去旅行 Qù lǚxíng Travel

June 08, 2016

去旅行 Qù lǚxíng Travel

Hi there! Last week I had the opportunity to travel to 3 places in 9 days and had amazing experiences in each place. One of my life problems is that I get major travel anxiety when I'm going to be traveling alone, but the anxiety is a result of so many things going wrong when I've traveled in the past (: In the past few weeks I've had a few nightmares where I miss my flights or get lost, etc.. Luckily, I did not miss any of my flights, but I may just never travel by myself again!

First stop last Monday was Hong Kong! Ok - amazing place. Exceeded my expectations. I really have no idea what I expected. I didn't look up any pictures of Hong Kong before going, I didn't plan anything to do except going to the Temple, I just went. I have good friends there that I met my first time in Haiti, so I knew that Hong Kong would be the easiest part of the trip. Kelsey and her little girl picked me up from the airport, and the fun didn't stop until I left Wednesday morning. First, we took a tram up to Victoria Peak close to sunset time, and when it looked like a huge storm was coming in, so the view was gorgeous. Hong Kong is so cool because it is a series of islands, right on the ocean, has some low mountains, and is very green + a big city. It's just got a cool vibe, and I basically want to move there right now. Anyway, after that we had dinner when we got back and AJ was off work. Then they took me to see a great view of the city at night, and we took a ferry and saw the LDS church near their home. I'm kind of obsessed with seeing LDS churches in other countries because they are often different from back in the states. The building they meet is downtown, surrounded by tall buildings, is pretty tall itself, and several branches meet there. There is like an English speaking branch, Chinese speaking, Filipino branch and others. Super cool right? Next day I went to the temple!! Perfect timing too because a sister from the Mechanicsville Ward who is from Hong Kong came too and brought me a present from home! The temple session was so cool. It was in Thai because this senior-aged woman from Thailand was going through to get her endowments. So all the Chinese speakers had headphones, and I needed headphones obviously since I don't speak Thai. But there were also two women there who were deaf, so they had screens with Chinese sign language. I was just impressed by the faith of these people from several different countries all coming together to learn of Christ. Good feelings there.

One church bldg in HK - told you I'm obsessed!

View from Victoria Peak - NOT pollution, just a cloudy evening

Not the best pic, but the other LDS church - the one downtown

Sorry if this is just dragging on, but I may lose my memory one day! Next stop was a Buddhist nunnery and gardens that Kelsey loves, and it was gorgeous. Just really interesting to see people of a different faith coming to pray and worship in a different way. Then we went to the ladies market to do some shopping. I'm not really sure why it is called the ladies market, but it is pretty popular, and Kelsey and I learned bargaining skills in Haiti that came in handy. After that we were so exhausted (it's really hot and humid in Hong Kong), so we went back to her place, and I fell asleep for a couple of hours. Then we went to dinner at a pizza place by the beach, and went up a glass elevator to see another amazing view of the city. I just want to finish off this portion of the post by saying how awesome Kelsey and AJ are. Once again, I've been impressed by families from the US that come here and raise their families. They are wonderful parents, and I want to remember how they treat their daughter and be a mom just like Kelsey. It doesn't matter where you raise your children, you can have a home that feels like Heaven where people feel loved and welcomed. They have adjusted so well, just like the did in Haiti. I'm so grateful I met them in 2013 - they've had a huge impact on my life. I hope I can recover all of my HK photos because I have a bunch of them to send to Kelsey!

Photo of Kelsey, AJ and me from Haiti (just for fun). Soaking wet.

Next morning I went to Taipei, Taiwan!

