This is our last day of trip to South-East Asia. Our flight leaves just after midnight, so we have a whole day to do something, so we are going to visit Noah's Ark. The theme park doesn't open until 10:00 a.m. so we have plenty of time to pack our bags and leave out a clean change of clothes for travelling, after showers of course. The day gets hot and muggy here in Hong Kong at this time of year and we will need a change.
We grab some pastries on the run and get on the MTR and head for the end of the track. From directions we had, we thought the park was at the end of the line, but it is actually at the end of another line with the word "west" attached to the station name. Instead of Tsuen Wan, we should have headed for Tsuen Wan West, but no problem, there is a bus that makes a route past the park and we are soon on a 15 minute ride over bridges and underpasses and we get dumped off on the advice of other passengers. No park in sight. Another nice lady on her way to visit her mother, approaches us and asks what we are looking for. "Oh, it's just this way. I'll show you" and she did until we were on the right track.
Noah's Ark Park is an amazing replica of Noah's ark and has a hotel and hostel in the upper chambers and stands 5 storeys tall. There are several theater rooms where they have exhibitions and 4-D showings depicting things like the flood, the crossing of the Red Sea and other scenarios. There are many, many theme rooms and activities for children from 2 and up, based on archeology, paleontology, astronomy, biology, the human body, and live exhibits of weird frogs, lizards, insects, fish and birds. It is an amazing concept with gardens and sculptured animals scattered throughout as if in their natural settings. There are misted gardens and walking trails to a hilltop lookout. It just happened that Matthew and I seemed to be the only ones who showed up and got tickets. We got special treatment. A few more people trickled in as it was a school day, but you can sure see how it is set up for educational purposes and hands-on activities from making and small replicas of the ark. What a fun day!
Then we headed back by fast ferry to Tsuen Wan West and headed for Festival Walk in Kowloon Tong for late lunch/early supper at Oliver's Super Sandwiches, a western style food restaurant. It appeared to be very popular and we wolfed down down the clubhouse sandwiches with kiwi juice.
Back to the guest house, shower, pack and a brief visit with Gary and Eva Winsor who had been to Malaysia and China during our absence and arrived back the same day as we did. They are PAOC missionaries here and are involved with outreach and Bible School training here in Hong Kong and SE Asia.
We made our own way to the airport with 3 changes on the subway, but arrived in good time to find our flight was delayed by an hour and 15 minutes, which actually turned out to be almost a 2 hour delay by the time we were boarded and off. Matthew slept soundly for 8 hours and I think I managed a good 6. The flight seemed to go by very quickly and almost 11 hours later we were landing in Vancouver 2 hours before we left Hong Kong. Diane says you get a chance then to correct the mistakes you made earlier that day and live it over again and do it right. The International Date Line presents some interesting scenarios.
Canada Customs and Immigration services is such a pleasure as the officers welcome you back, ask where you've been and all that. Taking the shuttle to our hotel, Matthew was quite excited that he could read all the signs along the road and on businesses, then out of sheer habit, thanked the shuttle bus driver in Mandarin! Haha! That was funny. The driver wasn't even Chinese, but from Pakistan or India.
A night of sleep and we will be in home territory tomorrow, happy to be united with our families and friends. It's been an awesome adventure, for sure. Now to assimilate some of the valuable insights we gained. Thanks for following our story.
My blog was actually shutdown and unavailable to me in China, then it was cancelled by Google for some irregular account activity, until I got to Vancouver and was able to upload my notes from my journal. Sorry there was such a blank spot there for awhile, but sometimes things are out of your control. Can't Facebook, You-tube or blog from China. That's just the way it is.
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