Please mind the gap

Strange title, but I’m standing here on the MTR and when I look up it is the sign you see over the doors. If I’m honest I’m more worried about people getting squished by the two doors, the one on the platform and the train doors as people take their lives into their own hands playing a Russian roulette when they say the doors are closing. So far no one has been caught but it’s amazing if you look at the photo below.

We are coming up to our summer course at Kids Zone. While many children are looking forward to a restful summer holiday in the UK, youngsters here in Hong Kong still feel the pressure to succeed and so parents are signing their children up to more English classes to help them, to prepare them for the coming academic year. I have 4/5 year olds coming for an interview class, as they all get interviewed for schools, and depending on how well you do determine whether you get into a good school. It’s scary really the pressure youngsters are under, both here and in the rest of the world to perform and achieve. We had a brilliant sermon at church where Alex talked about the fruit of the spirit, which was about love. However he started by quoting David Brooks and about the two characters we have, the resume character and our eulogy character. The first are the skills we put in our resume and the second are what we are talked about at our funerals. How we all know our eulogy character is the most important but we focus so much on our resume character that we lose sight of the important things. It’s incredible how true it is.

I have managed to do the next three stages of my Hong Kong trail. It was absolutely beautiful, even the up hills. I finished up at a beach where on the weekends it’s a lovely hub for catamaran but on this particular Wednesday it was deserted. It was so calm and peaceful and grounding when I put my feet into the water. The first of the three stages was a challenging hike, half up hill and the half going down hill. It had two high points, Jardine’s Lookout and Mount Butler. Facts about Jardine’s Lookout from Wikipedia “Jardine’s Lookout was the sight of fierce conflict in the Battle of Hong Kong and particularly, the Battle of Wong Nai Chung Gap. The Hong Kong Volunteer Defense Corps and Middlesex Machine gunners manned two pillboxes and other areas defending the pass around Jardine’s Catchwater, as well as Canadian Winnipeg Grenadiers defending the adjacent Mount Butler. Japanese forces, after landing on the North Shore of Hong Kong Island; used Sir Cecils Ride and moved up to this pass midway up the lookout and were engaged by Commonwealth forces. The fighting was the preliminary conflict in the Battle of Wong Nai Chung Gap.” In the Second World War, Hong Kong was occupied by the Japanese and the text above is about the valiant efforts to defend this part of Hong Kong from the Japanese. When you reach the peak of this point there is a plaque for the Canadian Winnipeg Grenadiers, and especially one Major John Osborn who sacrificed his life for the life of his men. This path then leads to the top of Mount Butler, a 436 metre high hill on Hong Kong Island. I am sure that it would have had wonderful views, but when I arrived there it had decided to be come rather dull and overcast. Here are some of the photos that I took doing this hike.

The next week I did the next two stages which ended at the beach. These stages, apart the beginning and the end were flattish and easy-going. Here are some photos for this stage.

Well, we are well into our 7 week summer course at work. In fact it we are over half way. I have really been enjoying the course. The children are relaxed, due to more sleep and less pressure, this makes it easy to actually make the classes fun as then they respond more. I’ve got one boy whose mum helps in the office. The other day she said that her son had enjoyed his first lesson, Miss Kate is dramatic apparently. I guess I get that from my wonderful parents 😂😁. It did help it was horrible histories.

I have managed to go out a couple of evening and watched, first Incredible 2. This added to my coolness with the little ones at work as I could get excited about Baby Jack Jack and the others. I watched this at Times Square and they had really decorated it nice for the movie

The other movie I watched was Winnie The Pooh, or is it Christopher Robin. It, again, was cute with the talking toy animals, I so want an eeyore. I really enjoyed it but felt it was more for adults than children.

Life has been good these last few weeks. However, I am finding I’m thinking more about the future and what my next step is but as they say sometimes life’s detours are God’s shortcuts. So as long as I trust in God, and actively wait, the path will show itself.

Whatever you are doing I hope you are all well and that your path brings you peace and happiness.