Hong Kong Disney pictures

Here is our group icture in front of the castle. You can always tell that it is Hong Kong Disney because of the hill to the side of the castle. The p;icture to the left shows the employee standing there with his neck badge and the disney pins on it. I am off to bed - we have to be up at 4:00 for an early flight to Bangkok. Good night - see you in Bangkok!

Hong Kong Disney report

June 3rd - still our anniversary!

It rains continually here in Hong Kong - with just a few minutes of dry weather - and you hope that there is a breeze to dry your clothes off. It is only 68 degrees - but there is 100% humidity. My skin feels wonderful, but I look like the pits! We had our business visit with Disney today - and it was wonderful. It is a very small Disney - that is why it is cheap. Not many people there and when it rains - and, their rain is a down pour - the rides continue. Everyone is soaked there. I did find out that we need to buy all the kids one of those neck straps that companies put their name badges on (landlears?) - and buy them some disney pins and have them pin them on the neck strap. Because it is Disney policy that all of their employees wear them and when they are in the park - guests in the park can go up to them and ask them to trade their pins away. The guest gets to pick which pin they want from the employee - and then the guest gives them one of the pins on their necklace. The employees are required to do at least 2 trades a day. I was hoping that we would go by a store in disney and I was going to buy 7 and 14 pins - but we didn't have time. That business visit was the best and we could have stayed all day - it was so interesting. Noble Cocker is the one that did the tour and he is the 3rd man down at Hong Kong Disney. He is a BYU undergrad graduate and has been with Disney for 7 years and loves it! He reminded me a lot of Andy - the way that he talked and told stories - with enthusiasm. We are packing tonight for Bangkok. If you are ever in Hong Kong - you have to stay at the Renaissance in Kowloon Peninsula. It is wonderful! The breaksfasts at all of the hotels so far have been terrific. We won't have time for the breakfast buffet tomorrow morning - so they will box up breakfast for us. The last time we had that in Japan - it was really a lunch - because they eat lunch stuff for breakfast. Dad ate mine and his!

We took the subway to the Lady's market tonight. We are becoming really good at the subway. The subways here are beautiful! Nothing like DC or New York. All the way to the subway - they have shops. 7-11 stores, Starbucks and lots of clothing stores. You would never guess you are underground. Someone said that you can just go underground - and never surface until you go back to your apartment at night. And it is cool and dry underground! Hong Kong seems like a really nice place to live - if you can survive without a car - and with all of the people. Beautiful flowers and trees!

House boats in Hong Kong

We took a tour yesterday and saw some houseboats that people live in and have lived there all their lives. They could be parked right next to a million dollar house boat. The million dollar houseboat is how I always pictured myself living in - not the other. Here it is:

Here is the other picture of the laser show from behind us - the side of the island we are staying on. Someday - I hope to be better at this blog posting!

Laser show from the other side

June 3rd: Our 37th anniversary by the way! Last night in Hong Kong, we watched a laser show that they do every night at 8:00. It lasts for about 15 minutes. First the PA introduces each building that will be participating and that building lights up. The buildings are located on both sides of the coast (remember that these are all individual islands and you take ferrys to each of the 23 islands that are inhabited). So the laser show was across the water and behind us. Here is a picture of the laser show behind us:




And here is a picture of the laser show that we were watching across the water – it was amazing. Today we are going to visit the business Disney but we aren’t going to go in the park. It has been raining here – and dad has an appointment with the Church Office Building in Hong Kong which is on the other island where this picture is taken. We are staying in Kowloon peninsula. We will meet back at the hotel and go to the Temple – which is on this side (I think). We met up with Dick Smith at breakfast and he was headed to the Church Office Building – so dad is tagging along with them. Dad was going to take the ferry and it would take 2 hours. Dick said he is taking the subway and it only takes 40 minutes. So that made me feel better. Tomorrow we go to Bangkok. This place is way,way busy and very, very humid. Needless to say, I’ve had to give up on my hair.

Hong Kong

Finally - we have internet access in the room. We are in Hong Kong and it is absolutely beautiful. Very foggy and wet - apparently it has been raining for 2 days non-stop. It wasn't raining when we arrived - but very, very humid. This is actually the first day on the trip that it has been hot. We arrived yesterday - Sunday, June 1st. We got here about 4:00 Sunday afternoon - dropped luggage off at the hotel, and then walked to where we could catch the ferry, took a gondola ride up to Vitoria Peak. Then we could see the entire city. The peak has a huge mall at the top. We ate at a restaurant - we got a hamburger and it was $70.00 in US money. We will not eat at a restaurant again - it is too expensive!
We are staying at the New Work Rnaissance - which is owned by Marriott and it is gorgeous. While we were coming back last night on the ferry, we ran into 2 from the Marriott School - Dean Ned Hill and Jim Engebretsen. I think there are 1.3 Million people in the city - and we ran into those 2. Kelsey and I are on the hunt this morning for a laundromat. The hotel said there is one around the corner from the hotel. We've been washing clothes out in the sinks and tubs and hanging them in the shower. Then when they clean our room, they always leave the instructions for allowing the hotel to wash our clothes - but at the hotel, it is very expensive. They probably think - if they can afford to stay in this hotel, they should be able to pay someone to do their laundry (little do they know).

