A Final Day in Hong Kong: Two Sides, One City

As a family, our spirituality has always played a big role in our lives.  I've been heavily involved with music ministry in the Lutheran Church for 12 years or so now.  The church has always been our second family and we've developed many close relationships with our brother's and sister's in the faith. This was certainly the case living in the Chicago area, and we see many of those same roots developing in Nashville.  I wanted to ensure that such an epic family vacation we are taking this year, did not exclude this aspect of our family life.  Therefore, where possible, we've identified local churches for us to worship at in the various countries we are visiting. 

Today was our first such opportunity.  When planning the trip, I was shocked to find that the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod had a congregation in Hong Kong, fairly close to my brother-in-law's house: Church of All Nations Lutheran Church.  The church was formed to cater to the many Lutheran expatriate workers in Hong Kong.  Therefore something that makes it very unique, I would imagine, is that its a fairly transient congregation.  People join for a few years while they are working here, and then move on.  This is somthing pretty unusual for a church where there are 100-year-old congregations in the US that still have members that are descendants of founding members. (There's an old joke in the Lutheran Church: How many Lutherans does it take to change a lightbulb? Answer:  Change? What's that?).  We came early for breakfast, bible study and the church service.  We were welcomed with open arms, and struck up conversations with many people.  In addition to people from America, the UK, the Phillipines, and even Myanmar, we learned the Bible study leader's mother is from Dundee, IL, and he has family in Crystal Lake, IL, which were only 15-25 miles or so from our house before we moved to Tennessee.  We met a woman that goes on frequent mission trips to Cambodia, and just got back..  We learned that a former member/musician from that church just moved to Nashville and is a  musician at his new church.  All this reafirrmed what a truly small world it is, that we can have so many close connections on the other side of the globe. 

The service incorporated Amazing Love which is one of my favorite praise songs and even reprised it as a sending song.  Goosebumps.  Those who are involved in a church likely know the close relationships that you develop with your "brothers and sisters" in the congregation, and its really a cool feeling to travel 15,000 miles, and find "extended family" that have so much in common with you. Unfortunately, this feeling created a bit of a stark contrast to our experience out in the city the rest of the day.

After church we headed back to David and Jing's, and shared their final lunch at the clubhouse in their housing development, as later this week they begin a new chapter in their lives by moving to Shanghai.

The remainder of the afternoon, we all began to suffer a bit as our hectic schedules and jet lag begain to quickly catch up with us.  We headed downtown to take a tram to "the Peak" which is one of the highest points in Hong Kong, that offers a phenomenal 360 degree view of the city.  Perhaps exaggerated by our exhaustion, the character of the city began to grate on us, and we each noticed it. 



View from The Peak



Two Rare Zondas in the Parking Garage

Hong Kong is a city of somewhere around 7 million people, packed into a very tiny space, where just about everyone lives in a high rise of 30-50 floors or more.  In and among these, are many highrise old abandoned factories which have gone dark as the "Made in Hong Kong" label over the years has been replaced with the "Made in China" label.  At the same time, there is a TREMENDOUS amount of wealth in the city, and it is truly remarkable how every car that drives by is a Mercedes, BMW, Audi, with the occasional Ferrari, Porsche or Masaratti peppered in.The people have a very fast paced way of life, and are very focussed on their objectives.  Courtesies that we're used to in the US such as holding doors open for other people, and above and beyond customer service are not the norm.  When standing in a line, if you do not keep it extremely tight, people will begin to cut directly in front of you.  Our awareness of this was probably heighted by our recent move to Nashville, which is the exact opposite.  Nashville is known widely for being extremely friendly and nice.  By late afternoon, we were quickly tiring of the crowds, and watching, and being involved in the mobs of people trying to get through a line, disregarding personal space and right of way.  All this began to overshadow the things about the city we enjoyed, and we decided to try and make it an early evening, grabbed some dinner in a very familiar environment at a Chicago themed restaurant ("Dan Ryan's Chicago Grill) and headed back to pack up our stuff and get ready for an early flight.  Kalyssa however, made it all of about 3 minutes before falling completely asleep at the table.



Dinner at Dan Ryan's (Kalyssa asleep in foreground)



We did at least get to enjoy the sights of some of the modern, brightly lit skyscrapers downtown, before heading back.  Tommorrow, though we have an early start, should provide us a much less physically exhausting day.  However, if we are able to stick to our itinerary, it may proove to be a very emotionally exhausting one....




Bank of China Building