Hong Kong 2007

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Day 4 - August 1, 2007

Today was a busy day for us. Some of us had interviews with local press in the morning. The afternoon was our first day of workshops at the Lutheran School for the Deaf. Erica, April and I (Myra) decided to explore the Chinese tradition of reflexology in the morning. Oh my goodness... First of all, vendors in general are quite aggressive around here. Walking along the street, you are constantly jostled, have pamphlets and cards thrust at you, and hawkers saying "Copy watch? Tailor" to the point you just want to scream. Well, we had a card for one place and were trying to find the address on the street. A lady comes up to us and leads us thru several alleyways off the beaten path. At first, we are a little worried, but when we arrive at the massage parlor, our worries lessen somewhat. Even though they advertise all kinds of massage, it appears reputable. We tell them we want the foot massage and they usher us into the room and sit us down. First they put our feet in this foot bath filled with a jelly like substance and give us a card to read. The card is a chart that has a diagram of the foot and the corresponding pressure points to the other parts of your body. After carefully drying your feet, they then proceeded to rub, pound, massage and twist your feet and legs. When I say pound, I mean pound. Some of it actually hurts a bit while they are doing it but it feels awesome afterwards.

We took our very pampered feet and dashed off to meet the others at the workshop at the Lutheran School for the Deaf. We had eight students who participated in the workshop. Everyone had a blast.

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Upon arrival from the United States, I felt dizzy because of the scorching heat and humidity. But now I am adjusting pretty well to the heat.

I am glad we got plenty of rest before we gave workshops at Lutheran School for the Deaf today. We worked with 6 deaf students, aged 14 to 20. We were impressed with their enthusiasm to learn. They picked up theatre cues very well. We could tell they were thrilled to have us there; they knew they would not only learn visual theature but also our American culture and sign language. We all know cultural exchanges are always exciting. We look forward to many more workshops with them. We
also had two interviews: one with the MetroPop Newspaper and the other with the South China Morning Post. I thought that Tim, Tami, and I did very well.

---LuisRay

Strange foot bath	She's smiling but she beats the crap out of your feet
Lutheran School for the Deaf	Lutheran School for the Deaf
Workshop at LSD	Workshop at LSD

Day 5 - August 2, 2007

Today, we had the whole day off! So folks split up in small groups and went off on their own. After a late breakfast, we decided to explore the area around our hotel known as Tsim Sha Tsui (TST). We walked along Nathan Road until we got to Kowloon Park. What a great place! It is a huge park in the middle of the bustling city. You would never know that it was there. We walked thru it and it has several areas where you can just sit and people watch. There is a pool which looked so refreshing. It was only 10:00 in the morning, and the temperature was already 95 degrees. There were several pagodas, ponds with koi, a maze, an aviary, and several groups of people practicing tai chi. Even more exciting, there was one large covered area where folks were practising ballroom dancing! Now you folks know what a Dancing With the Stars fan I am so I had to sit and watch them take a few turns around the pagoda.

We were unbearably hot by this time so we decided to go back to the hotel for a short rest before venturing out again. When we left the hotel in the late afternoon, we made our way to the Ladies Market. Wow...so many people and vendors everywhere. It is overwhelming after a point. Our goal was to take the tram up to Victoria's Peak afterwards and have dinner on the peak. We didnt realize it would take quite as long as it did -- a subway to the ferry to a bus to the tram. When we arrived at the tram, the line wrapped around the corners several times. A worker told us the wait was almost 2 hours! Well, I'm sure the view from the tram is pretty but we were not waiting in that line for two hours, period. We hailed a cab and was at the top of the mountain in approx 5 minutes and $HK 30 (which is less than $4.00 US). We were really starving by this time so we grabbed dinner at the first place we came to which is Cafe Deco. We shopped for a bit in the galleries after dinner, and then made our way back to the taxi stand. Pretty tired at this point so we rode back to our hotel via taxi. What a day!

Countdown timer to Beijing Olympics	View from the Central Station walkway
Central Ferry Pier 7	A street in the Ladies Market

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