Which would have been perfect... except 5 minutes after landing there, my phone fell and the touch screen stopped working. I'm really grateful for the voice inside my head, aka the Holy Ghost, that told me to copy the address of where I was staying off of my immigration form onto another piece of paper. Seriously-if I hadn't done that, I would have never found my way. But with that address and some help from airport customer service and many tears, I found my way to the Taipei, Taiwan LDS temple where they also have housing for visitors. (Also grateful that I had thought to email my mom some of my Hong Kong pictures because she always wants me to send her more. If I hadn't done that, I would have lost all of my HK pictures!) I talked with a young missionary there who printed out directions for me to go to the Apple store to have my phone looked at. This Apple store was actually a sketchy electronics store where they didn't even try to fix my phone, but tried to sell me an I-phone 6 for over $500 usd. I eventually got out of there with a much cheaper, but less classy smart phone, and then found a Taiwan mobile place to get phone service for a few days. And that was basically my first day in Taiwan.

Thursday was much better. I was again able to go to the Temple. My sweet roommate there was from Taiwan and was having the work done for her father that day. He passed away a year ago, and she is the only member in her family. She was sooo excited. I really don't think I've ever seen anyone so happy and so grateful for the Gospel. She went on and on and on about how blessed we are to have the Gospel and the Temple. Thank you Merina for your example and faith! I was able to participate in proxy sealings for children being sealed to their parents. One of the people that we did work for was born in 100 BC!!! Only in Asia do they keep such amazing family history records! After the Temple, Merina helped me find a place to eat and then showed me a traditional Taiwanese outdoor market where I picked up some souvenirs/gifts for family.

Merina my best Taiwanese friend

After that, I hiked one of the "four beasts." These are four trails in the city that you can hike and see a pretty good view. I hiked the Elephant trail and it was gorgeous - the trail more so than the view. It was just so rainy that day, but it was still cool. I got to see the 5th tallest building in the world. P.S. I just realized the 2nd tallest building is in Shanghai, and I've seen it, but for some reason seeing the one in Taiwan was more exciting.

In which Ashley discovers she is alone on a metro. Creepy.

In which Ashley discovers that due to the rain she can't see the top of the 5th tallest building in the world.

Finally - Friday morning, I flew to Guilin, China and then got on a bus to Yangshuo. I'll share plenty of pictures, but you can google this place to learn more. A US president (I think it was Nixon, so take my word for it, not his) visited and on a hike in Yangshuo said the following, "My wife and I have visited more than 80 countries and over a hundred cities. I can speak definitely that Guilin is the most beautiful place in the world which I have seen." SERIOUSLY so gorgeous. Luckily I had that new phone to take pictures. First night I did more shopping on the popular west street and planned an exciting bike trip for the next morning. Unfortunately, I woke up Saturday AM and it was POURING rain. Like torrential downpour rain. But I did not want to sit in the hostel all day, so I rented a bike and went for it. I'm insane. I have never been so wet. I biked for about 2 hours and tried to make it to the same Moon Hill that Nixon visited, but I'm not really sure if I ever got there. I felt like my contacts were going to fall out the whole time, so I didn't look up much. And it was so cloudy, that most of the mountain things were covered. But it was still a pretty bike ride, and I felt pretty cool for having done something so crazy. After showering and trying to take a nap, I felt really hungry and went back to West Street for lunch. Then something awesome happened. I heard someone say my name. MY name in China, in Yangshuo. Well, it was a tour guide named Peter who is from that area, and he and I had connected on WeChat through some church friends. I had never finalized a tour through him because of my broken phone issues, so it is a miracle we ran into each other and that he recognized me from my WeChat picture. We quickly set up a tour idea, and I hopped on his motor bike (p.s. the rain had stopped by this point). For 5 hours, he took me to all the most amazing places around Yangshuo including a hike to see a gorgeous view. We also got to meet a man who was a bee keeper, we picked fruit in the mountains, and went to the Dragon Bridge. The story behind this bridge is really cool - so really quickly, there is a story told in this area that a boy lived on the island and had to go to the city to take college entrance exams, but I guess the water was really high that day or something, so he couldn't get across or his boat broke? I can't remember why he couldn't cross, but in desperation he thought he would never make it. Then, a dragon came from the sky and made a bridge for him to cross over. The boy ranked highest on the test, and one day he became a government official. Cool story, cool bridge. Beautiful day for me. The next day I didn't do much - a lot of walking, another little hike, and a delicious passion-fruit, mango smoothie.