It was just yet another stress-free day in Hong Kong. My friend Ben from church had e-mailed me an invitation to go on a bike ride with a Christian Fellowship from City University of Hong Kong on a Saturday. Ben is actually Chinese, but he lived in Australia for a few years so he has a fun Australian accent to go along with his friendly personality. This weekend I had no intentions of studying, because I find that being an exchange student, it is better to study by experiencing. I had a good feeling that a bike ride with Christian professors from a more well-known university would be a pretty good experience. Boy was I right!
From left to right: Ben, Eddie, Myself, David, and Wang. Eddie is local second year student studying chemical engineering if I recall correctly. Ben is teaching communications by the way. David is actually an American-Chinese teaching English at City U for the past 7 years. Wang actually grew up in the United Kingdom and has been teaching Engineering for the past 21 years. Great group of Christian men. Eddie has been married for 2 months now, David is seeking to find the right girl just like me, and Wang is married with 4 kids (3 boys and a girl). After introducing ourselves we began to embark on our semi-long journey to Tai Po from Tai Wai.
It was a beautiful bike ride along the coast. Passing Sha Tin, Fo Tan, and even Chinese University of Hong Kong, there never was a moment without a good view. I had never realized how open and spacious the New Territories were until this trip. Sure, it's a bit out of the way. But it seems like such a pleasant and more peaceful area to live in. I really like Sha Tin because it is quaint, beautiful, and close-by to Kowloon. Being able to take turns chatting with each of these guys was so nice. We would have to converse in two's seeing as we were trying to ride our bikes and dodge all other bikers in the meantime! The amount of bikers is nothing at all compared to the chaos in Beijing. I have heard life-threatening stories of tourists riding bikes in Beijing. There were, however, a few people that I saw crash along the way. It was mainly there fault because they weren't paying good enough attention and ran into the fence!
After our tiring adventure, we took an hour long bus ride back into Kowloon for dinner. We ended up deciding on going to a hotpot restaurant in Mong Kok. I don't think I have ever felt more hungry in my life! We ordered so much food, we had to wait a while because we ordered so much. When they finally rolled out a huge cart full of food for us, we turned on our hotpot to boil the water, and then threw in all of our food. This style of eating is very communal and enjoyable for friends and family to eat together. During this meal time I really had some great conversations with them. You can learn so much from professors even outside of the classroom! I really am glad that I decided to join this fellowship time, and I will surely hope to join them again in the weeks to come. God is good, all the time - and all the time, God is good.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment