An Octopus card and pig's ears

This is all I brought with space to spare - and the red suitcase basically only has a pillow in it!

After arriving in the Hong Kong airport late Wednesday night - which was so lively at 11:30pm! - I made my way to the hotel shuttle desk. However, it had made its final run for the night. My other options were to take a taxi alone, or take the train/metro. I opted for the latter option.

After confirming directions with the hotel service man and making sure that it was safe, I bought my ticket (an Octopus card - their rail-transportation card), and made my way to the tram. Thankfully, after living in France for a year, I could figure out fairly easily the metro system.

Figuring out the Hong Kong metro...

 While waiting for the train, I heard a few people speaking English, and strategically stood near them. As we got on the train, I asked where they were from - MICHIGAN! The girl my age was teaching on the "main-land" as they call China, and her mom and uncle were visiting! I stuck with them till we reached the metro. It was about 12:30am at this point... and I'll admit, I was a little nervous traveling solo. (Don't worry mom, I was being extra cautious!) After figuring out where my next line was, I was on my way - a long way - toward the line, "Island Blue". I liked the name.

While hoping I would exit out of the right spot, I turned the corner to outside and saw the hotel less than one block. Phew!

After paying $130HK (about $18 USD) for 24 hours of wifi, (about the only thing that made me want to cry), I made to my boom by 1:30am. At this point, I had been traveling for 28 hours and couldn't wait to sleep. I think it was 3:00 am by the time I actually did though....

Okay, that was a lot longer than I had planned on writing about the actually "getting to the hotel" part of my trip...

Today's meeting was inspiring - "We are artists, created in the image of the Creator." "As Christians, we shouldn't push an agenda, but artistically tell a story that draws people in." "What inspires you?" This lead to discussion of strategy, film, writing, and design followed by the group connect projects - the thing I'm helping lead by His grace.

Day 1 of the conference - 12 countries, 25 companies, and 110 people represented!

 We (our group of 20) met for about two hours, discussing possibilties to solve this problem: "Christians do a great job of creating content, tools and websites for ministry - but do not do a great job of distributing it. How can we help fix this? The group came up with a couple ideas, which we will break into smaller groups on Saturday, from 10am-4pm during our project action time. If you think of it, please pray around 10pm EST Friday night for inspiration and collaboration on this project!

For dinner, we went to a local restaurant. There was so much food - so many courses! I learned quickly to pace myself. There may have been Octopus in the soup for dinner (I couldn't tell between all the different textures of the other contents... And if you know me well, I'm not crazy about texture.) One thing I did try was pig's ear. Very cartilage-y and fatty.

That squared like white/brown swirly thing on my plate = pig's ear

So many huge buildings!

Anyways, tomorrow 9:30-5:30 (tonight for most of you 9:30pm-5:30am) we will be hearing a series of Ted talks (basically a variety of short empowering talks around the theme of digital). Hopefully being inspired and challenged, we will apply some of what we learn, during our Saturday action group time.

Thanks for your prayers!