part 2

Hmm OK, Can you hear my brain thinking, yes Of course you can, once I catch up to where we actually are it will be easier than remembering lol.

So the following day we moved hostels, the hostel we were at was more like a low star hotel, so we had booked into a hostel in Hong Kong island. Now as most of you who know me know, I have always wanted to back pack around the world, well when I was 16, so the thought of a real hostel was scary, but kind of exciting.

We arrived at the building, up a lift to goodness know's what floor. (the last one was floor 18) so we arrive in the reception area, if thast what you can call it!! two small rooms joined into one, with a grumpy man on the desk, Mr Sam ( trip adviser had said he was grumpy) There were young people with dread locks all on the internet in the shared lounge. This was a real hostel, the one I had once dreamed of going to. but now def feeling to old, and out of place, but I was prepard to stay and was looking forward to it, Mr Sam said you booked, yes, we agreed and he looked at our luggage, not a back pack in sight ( well the hand luggange could be put on our backs, but we might have fallen over.)
So he said you booked twin room, you need double, trying to expain that yes we wanted twins, he said " you follow my man he show you rooms, you see u need the double, as it will be more room for luggage".

The man showed us around leaving our cases in the reception ( I am really being kind saying that lol ) So the double was on a different floor, clean, space, ok. then he showed us the twin, in a not such clean place, washing machines by the room,  the room was clean , and small , ok bathroon, we arrived to the desk and accounced to his discuss, that we will have the twin, but double nicer he replyed, away from noise, yes we are aware of this but thats what we want,
So even more grumpy he threw another key at his man, ( at this point I should say the man is in his 80's if not a day older).
You follow my man, he take you to another building, you trust Mr Sam, I am good to you, we opened our mouths to question where he was sending us, as he was getting more annoyed. So he shouts, just go take luggage, go now, and he keeps shaking his head, well you can imagine, in intrepadation we followed the man, who by now was taking us across the street and had taken one of the suitcases off Dean, the case has 30k of luggage in it and he had a job to walk, we tried to be nice and take it back, but he would not hear of it .So we go into this rather nice block, we go up five floors, and a large corridor which I have to say was a bit smelly.
We arrive at a door, and unlock it, where we are confonted with the most lovely shared lounge with a shared kitchen area. wow wow nothing like the otherside, as we entered our very nice, non smelling, clean room, with a dressing table and wardrobe, we had been upgraded, I have to say it was so lovely, but a bit disappointed coz i was prepared to stay at the otherside. Who's going to argue with God for an upgrade , not me.!

We spent four nights there, just of the causeway, Hong Kong Island. it was busy, but nice. We liked this area very much, lots of shops on the door step, like the one in Mong Kok, but more useful ones like Ikea, yes Ikea, on a busy high street under ground. have to say not as big as the ones we are used to , but everything you need. apart from the fish and chips, oh well u can't have up grades and fish and chips!!!

After one night we prayed and decided that we prob need to rent somewhere as the hostels are soooo expensive, so we decided that to get good value home, well you know what we are going to say, we thought Sai Kng was best place to start. As we had internet in our room, which was amazing, we recieved lots of emails from church people, offering us places to stay for short periods.. Also we recieved an email from a lady from church who worked is an estate agent. Knowing she spoke english we thought this was a great place to start..

We jumped on th mtr ( yes i mean jumped, going up and down the escalators, with just no hands, but walking up and down them in the fast queue) so we get the mtr to Hung hou, then we jumped in a taxi as we didnt know which bus, ect ect..theres no mtr to Sai kung, bus or taxi, as we travelled into Sai kung we saw the estate agent that the girl had emailed us from. so we stopped the taxi and popped into see her, well she was lovely, and we arranged to view properties the following day with her. So we had a slow walk into town, and had a nice lunch in the Thai resturant. Dean had duck, and I had the most lovely roast pork soup, the pork had crackling on, and lots of noodles it was yummy.

This is Dean's duck, with spinach noodles, he loved it, shame it look's like this lol...

