More Pictures and our route map for our New Year's Day Hike

Sunset Peak - Tung Chung Hike

Annual New Year's Day Hike

Pui O - Tai Long Wan - Lo Yan Shan Hike

Pui O - Tai Long Wan - Lo Yan Shan Hike

Happy Hollo Ween

My team finished 3rd out of 7 at the quiz night in Mui Wo, we did pretty well on a few things and totally bombed others, but that's how it goes.

Thursday night I found out I and most of the other T.I. staff had a surprise day off Friday. Meg and I planned to do a hike on the Lantau Trail. The hike was about 7.5 km and brought us around the south western part of Lantau Island. We were supposed to start at 8 am yesterday but didn't end up leaving until after 11:30, which was still fine. The hike was a little steep at first, but then was a beautiful ridge hike that wasn't too difficult.

Here's a bunch of pictures from my phone taken over the last week and a half:

Sai Kung Traing Camping Trip Pictures

Sunset Peak et al.

Yesterday the training group went up Sunset Peak we were supposed to take the 8am #2 bus up to Ngong Ping, but the bus drove right past us at the stop so we ended up having to do the trek in reverse.

I brought 5.5 liters of water and drank all of it by the time we got back at around 5. I drank almost 8 liters by the end of the day...It was probably in the mid 90's plus humidity so it probably felt like it was 105.

We made it up and over Sunset and back down where we decided that everyone didn't have enough water to make the push over Lantau Peak (the tallest on Lantau and second in HK at over 900m or 3000+ feet) which is pretty much an Adirondack sized peak besides the fact that we actually start at sea level...

My task given by Dave yesterday was to lead 4 debriefs on 4 different "generations of facilitation" that we learned from our seminar a couple weekends ago. I thought they went really well. I "frontloaded/framed the experience in one" "Spoke for the experience" "Used metaphor to debrief the experience" and the good ol' "What? So What? Now What?" Dave seemed pretty impressed, it felt good to do some ALE style fly-by-intuition and to be able to use all my tools that have become rusty since arriving here...

The next couple of weeks will be training combined with some short camps until we hit October where it will be "full on" and we'll have hundreds of kids coming for multiple nights each week.

I just booked a week long trip back to Cebu starting September 20th, now if i can just finish typing the journal from the last time I was there...

Hope all's well in 'Merica land, until next time....

Two days down...Seven Weeks to Go

Monday was our first day with the kids, 70 or so came for surf camp and we've had between 6 and 8 coming for the "adventure camp" that I've been working.

Yesterday I lead kayaking in the morning, it was the second time I've ever lead it. It went well and it was a really good learning experience. The waves rolling in were probably around two or three feet, so it was really crazy trying to get some of the kids out past the breaking waves.

I was back helping a really slow boat get out and I got dumped from my kayak, which is really easy to do since they are sit-on-tops and there's no real way to hold on to them. So I get back in give the slow dual kayak a good push out, climb back in my boat and dump again. Frustrated I power out through the rest of the waves and try to reassemble the group of 3 kids boats. I patted my pockets and realized that my phone (which was double bagged in ziplocks) had disappeared. I forgot my watch and I really wanted a time keeping device or else I would never have brought it out on the water.

An hour and a half later, the session was over and the kids were back in on shore. We dragged our kayaks in about 4 inches of water along the beach back to the trail where we could pick them up with the pushcart or "trolley" as everyone says around here. As I was walking my boat back I spotted some plastic floating up along the shore and when I picked it up my phone was inside, good as new. I was so excited and did this crazy jumping dance. Irvin was right in front of me looking puzzled, all he saw was me picking up a piece of garbage or "rubbish" as all the Brits say and then jumping up and going crazy. Usually Pui O beach garbage isn't worth celebrating over since there is literally a tandem dump truck load of it washed up on Pui O Beach every day. Once i told Irvin the story about my phone falling out he realized I hadn't completely lost it...

Monday afternoon was beach games lead my one of the new senior leaders, while the rest of the senior leaders and the new Operations Director had a really good talk about how the morning went. I never thought I'd be able to write "Treasure Island" and "staff development" in the same sentence, but here it goes.... This summer at Treasure Island has been going so well in terms of staff development. Which leads me today...

