Another amazing weekend in the books. I took off Friday evening after work for Hong Kong. I took the Turbo Jet, which is a ferry that runs on hydrofoils, just like the Mach II sailboat. Once it is up to full speed it looks like it is flying. If you no me well or maybe even not that well, you know I'm not the biggest planner when it comes to things like this, I just like to go. So, the only planning I had done was book a hotel room at the YWCA Anne Black...cheapest I could find and turned out to be nice. So upon arriving at the ferry terminal I realized I did not know where I was, or where I was going. Sweet deal! I had my computer with me so I was able to pull up the address of the street for the hotel, so I was off. Luckily HK people are really nice, and the first person I asked told me which MTR (subway) station I would want to get off of. This was my first time (I think, or that I can remember now) I have ever rode on an actual subway...not including airports. I have ridden on the El in Chicago and the raised rail in Thailand, but no subway. I liked it, it was cool to see what looked like one giant hallway twisting and turning. Finally I got off and found myself a taxi. The taxi driver spoke little to no English, so I finally able to get him to understand the street name, and he dropped me off at the right street, but I had no clue where the hotel was. Fortunately, there was another hotel I popped into and they gave me directions. IT was about a fifteen minute walk down the street. I found it, checked in and crashed!
Why Hong Kong? Well, my first weekend in Macao when I went sailing at Hac Sa, I was also asking the members of the sailing group about the local climbing scene and if they were aware of how to access the local wall. Eric, one of the gentleman told me that he wasn't sure, but his daughter, Robyn, climbs in HK a lot and may know something. So, I got in touch her. She did not know about the Macao wall, but if I am ever in HK I should let her know and we could go climb. I had planned on going there at some point in time anyways, so it was a good deal. Once I figured out this weekend was going to were I let Robyn know I would be in town. She informed me that Saturday was no good, because she was participating in a refugee run, which I was welcome to join her on, but Sunday would be great and she would try to get some people together. I wasn't really sure what this refugee run was, maybe it was a fundraiser for refugees...but I though what the heck I could wander around HK, looking at touristy stuff that will always be there, or I can go do something positive and unique in the refugee run. The run it was, I wasn't too worried, I have been running a good bit in Macao and climbing is a great cardio workout too.
I was meeting her at the Central station exit D, at 9am. The bus left at 9:15 sharp. I did not have a cell phone, because my sim card only only worked in Macao. I was waiting for her at the station, and about 6 after 9 I began to get worried, and once agin a nice person of Hong Kong aided me and she let me borrow her phone. I got ahold of Robyn and she informed me that there were two parts of the station and that I was in the wrong one. So I had under ten minutes to run my but to the right one. Twice I received false information and ran down escalators only to run back up the same ones. Finally I asked an office and they walked me outside and pointed me in the right direction, and I took off, a crazy American sprinting through the blistering humidity of downtown Hong Kong. Luckily I made it in time and the bus was still there. I introduced myself to Robyn and we headed to the bus.
I had on all my running gear, compression shorts, running shorts, running shoes and mesh lightweight t. Upon getting on the bus, I found that most people had on t-shirts like I, but they were wearing jeans or cargo shorts, this is when I realized it wasn't an actual run. LOL, no one else really noticed but I had a good laugh. It turned out the refugee run was a simulation, putting the participants through an experience "similar" to that of what a refugee goes through. Now I understood. The bus ride was nice, I met some of Robyn's mother whose name slips my mind (I really cannot believe I cannot remember it, I just never used, AH! Sorry Ms. Robyn's mom, I know the next time I guarantee I won't forget) I also met some of her friends and a few other people. It was a fun ride. Chatted awhile with her friend Kaishi, who went to school at Wesleyan in Connecticut and was working in Hong Kong as a Princeton in Asia Fellow. We had some good convo.
We finally arrived at our final destination, Crossroads, which is a non-profit that serves both the HK area and the world in serving as a distributor of goods of any kind and need. This center also does simulations of a large variety from blindness to refugees, all in an effort to raise awareness. We received a brief introduction what exactly refugees are, I had a vague idea but wasn't super clear. A refugee is someone who has a real fear of human rights persecution in their country of origin because of their actual or imputed political opinion, religion, race, nationality or persecution in a particular social group. They must also show that they are outside of their country of origin and that their home government is unable to provide them protection.
After the intro I was handed a card with my new identity, my name was a Ansari Sobieho. I was a 16 year old boy from Afghanistan. . The simulation was very realistic, I could talk more about this, but would not do it justice. There were guns and explosions, death and corruption. Click here if you would like to learn a more. It was an eye opening experience into the life of a refugee and if you ever have the opportunity to participate in a refugee run, I highly recommend it.
