�After two days in Hong Kong waiting for our visas it was time to venture into China! It started on Wednesday at 2pm as we walked about a mile with our 40-50lb packs, carry-ons, and groceries in our hands. If I would have known about just this little leg of travel, I would have gotten rid of half the things in my pack! A mile is stretched with a heavy load on your back. (Who needs clothes and hygiene stuff?)
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But this was just the start.
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After getting to the bus station and cramming into the bus during rush hour… (I can’t even express in words how crammed we were. I felt sorry for the people who were compressed against our packs.)
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…The bus dropped us off in the middle of Hong Kong and we were on foot again to find the metro. As we caravanned through a high class mall and street avenues we found our way to the metro. I have never had so many pictures taken of us from natives. We were quite the sight to be seen. We were off the bus, to the metro station and then onto security checks. We got to go through customs. Praise be to God this went super smoothly and there was no suspicions of 35 Americans.
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We were delayed and missed our next connection, so we waited an hour or so to take another subway that caused us to take a different route entirely. This made us miss our midnight metro ride to the train. So we “slept� in the station till 7 in the morning in the freezing cold. In the morning we moved with the rush into the metro.
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We finally got to the train station at 9am to hopefully get onto you 35 hour train ride at noon. But here they were suspicious of us and we could not get the tickets. It did not help that our credit cards and cell phones were not working as well. We tried to not bring attention to ourselves but this was impossible with a herd of Americans with tons of stuff. We were quickly the hot topic of the day with people just standing in front of us staring and taking pictures. As we spent the next twelve hours outside on the side walk we waited, prayed, and took turns exploring the city. I was thankful for the break from our packs, my hips were bruised and muscles sore but thankful for the exercise.
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At 8 we finally were able to get on the train and literally run with all that we had to get seats. We were never so thankful to get on a 35 hour train ride. Emotions were running wild and people just wanted to sleep. As we squeezed into our seats with luggage on top of us we attempted to sleep while the aisles were packed with people who got standing tickets. The rest of the ride was a blur and 35 hours lapsed at an exhausting rate, it wasn’t too bad for me. We finally arrived in the city where our contact was.
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The problem was that we did not have a place to stay. We huddled outside in the 7 degree weather (we were used to 80 degrees) for 5 hours. We took turns walking into KFC to warm up a bit. Finally, we found a hotel to stay in for the day in order to get some sleep before we left for our final destination. Once we got to our hotel we went out to find some warm clothes to buy and amazing food to consume.
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A warm shower and horizontal bed awaited our return! Ah yes, we are on the World Race. I had to remind myself what I was doing. Nothing in the world would give me enough motivation to do this besides Christ. And the journey continued.