Tuesday June 30, 2009
Last week we went up the gorge with our training group. Most of the senior leaders learned how to set it up from Khem our Nepalese rigging guru and veritable Renaissance man. We have a certain amount of ropes and carabiners and leashes to place safety lines at sketchy parts of the gorge right outside of Pui O. The new director had me fill my pack with all the ropes and pieces needed to set up the gorge and sent me off to do my best with setting it up. He'd follow us up and double check the ropes before letting the kids on them and then bounce back and forth between the riggers up ahead and the group of kids following behind. It was a great learning experience for me, someone that has never done much rock climbing or rope work. Like anything else it's all pretty straight forward, it just takes proper instruction and some practice, both of which I received today. Next time I feel like I can do the whole thing no problem and be 100% confident in the safety of the entire setup too.

We taught the kids surfing this afternoon, it went pretty well, but it was tiring being in the water for almost 2 hours with waves beating down on you constantly. I don't know how the surf camp staff does that every day.

Tomorrow is biking and beach games and also Hong Kong SAR day, which celebrates the day that Hong Kong broke off from the UK and rejoined China.

Thursday is an overnight with the kids and me teaching some wilderness skills...

Tai Long Wan

We decided to go surfing over the weekend at a place in The New Territories on the mainland of Hong Kong. The three of us set out Saturday morning hoping to avoid the predicted rainstorm (up to 1 cm) that kept being pushed back and luckily didn't hit until today and it was very minor. It was a pretty nice day (in the lower 70s) as we caught the slow ferry to Central (damn you holiday schedule) . We ate a late breakfast at Subway and made our way to the MTR station and caught a train north off Hong Kong Island and into the mainland, then transfered to an eastbound train heading toward Sai Kung. We hopped on a mini-bus that brought to another bus stop where we were able to board a double decker that brought us the rest of the way to Wong Shek Ferry Pier (Seen in the background here, these pictures are from when we were leaving because I didn't take any on the way there...)

We asked around to see how we could get out to the Chek Keng Ferry Pier where we would then have to hike another 45 minutes to Ham Tin and finally Tai Long Wan (pronounced Die Long Wan, all T's are pronounced as D's in Cantonese). As we were looking at a map on the pier a lady who ran the shuttle boad came up to us and through the usual hand signal/pointing/broken Cantonese we were able to get her to bring us to where we wanted to go for $40 HKD each. So we were off.





We learned from the other few people before we got off the boat that we paid twice as much for the ride as they did. This happens so much, I like to call it Gweilo tax. I hope they feel real good about getting an extra $3 US out of some "rich" Westerners. The vast majority of people are really great and helpful, but the almighty dollar always wins out. And it's frustrating not knowing enough Cantonese to understand in these situations.

We arrived at the pier and started our hike in. All of the hiking paths in Hong Kong are actually paved with cement, brick, or stone. This is has its pros and cons, on one hand it's really good at stopping erosion and keeping people on the paths (nothing like a 3 foot fall into the jungle to make you stay on the cement).


We hiked along the sidewalk up and over the hill and down into Ham Tin and then Tai Long Won right after. There is a surf shop/gear shop/restaurant open on the weekends there.

We arrived at the beach and I was in awe of these massive waves and the beauty of this place. If it wasn't for the dozen other people and ton of garbage it could be one of those tropical island beaches everyone dreams about.











We got in around 3pm and went on a wood run then we went and had some food at the restaurant.















Then we returned to our site and set up our tents as we readied ourselves for surfing the next day. I used my knuckle striker and quartz and sparked a fire. It was so re-energizing being out there camping, I made a new rock sling and taught Meghan and Danny how to tie a monkey's fist knot. As I watched the sunset, for the first time in Hong Kong I really felt connected to everything, it's the same feeling that occurs when I take two steps into the Adirondacks. I really need to make a point of going hiking and camping more often without kids. It's hard to put the type of camping I like to do in the same category as T.I. camping, but that's another rant altogether.

















It will probably be hard for someone reading this to believe that I had one of the best nights sleep in Hong Kong out there, haha...

I was up and ready to go at around 7 so I got the fire going and boiled some water for some good ol' cowboy coffee, black as a moonless Adirondack night, with a handful of dirt and leaves just to make it authentic :|

We made our way back to the surf shop/restaurant and had a round of bacon, egg, and cheese, then rented 3 surfboards and we were back to the beach.

