Hong Kong-Star Ferry

The charming little Star Ferry and its pier in Tsim Sha Tsui won my heart with its forest green and white paintings and star-motif decorations. The ride felt nostalgic and magical at the same time. I was a bit wary of the rocking waves since it was raining at that time but N reassured me it would be fine and it was (felt really secure with him next to me)!

They give the option of paying by octopus card or a token. Nick bought a token for me just for the sake of doing it the old-fashioned way. :)

I love how everything fits in within the theme--colour scheme and the star motif. This makes me happy. Haha..

While waiting for the ferry to arrive.

 Going aboard!

 See the black stars on the chimney of the ferry?

Star-themed reversible chairs on the ferry:

 That's my nervous-but-I'm-ok face

These two were taken on my second ferry ride on Christmas Eve, this time crossing from Central Pier to TST. The architectural look of the Hong Kong Cultural Centre finally grew on me because at first I thought it looked pale and sort of ugly. The weather was cloudy again but hey, I can always look forward to the next time when I can experience a sunny (preferably mildly sunny) star ferry ride.

How I became a morning person in KK (& spiritual discipline)

It's easy to wake up early in KK because the sun rises early and basks our non-curtained apartment with its warm light. We were also eager to see the changing colours with the mountain/city view during the early hours of the day so that gave us ample motivation to wake up; plus, I wanted to make every hour with N count since we spend less than 30 days a year together. 

Mornings here are more quiet and we could have our morning devotion at the table, sipping hot green tea, and look forward to the fish noodles etc breakfast we will get later. The privilege of being on a vacation is that you get the space--both physically and mentally--to be more quiet and to slow down to think about God and listen to Him. This should happen in our daily lives too, but often we fail to make space for God as we should.

"Spiritual discipline means the effort to create some space in which God can act." --Henri Nouwen

Just like how we make time and space for a good breakfast, we should intentionally create space and time for God. Rebecca (our mentor at COCM) or Dallas Willard or someone once said that spiritual discipline is like sleeping. You need to first put yourself in a laying down position in order for the sleep to happen. We cannot will the sleep to happen, but we can make the situation more conducive for falling asleep. Similarly, we cannot cause God to act in our lives to transform us to more Christlikeness because that is His power to act, but we can create the posture for God to be able to talk to us and change our minds and hearts e.g. by sitting down for prayer time with God intentionally.

I'm still working on this goal and as much as I'm a "quiet" person, I still find silence difficult and being quiet in God daily, waiting for Him and praying is not easy. However, I do not want to neglect my spiritual health by being apathetic and then one day suddenly finding myself a different person (one filled with weeds, bitterness, ungratefulness and unChristlike). Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.

Children of God, let us rise early and seek God. Let us not be idlers. Wake up and meet your Saviour.

Hong Kong-HKU with Emily

Hong Kong University was on my radar of places to visit and it happened that Emily wanted to have breakfast near HKU so after a scrumptious dimsum breakfast which included a taro lava toast, we walked to the university to tour the campus and had our mini photoshoot. I knew Emily from COCM when we were both volunteers there in the summer of 2013. We became closer on the Gospel Team trips, especially the one to France as we were roommates and were out there talking to strangers to invite them to our gospel events. It was fun to see her again in her homeland.

The campus was exceptionally quiet because most students were on semester break.

We had a funny mini adventure while doing the photoshoot. We had this specific corridor in mind that we had seen others take photos at so Emily, being the outgoing proactive person she is, asked every stranger we passed by about where the location is at. After a few attempts, she found a student who was really enthusiastic and brisk-walked with us to the building with the pretty corridors. The "tour guide" walked really fast but we had to keep up with him since he was so kind to go the extra mile (literally) to bring us there. Haha... The pretty corridors belong to the Main Building, an Edwardian Baroque-style building designed by Alfred Bryer of Leigh & Orange built in 1910-12. It is one of the 105 declared monuments in Hong Kong. Pretty cool huh? 

The palm trees are as tall as the clock tower.

One of the four courtyards in the building:

 The exterior of the main building:

 It was noon when we left and we headed to Causeway Bay for lunch.

Links lately

Dusk in York city centre, UK, 2012.

Here's another edition of "links lately", featuring blogs and other things I enjoy this season.
-I have been preparing and leading our church pianists' training workshops these few weeks and came across this very helpful blog written by a church musician and piano teacher, with lots of resources.
-I was reminded of why I could browse through photo blogs with few writings in them because film photos are just so pretty and they speak of the places and things pictured with their stories evoked just by looking at the images. Words are not as needed as compared to digital photos on Instagram for example. Here are two I came across: ClickAThing and Dreamingdaydreaming; + this flickr account that I used to follow and rediscovered recently
-It has been months since I finished watching the Korean drama "Reply 1988" but I still find myself nostalgic for the nostalgic 80's songs in it and so I've been listening to a playlist of songs that were played in the drama.
-She Reads Truth's Lenten devotionals