The next day we set off to look at apartments on our own steam, it was a failure, so we made our way to Sai Kung, Arrived at the agents, and off we went, they take you around the homes, in there car, it's so refreshing to get a service.
So in Sai Kung you get your normal large apartment blocks, the rest are village houses, and depending how well of u are depends what you get.
So top of the money is the whole house :)
then 2 floors
then top floor
then ground floor
then last but least is middle floor, only because as a rule u have no out side space, but rules are ment to be broken, and this week I have seen a second floor with our side space :)

We looked at five apartments, all with different things to offer, so it really came down to three, one was way, way to expensive, but boy it was nice lol
The second was a ground floor apartment, it was spacious, with a small garden.
third and forth was way to small, one with no real daylight, apart from when you opened the door.
fifth was a bit of a tease,  mid level, view of the sea, two bedroom with both ensuite, and a bit of a balcony. but the lounge/diner were smaller than the other we had seen.
I have always always wanted a seaview, always always. but Dean didnt like it, I even tried walking out of the appartment closing his eyes then making his open them again lol.
But I have to say we do like our outside space, especially me. The second and fifth house were priced the same, so there was no contest.

We asked the agent to try and get the price down on the second appartment, and later that day they came back with it knocked down, to $500 less, as it had alreaded had the price dropped. so we said ty and we would think about it, so that evening we prayed about it and set a figure of what we were willing to pay including bills. We would see in the morning..what we should do.

That night while I skyped Jenny and the kids, having lovely chats with them all. Connor who is 12 Hi Connor x... realised the time diffrence and announced "what's the time there Aunt kathy, as i think it's late and you should be in bed" so i told him it was midnight. In his strickest voice I have ever herd "you best say goodbye and go to sleep, it's late and you need to sleep" bless him, so I obediantly did as I was told and went to sleep. Well an hour later of tossing and turning I got up and did fb. suddenly a chat box came up "go to bed now !!!!!"
lol he then skyped me to say was I ok, he was worried,  Elizabeth who doesnt understand these things could see it was all dark and shouted "wake up athy wake up "lol. with Jenny and Connor, saying nooo. kathy has to sleep..

Well the following day we have a call from the agent, did we want to proceed, so we told them a figure we would go to and no more. put the phone down and thought that was that ..

Two mins later , ok we have got it to this price, well it was $50.00 less than we had thought.. God is good, we rushed over to have a second look, and signed up, we were told it would take until the Tuesday to get electric, but we could move in on the Sat, they thought we were mad, we moved in on the Sat, no furniture, no electric. nothing lol

Moving in day !

Cleaning the kitchen by candle light.

We have been told that you never, hardly ever get a 6 month contract, and the Chinese would rather not rent a place than drop the price, we got both. Don't we have a great Dad.

We will have to send more photos later of the apartment. if you want to be in contact by mail or phone, please email us, for the details xx

Three week's, three days. part one!

Hi All!!

Sorry I really haven't blogged much, so will try and keep up! I HEAR YOU ALL SAY " KEEP UP KATHY" lol ( now only family will understand this sorry) :)

Well did you read the last blog, I think it really was just for me, when reading it back, It hit me every thing I had typed, don' t think it had really sunk in.

So feeling really blessed, and ready to move on!!

So as the title say's three week's, three days since arriving in Hong Kong, and in the world of Dean and Kathy the Lord has moved quickley. This is the first part, will add to it as we go.

Now where have \i got to telling you what happened. OH yes, we booked into the hostel where the church is held, and amazingly we wern't just on time we were early, but before you say it, we were still a little late for the start of prayers before the service, you just can not win !! lol!!! Why you ask, well?  We had breky in the hostel so we just walked across a room to get to church, but Dean's brekky had other ideas and splattered his egg all over his shirt, so it had to be changed, can't go with egg on your shirt lol.

The hostel was clean, small, and pretty ropey, but it did the job , oh did I say it was exspensive, we could have had nearly six nights in a travel lodge, lol, thats hk for you.

So that was the 8th Jan 2012, church wassss Great !!! we met people we have been emailing, but as we hadn't said when we were arriving, the penny hadn't dropped that we were the mad couple from England that had been emailing for three years, the guy on the door knew who we were, we have had such love and support from his wife, so he knew :)

At the door Rob, yes Rob Rufus walked in and was introduced to us, to be honest, and I can be honest ( as i have told him ) I didn't recognise him, well it sounded like I was talking to someone famous( I know, I know, he is in certain circles) but boy he is not as tall as you would think, he was, is quite short ...i would have walked straight by him lol, But thankfully Dean knew who is was, and knew he was short as Rob had announced it in one of his sermons, I know of all the things to talk about!!

Well people were freindly, the worship group were fab, and Robs words hit home!

