Its protected by netting.  Thank goodness, due to my skills rusting a bit,  several pucks off of my stick would have flown through that window.  Going to the game you take a taxi while wearing shorts and flip flops.  Oh how I miss freezing in my car going to a game in Canada.  Ah not.

Finally I get several looks from the local Chinese while I lug my equipment to the taxi stand.  The looks are a cross between bemusement and what? are you daft?, but I take it in stride.  Hong Kong is a place where you see different every day so I fit right in.

God bless you.

Love adios and peng on!

Dirk  

Striding into action.

6 8 is about how tall I am on the ice with skates.  I am a big body says my coach.  I think it is a compliment.  I think...

My team is called the Warriors.  Scary.

Face off.  Getting ready for a blast from the point.  BTW I am a defence man.  Too slow for forward.

Patrolling the blue line.

Under the Bridge

Hello My Great People,

Mong Kok is a district in Kowloon famous for its open air markets.  Most of the items sold at these markets are of dubious quality.  In fact the Americans have advised their citizens that Mong Kok is one of the worst places in the world to shop.  Yet every night it is packed with tourists (including Americans) and locals buying stuff that, may be cheap, but will break down in a hurry.  There are stats out there that say Mong Kok is one of the most densely populated spots on earth.   Mong Kok also attracts some rather unsavory characters intent on pickpocketing some unwary shoppers and is also a magnet for drug addicts and homeless people trying to feed off the crumbs from the hordes of people that frequent Mong Kok. 

In the midst of this craziness is a small church, a haven for the homeless, addicted, lonely and the mentally unsound.  Every Tuesday people from this congregation go out with bags of food and distribute them to the homeless, or, "street sleepers," as they are known here.

Last Tuesday Celia and I joined them for worship, all in Cantonese, but the Holy Spirit is universal so we felt at home and at peace, and then we went with a group to a nearby bridge.  It was sobering to say the least.  

Yes, I am sure that there are homeless people, who if they just tried a little harder would not be in the situation that they are in, but I think for the most part people in that situation have a legitimate reason for their misfortune.  Needless to say I believe erring on the side of grace is in my opinion the right thing to do.

So pray for this little church, Fuk Lam Church, and their efforts to help the less fortunate with food and to encourage them with the hope found in Jesus Christ.

Also pray for the homeless in Mong Kok that they may find a way out of their deplorable situation and find comfort with God and a place that they could call their own.

God bless you,

Love adios and peng on!

Dirk

Shack under the bridge.

God help me!

There were these mini shacks all over the place under the bridge.

Wanchi.

A child of God. 

Sobering and deplorable.