If you could take the good from each country - and put it into your "perfect" country - I would take the friendlyness, the reverence and respect from Japan, the beauty of the chinese culture from Beijing and the uniqueness of the people in Hong Kong. We have seen some amazing places on this trip - and we still can't believe that we are here. Today we are visiting 2 companies in the morning and then on to Stanley's market.

The students love the luggage tags of the grandkids - they comment on that all the time. It has been hard for those who have spouses - because they miss their kids. But those who didn't bring their spouses - now wish that they would have done so.

This is a wonderful group of students and it has been a very spiritual experience for me to be among them on this trip. Sacrament meeting in the hotel yesterday was incredible. It was fast and testimony meeting - from start to finish it was 35 minutes - and very spiritual and uplifting. I just kept thinking of all of the students that come fronm all over the world to attend BYU - some leaving their country for the very first time. I cried all the way to the airport leaving Beijing. Our tour guide Vivian has never left China - and here we are seeing 4 countries. How really blesses we are. Give all the kids a kiss. Love you, Mom

Sunday, June 1st – I believe

We are leaving Beijing and going to Hong Kong this morning after sacrament meeting. If you ever go to Beijing – stay at the China World Hotel – it is absolutely beautiful. The rooms are large – the beds are comfortable and the food is out of this world. Dad has been having a wonderful time enjoying all of the different foods. I say the food is wonderful, because the hotel has American food along with local food.

We’ve visited every place there is to visit in Beijing – the forbidden city, Tien-M square (this isn’t how it is spelled), the palace of heaven, the summer palace (couldn’t take the boat ride because it is too windy), and yesterday we went to the Great Wall. It took us 2 hours to drive there, and 2 hours to climb a portion of it and then we stopped for lunch at a beautiful restaurant and then drove home for 2 hours.

On the way to the Great Wall, we noticed lots of cars just parked in the last 2 lanes of the freeway – before the toll booth and after the toll booth– and not parked very well – just pulled off. They were out of their cars walking around and talking to each other. We asked our tour guide what was going on and she said they were waiting for stores and museums to open and so they wait on the freeway. It was really interesting.l

We went to the side of the Great Wall that is in a very beautiful part outside of Beijing. Lots of trees and very green with villages around it. We parked the bus, and walked up a hill with of course lots of vendors along the way. They all say, “lady, I sell you this for….” Everything in Beijing is negotiable. Kelsey hates negotiating and can’t do it. In fact he has “ruined” a couple of my deals. You have to have a price in mind of what something is worth to you – they name their price and you have to becareful, because they might be saying dollars or Yuan. So if they say – 100 Yuan – then that would be about $15 in dollars. But they will switch what you are saying – like I’ll say, “I’ll buy that for 10 Yuan (which would be about $1.50 – and they will say no – 15 and then I’ll say 10 Yuan. Finally dad decided to go back to the hotel and I went to the Silk Market with a group – and I find it very interesting. They only thing that they will not negotiate is the Olympic stuff. The Olympic stuff, however, is much cheaper than the US. There is even “fake Olympic stuff – and they sale that really cheap. The official Olympic stuff can only be sold at official sites – which are easily recognizable.

Back to the great wall – after we walked up the steep, steep hill to the gondolas, then we took the gondolas up to the wall and the ride was beautiful. Not very often can you see the wall – but it was a very nice day.. The wall goes all along the top of the mountainous area – it isn’t all connected because much of it has fallen down – but where we were – it seemed to go forever. There were lots of people walking along the wall. The wall goes up and down – sometimes really steep and it is made of steps – either really close together or really far apart. It goes up and down like a wave with a tower looking thing at the crest of every hill – and the towers all have open windows which allowed for the bowman shoot down on the bad guys. Also it provides good ventilation so when you get to the top of the hill and need to rest – you get a wonderful cool breeze. I was exhausted and didn’t think I could go any further – but wasn’t there yet – so we continued only to find out that we had to go more – so continued on the wall – and then someone yelled to us that we passed the toboggans to go down the hill – so we had to climb back up the huge hill. Needless to say – it was amazing – but exhausting. The toboggans to go down are like the Alpine slide in Park City – it was a beautiful ride down.

