Hong Kong Adventure, Part I

Hong Kong Adventure

February 4-5, 2010

It all started when Patrick mentioned to his boss at work that our visas expired on February 13, 2010 and that we were planning on going to Hong Kong to renew them the following week when we both got off for the holidays. San, Patrick's boss, informed him that waiting until the following week wasn't the best decision, the reason being, it is Chinese New Year's holiday and we cannot be guaranteed that the visa office would open.  As a result, Patrick and decided that we would leave for Hong Kong as soon as possible.

The next day at work I shared our situation with the scheduler and asked her to find another teacher for my classes the next day.  The scheduler was not happy with me, and gave a lecture about how my classes are important. That was just irritating because it wasn't like I planned to leave on such short notice and give her more work to do.

Anyway, the next morning we were off to Hong Kong. We had planned to leave the house by 7am in hopes of catching the 8 am train to HK. We were then only planning on being in HK for the day, just long enough to get our visas and head back. We were told that if we can get our visa applications in by 12pm that we could have them by 6pm, which was perfect because them we would be back home that night and only have missed one day of work.

Even though the trip seemed to be a simple plan, there was something within that kept me continuously praying and reciting, "God is above all situations."

We left the house by 7am and were happy to be on our way on this cold rainy morning. Partway to the bus stop Patrick realized that he had forgotten the directions on how to get to the visa office. Leaving Amariah and I standing in the rain with all of our stuff, he ran back to get them.  With this little set back we had to make the conscious effort to not worry about whether we would make the bus, the two subway trains and then the train, on time.  If we missed just one of these we knew that we wouldn't make it to HK on time.  Trying not to worry we rushed to the bus stop.

WE arrived at the bus stop just as the bus was about to pull away. We ran on, the doors closed behind us and it drove away. PTL. Ten minuets later we were racing to the subway. Upon arriving, we learned that the escalator was out of order, so, we joined the crowd and headed down some narrow steps to buy tickets for the subway. I raced ahead, bought the tickets, and by the time Patrick caught up I had the tickets and we could just run for the train, which came almost immediately. Thank-you J.

After about a 20 minute subway ride we came to the interchange. Fortunately the subway train we needed to catch was directly across from the train we were on, so it was just a matter of running across the platform.  We arrived at the station noticing that our transfer train was already there. We got our selves ready by the door so that when our doors opened we were ready to pounce, like a lion on its prey. The doors to our train opened and we flew out, across the platform and onto the train. Shortly after, the doors closed and we were off. Another praise. Just one more train to catch, and that was the 8 am to HK.

Arriving at the station we immediately spotted the signs for the location of purchasing HK tickets. Racing up the stairs to the ticket booth we were confident that we would make it on time. We had 20 minutes before the train left and I was sure that we would do it.

We reached the top of the stairs and raced around the corner toward the ticket booth. As we rounded the corner, both of our jaws dropped and our hearts sank. We couldn't believe the length of the line. We raced to get into line, not to lose another minute of time. And this is where "G is above all situations" began to repeat in my mind.

In the rush of things this morning we didn't grab breakfast. So, before the combination of stress and hunger got the better of us, I decided to go find food while Patrick waited in line to buy tickets. At the bottom of the stairs that we had just come up, I found a little convenient shop filled with food, a little pricy, but convenience usually has its price.  I quickly grabbed some doughnuts, raisin bread, peanuts, waters, and bananas, hoping this would last us until we got to HK.

Returning to the ticket line with the food, I scanned the line failing to find Patrick. Where could he have gone? I quickly scanned the line again only to find him grabbing the change from the ticket lady with tickets in hand.  I was amazed at how fast he had gone through that line. PTL. When Patrick looked up, I waved, and he pointed in the direction we had to go, and we both started to head there as fast as we could.

I asked Patrick how much time we had and he said, "None, boarding started 10 minuets ago." And we still had to go through security and get our passports stamped stating that we have left China.

Fortunately, there was no line at the security or the passport counter. We quickly sailed through and ran to our train.  At this time we had already missed the last boarding call, so we were praying that we could still get on.

Approaching the train deck we noticed that there was nobody on the deck that didn't work there. The train was full, but the door was still open. We ran to the nearest person in uniform and asked which direction our coach was. It was about three down to the right. We started running that way. The person in uniform that was standing at the door to our coach noticed that we were heading right for him, he turned and started tot blow his whistle signally for us to hurry up (as if hurrying was a new concept for us this morning).

We reached the door, got on to our coach, the doors shut behind us and as we found our seats the train started to move away from the station.  We made it!  We could finally sit and relax. Reflecting on the morning it felt as though G had held the door open for each mode of transportation, making sure that we caught each one right on time. Not too early and never late. Our HK adventure had begun.