After the run we had lunch at a Nepalese restaurant to debrief. I met a number of people here as well. One person I met, Amy, went to Stanford and is currently working at Lignan University in HK coordinating their service-learning. Service-learning an area that some student affairs professionals go into, which is what I am going to grad school for. Service learning is a teaching style and learning strategy that integrates community service with instruction and reflection to add to enhance the impact on the student, teach civiv responsibility and strengthen communities. Next semester I will be co-teaching a U101 (first year seminar) course service learning angle. It was sweet to chat with her about student affairs and more. I plan to return to HK towards the end of my trip to tour her university and chat with some student affairs peeps in HK.
After lunch (ps Nepalese food is really good, you should check it out) we walked around HK for a while trying to find a good bus to take to the beach where one of Robyn's friends was celebrating her birthday. It was a cool way to see the city and chat with Robyn. She went to the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and is headed to law school in Hong Kong in the fall. The beach was a blast, we just chilled at a restaurant and talked about all kinds of things the whole night, it was an amazing group of people. We talked about politics, many cultures, family, traveling, the state of institutional marriage, the value of job satisfaction and more. It was an interesting night and a lot of fun. I am so lucky to have these experiences and opportunities
From there I took the MTR back to my hotel, while walking through the crowded streets to downtown Hong Kong, I was rounding a corner and I heard loud screaming and I thought oh man, there's a fight or something. As I rounded the corner, I came to find it was a group of about 20 Africans (not sure if they were specifically from Ghana) watching the Ghana vs. Australia World Cup game from outside a bar. The loud yelling was their excitement and energy. I was luck to come across them right as a the Australian player had been called for a red card and Ghana Got a penalty kick. When Ghana scored they went crazy the singing, drumming and bugling was so much fun to watch, I caught some video. They were spilling out into the street and blocking traffic, it was awesome. While China is sweet, I wouldn't complain if I were in South Africa right now. After this excitement, I headed back to the hotel, cleaned up and went to bed.
It was easy to wake up the next morning, as we were going climbing and this was going to be my first time climbing real rock, aside from bouldering in
North Carolina. I've spent a lot of time at 15 meter indoor wall at USC, but never had the opportunity for the real deal. Finally I would get to climb some real stuff and it was the best first climb I could ask for. I met up with Robyn and her mother and we walked to catch the ferry that would take us to Tung Lung Chau, the island where we would be climbing. The trip there was fun, we had a great view of Hong Kong and learned a lot of history and info from Robyn's mom.
The island only has a few people living on it and is still in it's natural state for the most part. It has good hiking climbing and camping. When we landed , we had about a 20 minute hike to the are we were going to be climbing known as The Technical Wall. On the way we stopped at this small
little place on the way to grab a bite. Had some great dumplings!
We then headed down a beautiful gully to get to the climbing location, some fun scrambling at
times. We rounded the corner
and there we were at this beautiful sea side climbing location...too good to be true for my first, but it was real. There were a few people already there climbing, but this was a big wall, with plenty routes to keep us busy.
Robyn took the first climb, so she could set the rope so I could top rope for my first climb.
Then it was my turn, and I was off on my first ever outdoor climb, so cool. My first route was named the black corner. In HK they use the French grading system, of which it was rated a F5+, which on the Yosemite Decimal System is a 5.8+
Gotta chalk up to make sure to stick that last move.
Great success! I on-sited my first outdoor climb ever, which would be climbing without a fall.
Robyn the took on a tougher climb and rocked it, she mad a difficult roof section look easy. It was a F6a+ or 5.10. I gave this one a go and was good until the rough where I struggled.
I then took off on my first outdoor lead climb, I took a pretty easy route called Black Crack, which was a F4+ or 5.7. It turned out to be a lot easier than I expected, but that was probably good. Lead climbing is when you start with all the rope on the ground and then clip yourself in on the way up. in this first picture you see me grabbing my quickdraw, which I will then clip into the wall and attach the rope to. If I were to fall before I clipped in, I would fall and land on the ground.
As you can see the rope is still below me, but in the bottom of the picture you can see the quick draw clipping the rope to the wall. If I were to fall that would catch me.
Luckily I didn't test their reliability and I made it to the top without falling.
It was a great day, I had a ton of fun! I am getting tired and need to get some rest, but I have a few more noted I will posts soon about Hong Kong.
In good health,
Brent
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