Culture - Chinese Opera

Monday we had a very interesting experience. We had tickets to attend a "real" Chinese Opera. Sister Aki arranged for us to experience this event. She went out about six months ago and stood in line to get the tickets for us. The tickets sold out quickly.

The theater was beautiful

And so, the Newells, Workmans, Benchs, Jackson and Aki’s all were off. We rode the ding ding out to North Point to the Sunshine Theater. We went for Thai food before going to the theater. We had fried rice, served in pineapples, chicken on skewers, and then we all ordered a dish. We opted for sweet and sour chicken. The rice was great, so was the chicken on skewers, but the sweet and sour was just so so. Too many hot peppers and too tough chicken.

The finale

We walked across the street to the theater and in we went, just minutes before show time. As we walked in, we became the center of attention. We were the only "gweilos" in the whole place, and there were smiles and surprise everywhere. They couldn’t believe that many Americans would actually be there.


The performance was interesting, beautiful, loud, hard on the ears, and strange all at once. The costumes were wonderful, as were the backdrops. The Aki’s tried very hard to keep us up with the story. The music is lots of drums and cymbals as well as discordant sounds. This group of performers are some of the best, and they had really good voices. And they had some interesting ways of presenting the story, for example when they wanted to show that the soldiers scaled the walls of the castle and conquered the king and his city, they had 4 men who ran across the stage and somersaulted over the about 6 foot high painted wall. Very creative and fun.


The performance began at 7:30pm and by 11:00 pm we were not close to the end. The Jackson’s and Newells called it quits at 11, the rest stayed to the end at 11:30 which they told us was very, very good. Dew and I had been awake since 4:30am and were having a hard time staying awake, and Elder Newell had to catch the early ferry to Macau so we threw in the towel early rather than stay to the bitter end. A quick ride home on the MTR and were we ever ready to hit the mattress.

Couples to Tai Tam Country Park

Couples day out! We visited the Tai Tam Reservoir to see all the bridges along the way. It was a gray, hazy, gloomy looking day, but the temperatures were great for a walk in the woods, and we had a few elusive glimpses of blue sky along the way.

We strolled along at a leisurely pace, and would have made better time if we hadn’t taken so much time taking group shots along the way. The Smith’s have their son here visiting and he was a natural when it came to taking group shots of us. (A very patient young man)

This will be the last outing for Elder and Sister Toone, they leave for home in another week, and I think that they were already getting that "glad to be home" smile ready.

At the end of the route we all went our different ways, some to Stanley to shop and some back to Chai Wan and an MTR trip home. Lovely day!

Lovely Bridge at Tai Tam

Taking a break in one of the many pavillions along the trail. Front left Elder and Sister Toone, Elder Gibbons, Sister Woolsey, Elder Jackson, Elder Woolsey, Elder and Sister Newell, Sister Gibbons, Sister and Elder Smith.


Group on one of the many bridges

Completion of hike!! - Great trip.

Area Council Meeting

We’ve come full circle! One year ago we arrived in Hong Kong and immediately began with seminars, and now we’ve begun round two. This week end was the Area Council meeting. It began on Saturday, and continued early Sunday morning until after lunch.

It was time for the "team" to go to work again. What would we do without Ashley and Vivien? They are our right hands and our left hands and some days our brains. And so fun to work with! And they always stick around until the last dish is done!

Elder Chen ready for buffet

Sister Watson visiting with the help

From left to right - Elders Chia, Ho, Wong, Cheung, Perkins, Hallstrom, Watson, Subandryo, Chen and Wan

Vivien and DeWayne getting ready to eat



Dishes, dishes and more dishes

Hong Kong - General Conference Weekend

General conference weekend and the building was packed. During the short break we had a pot luck lunch on the 10th floor for all the seniors. We had some fun food, homemade bread, corn bread, pasta salad, chicken casserole, and cookies and fruit for dessert. We didn’t have a lot of time, so it was eat fast and run back to get a seat.

Family Visits Hong Kong

On September 27th we had a visit from home. Kara, Jeff and Kent flew in for a ten day visit. It was so good to see them!

We had worked out an itinerary that covered the places we liked best that we have visited in our year here. It’s hard to crunch a years worth of places into ten days! We began by visiting Nan Lian Gardens and 10,000 Buddha’s, but the heat, humidity and jet lag took some of the excitement out of them.

The rest of the week flew by with shopping, visiting the office, taking in a temple session, checking out Macau and as many other things as we could work in. As the week wore on the temperatures dropped slightly and a few clouds came over cooling things off a bit, and making it much more pleasant to be out climbing stairs and jumping on and off of buses, trains and trams.

By Friday it was cloudy and looked like rain, and it was off to Lantau Island for the day. The highlight of the day had to be seeing the pink dolphins. Not only seeing them, but being able to follow three of them and watching them feeding. It was pretty amazing! And the next day we got to see the Panda’s eating, what a treat.

It all came to an end on Monday when we took them back to the airport for their trip home. The Parry boys, and Grandma Parry were more than ready for Mom and Dad to come back, but it was hard for us to see our amazing week come to an end.

It was great to see at least part of our family, but it also made us miss all the rest even more. But during the week they were here we passed our one year anniversary, just six months more and we will be back in the middle of things again. So it’s back to work, and back to making the most of our time here, because we will miss it all when we return home!