One Journey Ends, Another Begins

As we begin to write our last post from abroad we realize that we didn't write about our time in Shanghai. Shanghai was one of our favorite cities from our last trip and it proved to be again this trip. We explored the city with Emily and Kim for 3 full days and enjoyed the night life that Shanghai offered. We had a great dim sum brunch with Sunny and Jae Sun, friends of my brother in law's (Mark). There was a group of us at brunch and it was fun to talk with people who live and work in Shanghai to gain perspective on every day life. Thanks again Sunny and Jae Sun for your hospitality!

We enjoyed our last dinner in Hong Kong last night at the delicious NOBU restaurant right on Victoria Harbour. It was awesome! During our dinner we relished in so many memories and experiences that we have had on this trip, too many to count. We feel very grateful for the support we had from family and friends to go on this adventure and we feel completely fulfilled by this experience. We have loved learning and growing together, while spending 24-7 together. We both admit that not spending every single moment together when we get home will be the biggest change. . . maybe we'll just find jobs at the same company!!!! just kidding! :) We just returned from Mass at St. Joseph's Church in Hong Kong. The place was packed and they had 3 masses going on at the same time. As the first song was sung to begin the Easter celebration, we couldn't help but notice the overwhelming female majority - we looked around us and literally out of 500+ people in the church, there may have been 15 males. It was a great celebration and we are glad we participated.

We are excited to visit with family and friends upon our return and share photos and stories. . .it's been an amazing trip. Here's a run down of what we've experienced just in numbers:

5 Countries
21 Cities
22 Hotels/Guesthouses
16 Flights
9 Buses
5 Boats
2 Trains
Umpteen Taxis
Countless Miles on Bicycles =

1 Happy Couple

Night on the Town

Last night we went out with our friend Cecilia in Hong Kong. Cecilia grew up in Hong Kong and her family still lives here (she resides in Beijing). So Cecilia told us to meet at a subway station at 11 p.m. and from there we departed for the very lively bar district on Hong Kong Island. It was a lot of fun and we really enjoyed ourselves. As a semi-clarification/semi-retraction of our last blog entry, we asked Cecilia why there was a Catholic Church in Beijing if officially the government doesn't support religion. She informed us that in fact, the Church was built before the Communist Revolution of 1949, and was left standing so that ex-pats might attend church if they so chose. She said that if you wanted to attend you needed to bring your passport with you and show it upon entering the church. However, around 2002, this began to change and the government became more relaxed about this policy. As Cecilia put it, the government doesn't encourage religion, but will not stop you from going to church now. Just one of the many changing policies that Julie and I, as outsiders, observe differ from mainstream western media. In fact, just the other day, Julie and I were watching CNN and they did a segment on religious practices in China being "underground" and that people were not allowed to practice their faith openly. According to Cecilia, though, this has changed in the past few years. We have discovered on more than one occasion that our presumptions and our information garnered from Western media is often incorrect or inaccurate. [for instance, we didn't know that there were other political parties in China...in fact, there are about 8 or 9 minority political parties]. This is one of the joys of traveling and meeting people from these countries, it tends to break down miscommunication, misinformation, stereotype and bias. We feel like we have learned so much about the countries we have traveled, and yet, we have only skimmed the surface, and we really have so much more to learn.