Also the church announced they were doing two weeks worth of leadership trainning course, so really worth a listen http://ccihk.com/en/component/biblestudy/?view=studydetails&id=428&templatemenuid=1 

Don't know if this is the right link lol, new at this , will get Dean to check, did you know he checks all the blogs, so if the spelling wrong, grammer ect ect, its his fault, in love of course lol.

Now where were we oh yes nearly forget ...Apart from nice new people we met, we also had the pleasure of the company of the LOvely Cathey and Olliy there first trip to this church too, God's timming or what?? Yes it is God's timming.

After church we went for a nice lunch with Cathey and Ollie and their friends came too who were a great help, thank you Fiona and Andrew, who showed us there home in Sai Kung. and then pointed us in the direction of the town to have a look around, well what can we say, it's busy enough to have a buzz but not Mong kok busy, that you walk in the gutter!!, beautiful coastline with lots of fishermen selling there fish.

We did stay for tea at a fish resturant along the front, are you ready for these photosw, prepare your self! all I can say is it proberly was slightly nicer than it looks :)

The waiter checked each one to make sure we had eaten them lol, we tried to hide some and pretend we had ate them, oh no, no chance, we would proberly have these again, but a smaller portion ..

These were Crab, and lobster in a noodle sauce, it was messy, yucky, and wont have it again!

We did have alovely walk along the front where we saw an amazing kite, and yes we took a photo!

Well,bmore to tell you but I think this is enough for now. Interesting place Sai Kung, most of the church lives here, so it would be a good place to live!! We shall see!!

Love to you all x

Break through! reflection before hk

There are lots of thing's I need a break though on!

Long before Mum started to go down hill,and Hong Kong was just a dream in the sense of going there. ( In the spiritual way we had not just been there, we had been apart of the church, listening to sermons, emailing the people there,)
I have always had a thing about heights, going up high has been some thing I haven't liked, as a kid going on the umberellas, was a huge thing for me. ( Hi Nichola, Jenny, will not name, names why I even went on them lol)

Kowing everything in Hong Kong is up high!!


As I have got older it's got worse, to the last year going around shops that have a mezzanine floor, like tesco ect . I would have to walk far away from the edge.  Best photo I could find to show how high they are :)

So I decided enough is enough, and prayed for healing! Yes Healing in this area. It was crippling me, because all the good places are up high :)

So we asked Father to please deal with this, and spoke to my body to come inline with what the Father wanted me to be like! (ie not afraid of heights) and that was not some one who could not get on a escalator, without some stranger grabbing my arm and dragging me on to it, saying it's ok dear (normally this would be a lovely lady of about 85), and it should be me helping her, how embarrassed I was at the time, with these ladies helping, But on reflection how blessed I was!

I can't say there was a great big flash of lightning, and wham it was gone!! sorry to disappoint!! But I felt a sense of peace I knew I had been healed! :).

 So then we went shopping and I stood  on the edge of the mezzanine floor and knowing I had been healed, looking over the edge it felt better I still felt a little nervous but I looked over, I walked around, I wasn't going to let the little person on my shoulder whisper in my ear that I felt a little scared NO NO !

So we both were chuffed, another step of healing which will change our lives for ever!

 

Mum, Dean and I at trafford center when we first moved in together.

Well about 2 months later we lost our mum. I think it will take a while to recover from losing her, on the outside I proberley look like im doing great, ( or to friends and family) worrying I'm coping to well!

 The werid thing is I think at the begining I was absolutely doing ok,  I was sad, I lost my mum, my friend. There was no relief like I thought there would be, probably a bit now three monthes on.

But the realisation that for three years all I had done was look after mum, a little bit of church, and I didn't go very far, apart from hospitals, and looking after my sister by phone. I am very good at looking after people :)  I have totel confidence in what I am doing, and probably could talk around anyone who was having a really bad day ( ask Jenny , if she says diffrent im not getting the internet lol Joking jenny love you xx)

But the thought of going out talking to new people or old, going shopping on my own was a problem I didn't realise. Don't get me wrong I thrived to drive and go to shop's on my own, but actually the confidence was going and the thought of getting on a bus or taxi on my own and having to speak was terrifying. I know this because earlier last year I had been poorly and had to have an ECG and scans done, I was beathless and looking terrible, Dean had arranged a taxi there, so that was fine but I walked home ( I know , I know ) I could not get on the bus or taxi coz I would have to ask how to get the right one lol , Im laughing coz it sounds ridiculous but it was true, and not funny at all! But one must be able to laugh at ones self to move on !...( oh don't tell Dean that story ) whoops he will read it Love you x