When we got back – we finished our shopping at the Pearl Market and Silk Market and then had to pack everything back up to leave Beijing this morning.

Headed to Hong Kong – and I will post another blog there. I’m going to get internet in the room – so I should be able to do this at night – instead of 4:00 in the morning. Love, Mom

By the way – in the lobby of the hotel, there is always someone playing the grand piano during the day and then at night they have a string quartet playing – it is absolutely beautiful!

Beijing News

We are in Beijing and hopefully, I will be able to post a picture. The picture will show all of the luggage 48 pieces of checked luggage, that our tour guide in Beijing is trying to get into a van. We were all standing there saying this isn't going to work. They had a large delivery truck in Japan that took our luggage. Anyway, they got as much in the van as possible and then had to put the rest in the bus. It was really funny!

They said that China has changed a lot - it used to be a very dark city at night and now it looks a lot like Vegas - large skyscraper buildings and some of the buildings have the large tv screens outside. We went to the silk market and dad hates it - because you have to barger with them. You have a price in your mind as to what you will pay and when they won't go that low, then they grab your arm and pull you back in and try to negotiate. If you are too low - they will let you walk away. If they are still talking to you and pulling you in - then you know that you are in the ballpark. We are going to the forbidden palace today and the temple of heaven and visit a business. Then tonight we are going to see the acrobat show. We start every day at 5:00 a.m - and end at 9:00 p.m. - and it is exhausting.

We loved Japan - and this is a real contrast the way that people treat you. We are staying at China World - a 5 star hotel and it is amazing. The breakfast is buffet and wonderful! The rest of the food has been bad - but we found a cold-stone just out the door of the hotel last night and so we had that. Thank goodness the girls taught us about coldstone in Hawaii! Tomorrow we are going to the great wall and the pearl market and I can hardly wait! Then we will go back to the silk market to do more shopping.

Well, I'm going to try to post this and a picture and we will see how it works. I can't view the blog because China has blogged all blogs - probably because of the earthquake. They are trying to control what the rest of the country is seeing. Yesterday at the summer palace we were right in the middle of a man and women arguing about collecting recylables - she was apparently in her territory. He was about to hit her and dad, and a couple of other men in our group were trying to get between them - nonchalantly so that she wouldn't be killed! Then finally some very young men in uniforms - but no guns - came and were yelling and broke it up. It continued to go on for about 30 minutes. That was our excitement. I'll have to tell you about the Benz-Daimler Chrysler plant compared to Toyota - what a stark contrast. Love, Mom

Japan - May 24-28, 2008

Kyoto, May 24th, 2008

Yesterday, May 23rd was a long day – getting up at 4:00 and getting to the airport – only to find that there was a 1 hour delay. 15 of us were flying Delta and 21 on United with 2 wives joining us in Beijing in a couple of days.

Sunday, we started with breakfast at the hotel and had a wonderful sacrament meeting in a room at the hotel. 100% attendance – that doesn’t happen very often!

We left the hotel after sacrament meeting for sightseeing of many Buhha and Shindu Temples and lots of Shogun stuff. We were exhausted at the end of the day.



May 25, 2008

Woke up early – every morning is wake up at 4:00 because it gets light here that early. We packed and had our luggage out the door by 6:00. The bathrooms in the hotel are just like Papa Charlie’s RV bathroom and very similar to bathrooms on cruise ships.

We left the hotel and walked to the bullet train station to go to Toyota – about 35 minutes ride going 170 miles an hour. We are now on a bus headed to Toyota plant about 1 hour away. The children here are wonderful – they want to try out their English. They are always happy and waving at us. We took pictures of the children in their traditional dresses. While traveling on the way to Nagoya we saw tons of rice fields which are full of water – very interesting. I took pictures on the train and will post them for you to see. The food has been interesting – for breakfast today in our box “breakfast” we had many different sandwiches with meat – and then a cold piece of chicken nugget and a cold small hamburger pattie. – no fruit – no doughnut. Very interesting!

We just left Toyota and had a wonderful tour. I wish that we could have some of their smaller cars – like the Wish and we saw a future 1 person car – which looked like a wheelchair that was enclosed. It was fun looking. What a good tour they give – they give 20 tours a day to schools. You have to make a reservation for the tour 3 months ahead of time. The do not like to fire people – so they make sure that they have people in the right job.

We are back on the train, headed to Tokyo – we ride a train for 10 minutes and then transfer to another train and head to Tokyo. It is about 1.5 hours after that.This time we are in a non-smoking car – but it is next to a smoking car and everytime the door opens – it feels are car with smoke. We have lots of leg room – too bad the airlines don’t have seats like these!

Tonight at 7:00 we will meet up with Scott Murdoch for dinner and I will take a picture of him and post.

Love, Mom