It was tough getting on an airplane to Hong Kong after spending a week in LA. All the fun things we experienced there, catching up with the other teams, and eating the foods we know we love… it was difficult. But at the same time, we knew there were many more adventures to be had across the Pacific and many more months of this crazy thing called the World Race.
We got on our flight with the best airline of 2006, Cathay Pacific, and flew 15 hours non-stop to Hong Kong. It was a long flight, but it was quite bearable. We arrived there and had a great time sight-seeing and prepping for China while our visas got processed. Our team decided that Hong Kong is a definte must-see-place in the world. It’s just crazy and cool, a very nice mix.
After all the logistics were worked out, our contact led us into the mainland. We got on a bus for three hours to cross the border and arrived in a city that was apparantly bigger than Hong Kong. We waited around for most of the day because our train didn’t leave for a while. After one last McDonald’s run we crossed town and arrived at the busiest train station in the most populated country in the world. Try that on for size because that’s no easy bridge to cross. I hate being pushed around and that’s exactly what that train station was all about. We ended up paying a little extra for a nice place to wait for our train to arrive because you just didn’t want to hang around with the 3 million Chinese people outside.
Getting on the train was quite the task as well. Our packs aren’t small, and we aren’t a small group. We had hard sleepers on the train which provided a good place to rest and relax, but it really wasn’t a whole lot of extra room. We got settled in and finally it seemed that the crowd of people we had been immersed in all day, was thinning out. Sarah was happy about that.
36 hours, 29 spades game, 19 books, and lots of sleep later, we arrived at our destination in China. That was one super long train ride. It went by faster than we expected, but new adventures awaited us. We could already tell the temperature had dropped. Just how much it had dropped wasn’t experienced until we walked out of the train station. Winter had finally caught up with us. Hats, gloves, jackets, and layers were dug out of the deep holes of our backpacks as we tried to prepare ourselves for the shock. We got into a bunch of taxis for two separte rides totaling about 2 and half hours.
The taxi rides were amazing. It was our first real driving experience in the country and that is always heaps of fun! We crossed some giant mountians with breath-taking views of China. The fact that it was snowing, just added to the granduer. We were happy, and we were very very cold.
We’ve been at our destination for a day and half now, getting prepped for the rest of the journey here. We haven’t had a race leg for China because the Americans and South Africans were on separte flights, and then the rest of the trip was booked together. So we planned the race for today. It was a scavenger hunt in our city to find certain places. It was a complete culture immersion.
Our host planned out the spots we had to visit, 8 of them in total, and wrote them down in English and Chinese. We started from our hotel at 1:00 PM and had to finish before 6:00 PM. It was destined to be crazy. And the red team was ready for another victory.
Before we got started today, Sarah and I obtained a map of the city. Mind you it was completly in Chinese and totally no help to us, we took it with us. I’m personally surprised we even found it, and even more surprised that we bought it. We showed it to the rest of the team before we launched out. We didn’t have a plan really, and we were just going to hit up the places as best as we could. The language barrier is such a problem, we didn’t think communicating our ideas to a taxi driver would be easy. But… God must have been with us on our journey.
Some people from other teams couldn’t participate for various reasons, so the deal was cut between the teams that only 4 people had to race, and you could take more if you wanted too. That became a very important deal for the Red Doulos Team. When the whistle blew (that’s figurative…there really wasn’t room for anybody to pack a whistle), we bolted out the door. We grabbed the first taxi we could find and we were off.
And by off I mean, the entire team was off and I was standing outside of the open door as it dove away. I screamed in panic that I was getting left behind, and finally the driver stopped. It wasn’t easy squeezing five people into a little car that looks like a Geo Metro… with a taxi driver. After we were all in, and we were really off on on the road, we instructed the driver to take us to the first stop. This was some tram to the top of a mountain overlooking the city.
When we arrived at the tram we made the plan that Gary, Katherine, Casey, and Sarah would actually ride up the mountain, and I would stay with the taxi so he wouldn’t drive off. While the team was away, I got out our list, our map, and our Chinese phrasebook. These three tools and the grace of God is what saved the day. In less than a minute I had an entourage of 10 or 15 people looking over my shoulder at the map on the hood of the car, deciding where each place on the list was. I started marking down by numbers, where the place on the list was located on the map. It didn’t take long before everyone figured out what was happening and I didn’t even have to do that! When my team finished running down the mountain (not riding the tram!), I had found all the places on the list on the map and we were able to plan out a route that kept us from criss-crossing around town. It was awesome!
And so we dodged pedestrians, bicyclists, carts, buses, cars, and debris we went from place to place. Our host had us visit 2 parks, a mosque, a zoo, a fast-food resturant, a furniture market, his house (which we were required to stay there for 30 minutes before leaving) and finally back to the hotel. The only Chinese word we know besides hello and thank you, is “FAST!” Good thing it worked well. We love our taxi driver. What was expected to take a couple of hours, pretty much happened in a an hour and fifteen minutes.
Our last stop was our host’s house. We weren’t sure if our driver knew where to go, he had a puzzeled look about him, but to our astonishment, he drove right up to the apartment complex. I stayed in the taxi to make sure he didn’t leave, just in case it wasn’t the right stop, while the other memebers of my team ran inside the apartment complex to look for the right door. A minute later Sarah was running outside after me, beckoning me in. We had found the right apartment. Not only did we find the right place, we were the first people to arrive at his house. We got in and sipped on tea and hot coccoa. As we waited our mandatory 30 minutes, all the other teams showed up.
The key here is that no team would disclose which one had arrived first, so it was a mystery which teams would be leaving and going directly to the hotel. We had about a lead of about 8 minutes on the next team that could leave, but we had a little problem. Before we went into our host’s house, we had paid our driver and he had left. The other teams had brought there drivers with them into the house!!!!! Now we were facing a long run down the alley to the main street to catch another taxi before we could leave. Would our 8 minute lead hold out for that? Espeically considering my slowness and my cough?
Gary and Sarah ran out the door and down the alley, hailing a cab to the hotel. Katherine, Casey, and I panted slowly behind trying to make it as fast as we could to the main street. Gary and Sarah had the driver come and fetch us and we quickly turned around, headed down the street, and back towards the hotel. We got out, paid the driver, and ran inside. Our time… 2:50 PM. We were first!!! The Blue Team, Brown Team, Yellow Team, and Lime Team followed in suit in a matter of 20 minutes! It was surely a close race, but we have been victorious. It’s been a great day and lots of fun. Now we turn our eyes to the reason we have crossed oceans, rivers, and mountains, and look for God to do amazing things in that.