So skip a few weeks and Dean was going to London to do a tefl course, and I was to be deposited at Eileen and Mervs ( hi ) , don't get me wrong I love spending time with Dean's parent's, we have fun, Eileen and I would have probably crafted. so it would have been great. But the underlying thing was that if I went to London , what would I do with myself for 2 days on my own,  Dean would worry about me , and I would probably stay in the room for 2 days. ( no one said this, it was just expected)
So I said rather child like I want to go to Lndon! Dean said " don't think it's a good idea, I would be worred " ( and he was right, he would and then he would be able to concentrate on his course ) So I prayed about it , the reason I wanted to go to London was that I felt it was what I needed to get my confidence back, because in 2 months time we went to Hong Kong, I would need to be able to get on !
So again I said "Dean I'm coming to London", more confidently," I need to do this, I will be fine" . "ok, we shall talk about it". By the next day Dean Said " yes you're coming to London, because if you couldn't do it you would not have asked, you would have gone to mum and dads".
I have to say relief to be going and absolute fear, came over me, so I spent a week praying and telling myself you can do this, of course I won't be going  on the underground now that would be silly, (as normally I hide my head in Dean's back because of the height , but I had to tell myself I had been healed )

So we got to London, nice clean hotel, right on Kensington park.
The next morning Dean went to the course, with the understanding to do as I pleased, if that meant I wanted to stay in the room that was fine :)
So I lazerly did spend most of the morning reading a book, and about 11 o'clock, I left the hotel, not sure what direction to take.  A walk in the park would be nice and I wanted to go to the Royal Albert museam, so whle I was walking I rang Jenny to tell her, I'm great and was I'm walking in the right direction. which I was yea !! then a ring to Eileen to let her know we were fine to.
( The path way to the park)

The park was beautiful, with mums pushing their prams , joggers, etc. after I made it to the otherside I had a lovely walk around the Royal Albert, I was quite facinated with everything I saw. It was so peaceful and so enjoyable doing it on my own, no one to please but me. Not in a selfish way, it just reminded me how comfortable I am in my own company.


Then the thing we hate when we have the most comfy new shoes on happens, they start rubbing, and in a short while my toe was bleeding :( I leave and seam to walk miles to try and buy a pair of shoes?  yes I only took one pair! yes I know thats not like me, and yes I was felling fine ?! lol, so my quest for shoes walked me past harrods, where I bought my first christmas prezzy, in there market place for the lovely sSteve and Julie xhix . and then text Dean to say I bought our first xmas prezzy in harrods and now off buying shoes!! As you can imagine as soon as he had a break he checked in to see that i hadn,t lost my mind, shopping in harrods lol..

Well after lots of walking I find primark in Oxford street, well think of it on its buisest day u can think of and X it by 10, any way I found shoes, yea, I needed soft comfy shoes, which is always a problem. Now I never understood the ugg boot, they to me look terrible, but in desperation I put a pair on , wow, wow, so comfy I still think they look ugly and silly but I get it lol, so with proudly comfy shoes, we carried on, to walk but through the park to our hotel, on the way I came across speakers corner, ohh it only happens on a sunday , so I planned following day, walk around the outside of the park and look at all the painting that will be for sale tomorrow, then to speakers corner, then covent gardens!,

