Wednesday, Aug. 4
Last night–3am, really, after a midnight flight and hour long bus rides on both ends, we returned to our home base in Shenzhen, but only for the morning. Today was the day when our group splits up. Some were flying out in the evening; some went on to travel elsewhere. I went with a group of eleven to stay a few days in Hong Kong. Exhausted from travelling last night, I barely dragged myself out of bed for breakfast at the hotel and to repack in order to leave at eleven. Of course, at 10:30, someone said, “The bus is here now, get your stuff downstairs.” I gave up on my shower plans and Patti and I rushed downstairs. Of course, then we didn’t leave for another hour. But I did manage to run across the street for a quick ice cream. Who needs a shower in a tropical climate when you have ice cream?

The bus took us as far as the border crossing. After going out through China customs, walking across a foot bridge over the border, and then going in through Hong Kong customs, we were to get on the Metro to the university where Ann had used her connections to book us guest rooms. This was with all of our luggage in tow.

As we stood in line at China customs, we said goodbye to Lulu, one of our translators. Jake, one of our music teachers, pulled out his video camera to film the goodbyes, pretty much right beneath the “No Photography” sign. He was immediately approached by a uniformed official asking him to erase the pictures. Instead of complying, Jake and his girlfriend started arguing and insulting the Chinese official, and refusing to step aside when she asked him to.

Apparently he thought she was being stupid because, technically he could not “erase” the picture since it was a video camera. She threatened to take the tape. He was like, “No way, that’s our whole trip.” She could have taken the whole camera if she’d wanted.

Finally, he calmed down and rewound the tape and she let him go. After a few minutes, he could see that arguing may not have been the wisest course of action, and we managed to leave the country without leaving any of our teachers in Chinese custody.

We lugged our luggage onto the Metro, and only three teachers missed our stop. They had to get off at the next stop, navigate several flights of stairs, and come back one stop. That didn’t take too long, and luckily we had a van picking us up from the university guest house. Our accommodations turned out to be quite close to the Metro stop, if you walked up a steep hill first.

Patti and I signed up to be roommates again, and we opted for recovering and blogging rather than diving straight into Hong Kong. Ann, one of our directors, went directly to bed, as she is not feeling well at all.

We’re expecting a very busy day tomorrow!

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