I don't really have a whole lot to say about the actual surfing. Except, surf paddling is one of the most exhausting things you can do. You lay with your stomach on the board and battle 4-5 foot crashing waves in order to get out past where they break so you can hope to catch one and ride it in. We had a few things going against us: 1) Beginners (me) have much better luck on long boards (unavailable), not the short boards we were on. 2) My surf paddling skills are not the most refined at the moment. 3) For some reason I can't keep gallons of sea water from entering my nose/ears/mouth/sinuses even though I try to blow out a bit as I dive under a crashing wave.

Anyway, long story short, I caught one wave and didn't even try to stand on the board, then couldn't get a wave after the second struggle back out into the sea. So, exhausted I stumbled back to the beach and met Meghan and Danny, also resting from the pummeling.



So we rested, read, then made some Ramen and then went out swimming a little later.

We packed up around 2:30, we felt some rain drops and my watch's barometer said the pressure was dropping fast so we decided to leave before the rain might come.





We thought it would be a two hour walk out, but only ended up being about 1:15 and we were pretty lucky that we cut out like 3 steps in the transportation by catching a Sunday only bus that took us right to an MTR station even closer to home than the one we arrived on. It still took us about 4 hours total to get back, it would have been less if we didn't miss the bus in Tung Chung by 5 minutes.

Overall it was a great weekend and a great trip, I can't wait to go back there some day.

This was a really long post, I usually like to keep mine short and sweet because I'm not sure how much people like to read these long ones. Anyway, thanks for reading if you made it this far.


Ahh, I can't finish this post without adding some of the usual randomness:
--T.I. gives us a tiny little tracphone and for me it's hard to hear and talk at the same time because the speaker is at my ear and the mic is like 4 inches from my mouth on the side of my cheek, so I'll listen and then speak walkie-talkie style into the phone, but that trips some reflex in my brain from my days on the radio at ALE and I start ending all my statements with "over" "I'm clear" and beginning with "that's a good copy." Back in the U.S. I would sometimes do that with voicemails.
--I'm either having an epiphany in my banjo playing or an existential breakdown; it's really not worth explaining, Austin if you read this please answer my IMs, lol...
--I'm going to use chopsticks alot when I leave Hong Kong, they're a pretty great tool.
--I really need to find an insulated coffee cup, I borrowed the one I have now and it's duct-taped all around the rim so it's sticky.
--Baseball season starts today, signifying that the long horrible winter is truely and definitely over, now I actually have a reason to mindlessly surf the internet.
--It was 66 degrees this evening and I had to put a fleece coat on because I was cold, what am I becoming?!?!
-

Lantau Peak

SPOT TRACK OF LANTAU PEAK
For our final day of training we hiked Lantau Peak, which is the highest point on Lantau and the second highest in Hong Kong. We hiked up and I led a little reflection/discussion at the top, we then hiked down the other side into Ngong Ping where the big buddah is. We had a vegetarian lunch there and caught the bus back. I'm pretty tired, even though it was only about a 5 mile walk. Lantau peak is about 3,000 feet above sea level so parts of the trail were quite vertical, it is pretty much a rock staircase all the way up to the top and back down. You'll find some more pictures here

Running through the summer rain, trying to catch that evenin' train...

The kids had to navigate to various waypoints and do different tasks and answer questions. I was stationed at the Cheung Po-tsai cave and brought a few groups through the 75 meters (no one knows what you're talking about if you use feet here) of darkness. Then headed back to meet up for lunch and to catch the ferry back to Mui Wo (which is the ferry travel hub on Lantau).

We were supposed to do a 4-5 Kilometer hike (miles??) we were able to start it, but it started down-pouring so we ended up getting buses to pick us up after 45 minutes of walking. It was good to see the kids get challenged a bit with this, most did alright with it, for me it was business as usual. Coming from the Adirondacks, the land of a thousand 60 degree and rainy days (Yes that's Fahrenheit, I haven't wrapped my mind around Celsius just yet), I felt at home in my full set of rain gear and was bone dry when we got back; ready to set up camp and put the pot on....err wait this isn't ALE.... Ready to bring the kids to dinner and get ready for the indoor nightly activities.

The kids left Friday afternoon we did forum....err debrief about the week, I brought all my soaking wet stuff home to dry since the tent area is a huge mud puddle when it rains and we had our complimentary Friday beer and burger week ending get together