Hello Folks
For once, a little earlier: our 12th newsletter - it's meant to be a look back at our time in Hong Kong.
Travel
The prehistory of our travels was a bit challenging at first sight. On the day we were supposed to fly, there was a strike in Germany. As a result, our outbound flights were canceled and that had a couple of consequences:
- We then flew a day later on a direct flight from Zurich to Hong Kong - that is, without a stopover and five hours of sitting around at Frankfurt Airport.
- Nayara was not in good shape the whole Monday - the day we would have flown - throwing up, fever and so on. Flying that day probably wouldn't have been pleasant.
- We had ordered cameras for the two younger children. They arrived too late - but on Tuesday morning 🙂.So we still had them!
Travelling itself went quite well. The children enjoyed flying, everything was new and exciting! Just the movie-watching we had to somehow get a handle on (Benaja watched 5 movies on the way there - FIVE!!!). Nayara's uncomplicatedness is always a blessing: We couldn't all sit together, someone had to sit on a separate seat. In speaking and arm's reach, but not next to the parents. Nayara managed this very well, each time sitting next to a complete stranger!
Otherwise, the flights were pleasant - very quiet and on the return flight with 14h duration, we parents could even sleep a little!
Hong Kong
Just at the beginning: For David it was a real coming home! He enjoyed the time there, the city with all its impressions enormously and he was totally enthusiastic - once more 😉. It was nice for everyone and we were on the road a lot - maybe a bit TOO much??? - and there were many exciting things to discover.
You can see a lot of what we did on the photos. For all of you who know Hong Kong a little bit, here are a few keywords:
ICC - Noah's Ark - Mid-Level Escalator - Hong Kong Park - Peak (incl. Old Peak Road) - Water Front with view - Star Ferry - Ding Ding - Ladies Market - Manhattan Tailor - Temple Street night market - Stanley - Hopewell Center Obervatory Lift - Kowloon Park - MTR - Golden Beach - Sham Shui Po - Chi Lok Market Tuen Mun
Something we are always asked is if you notice China's greater influence on Hong Kong:
As tourists, you don't really feel anything. But as tourists you don't ask certain questions and special topics are not so relevant. And as a family during this time, we were tourists above all.
Ursula had the impression that Hong Kong is rather less clean...
Here is another amateurish panorama - but David just likes it 🤣:
1. Click on picture, right mouse click and "Open graphic in a new tab".
2. Change to new tab and click image to enlarge
Crossroads
During our time in Hong Kong we stayed at Crossroads Foundation - the charity David has been working with for many years. If you want to know more, you can check out https://crossroads.org.hk - or just ask David and you'll be covered with explanations for a good while 😉.
But we didn't just live in the community in a spacious 4 room apartment, we also participated a bit in the life there:
- Collaboration:
We invested ourselves four half-days in the clothing department with unpacking, cutting off the price tag, folding nicely, counting and weighing as well as repacking: about 4 pallets we processed like that. - Simulations:
One way Crossroads works is to have the people who participate experience what it feels like to be in certain challenges as people experiencing poverty. We participated in a water simulation and the blind simulation.
The first shows what the lack of access to fresh water means for the people affected - especially children. The latter lets you explore an African village in complete darkness under the guidance of a blind person to find out what blindness could mean to you. - Relationships:
David and Ursula were able to freshen up their relationships from before - David also more organizationally - and make new contacts. The fact that there were just 2 other families from Switzerland helped especially the children, because they found a little bit of home linguistically.
Other
Rather unpleasant were the mosquitoes. Ursula and Benaja have suffered especially: From about the middle of the vacations they had almost no good night because of the itching! Our bodies are probably not used to the poison of those mosquitoes and so they react a bit more intense. According to the people at Crossroads you get used to it (with time - so, a little longer than we were there...).
One of the Swiss families took care of the kids for an afternoon and the parents could then have a cozy afternoon together - that was great, thanks again Lea and Markus (the kids bought masses of toys in Toy Street in return!!! Almost did not have room in the luggage 😉).
Matthja learned that you can also bear Chinese food and that it can even be good - and that you then survive quite well in Hong Kong!
While Benaja sees it more like Ursula and was looking forward to the journey home from the end of the second week, Nayara was crying from Sunday before departure because of the sadness that she had to leave again (like David - except that he didn't cry). Matthja also thought it was great, even if he didn't show it quite so emotionally....
On Tuesday, 18.4. we went home again and took many impressions and new experiences with us - and leave behind many friends and will certainly return in one way or another.
Love regards
All Widis: Ursula and David with Benaja Isaak, Nayara Joy and Matthja David