Eric's Beijing Diary

YWAM Base, Hong Kong. Yesterday morning, Linda took me to the border. I said "goodbye" to her, and left the country. Entering Hong Kong is generally pretty simple. Chinese citizens from the mainland need a special permit to enter Hong Kong, but if you have a US passport, they just sorta look at you, and if you don't look to scary, they stamp a 90 day visa on your passport. Almost like Canada, except that with Canada, all you need is a driver's license.

After I got through Immigration and Customs, I decided to stop at Starbuck's before buying an MTR ticket. Good thing, because I met a few ladies from Australia who told me about the "Octopus" card--something I had missed in my preparations. It doesn't really save you money, but it's just so much simpler. Give them 150 Hong Kong dollars (the first 50 is a deposit), and you can use the card on any train or bus in the SAR.

I knew the YWAM base was in Kam Tin village, and a friend from Beijing who had connections there had arranged for me to stay, but I didn't have a phone number, so after I got of the MTR, I took a bus to the village and started asking around. I talked to several people before I met someone who knew about the place. He told me to go to the Nepali church down the road and ask them for advice, because some of the YWAM staff helped out there. I walked down there and met a guy from YWAM who was just getting ready to leave. He helped me get a taxi to the base.

This morning, Sophia invited me to go with them to the Nepali church. The speaker this morning was the same guy who helped me yesterday, so I was able to follow it, because he was speaking in English, which was being interpreted into Nepali. There weren't very many people there--this is a very small church. But that isn't too surprising, because Kam Tin is a very small village. And a very ancient one--about 800 years old. This countryside area in the "New Territories" is really a nice place to spend some time. Quiet. You can hear birds chirping. Hong Kong is often referred to as a "concrete city," but the moniker is misleading. In terms of area, much of the SAR is countryside. That doesn't mean uninhabited, but definitely rural, not urban.

The friendly folks at the Nepali church served us a lunch of noodles, and we sat and talked through the early part of the afternoon. Really nice people.