So the following day I went to speakers corner, telling myself I would mind my own buisness, didn't have the confidence to get involved, just was interested. So, I strolled around the park on my own!! looking at paintings, so amazing never seen London so appealing!
Then I got to speakers corner, smaller than I thought it would be, there must have been 10-12 people shouting there opinions, which was interesting, they ranged from werid Chrstian points of view through to muslims, people talking about slavery and others about how bad England is( have to say they still living here , just a thought), and lots of others in between, I have to say no one was giving a good Christain message, no one talking about Grace!. One lady called the whole crowd stupid because they wern't listening to her, to be fair I didn't have a clue what she was talking about as she said very little!!! so i was about to leave as I didn't have the confidence to join in ha ha..so this lady from the salvation army I think was preaching so i went to listen to her then i would go !!! I couldnt hear what she was saying as there was two men talking, one who was a Chirstian, and one who was not.
I tried to move away from there conversation, and listen to the lady, but God had other plans , oh yes !!! so the Chritsian guy says why don't you believe in Father, and the guy responded, and then said " what do you think " they now were both looking at me!! Oh Lord give me the words, an interesting thing took place, the non Christain guy listened and talked to me, it was lovely, the Christain guy kept trying to argue with me , but i just loved him and smiled :) which i think annoyed him even more. I think it at this point the non Christain guy said I know I get to choose if i believe or not , and im not sure, and I said your right God loves you so much he gave you free will, you get to chose, well the Christain guy nearly chocked,  "you cant say that, you cant go around saying jesus loves him" !!!!???!! so I smiled and said I can, I just did , smile smile. so he went and myself and the non-Christian , stood and talked for an hour, he didn't give his life to the Lord, but he listened and said he enjoyed talking to me, and that he may go home and read his bible, and he went on his way with the comment, " look at the guy who was talking to us, hes just here for an arguement, "I  know" I said ! "He has a great theology of the bible and an intereting man really , he just has no heart of the grace", "yes i can see that" ! wow wow.

So I have my confidence back, but there was one more thing, you remmber the height thing, well I then decided the underground was the way to go , oh yes, on my own, Crowded place , not knowing my way around and very very high escalators, so I went in , got on one, for a moment I nearly backed away, then I thought , oh no I'm not these are in  Hong Kong, so I stepped on to the moving steps downward, to high, I thought I was going to faint , but felt sorry the the people further down I would squash, so I prayed, took a deep breath and did it. I prayed that I didn't want to go up one, just down, so I did it and got on the train, and every station I went to I went down the escalator, oh yes, on the way back up there was none, I mean , these stations you had to go back up the lift, so at covent gardens I had lunch on my own, which was a big thing, and strolled around. Dean was amazed and pleased, we had the old me back, Im stepping into what God has called us to do, and im ready for Hong Kong.
Sorry I have gone on so much , but you wait to hear what im doing into Hong Kong, just look on google maps how heigh the building are !!! bye all xx

our first mistake's in Hong Kong !

WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP ( needed to get that out my system :)) we arrived and in Hong Kong!!!

It has been three years to be able to be released to come here!

So our first mistake was to book a first night in the wonderful regal airport hotel.



Our second mistake was staying a seccond night ..it was wonderful! It's a mistake coz we could not afford to stay some where like that, so we would have to stay in hostels.

our third mistake was to go on the ferry to lamma island to decide if it is somewhere we would like to live..

Which was choppier than this , and Dean with his sea sickness was not great, white as a sheet was an understatment!!!
We know most of the time it's sunny ( have to say havent seen the sun yet lol) and the sea will be calmer, but if we have to go to main land we need to be able to go at any time ....we will of course go over for days in the nice weather !!!

Three mistakes in the first day i didnt think were bad!!!

Best things we did in our first day ?

1- stay at the regal hotel


Hotel Lobby - amazing rest time.

2- to stay a second night and not put any pressure on ourselves.

3- as above we realised that we could rule out lamma island.

So you could say day one was a success!!!...

1. We did a lot of travelling the first day and went from the airport-hk island-lamma-mong kok.

Hope that gives you all an idea!!

At Mong Kok we went to see where church will be held, and while we were there we booked into the hostel that is above church for the following 2 days...Good idea hey! just a lift journey away! 

Then went back to the airport hotel...by the time we got home it was 11 pm, we skyped Jenny and the kids , then Mum and Dad.

So not bad for a first day. The Lord really blessed our journey, it all seems like we have been here for years, not a day ..

blog ya all soon x

Hello Dubai, good Dubai

Well after not talking to my sister for a few day's we managed to video call her and my niece and nephew. Lovely to see that they are all ok. As I talked I mentioned Dubai and my 3 yrs old neice say bye bye , really funny.

So we arrived in Dubai with no sleep, but a comfortable journey on the airbus 380. Our hotel was right next to the airport and as Dean and I are real geeks, we loved watching the planes so this was great for us.

Not wanting to waste a moment, we changed and got a taxi to take us to the palm tree island, I think the helicopter that flew over us is where we should have been to apprciate what we were driving over.

Destination Atlantis, wow what a great Hotel, Very much like las vagas.

I have always wanted to scuba drive ( yea yea I hear my family say ) but I am not brave enough. But we went around the aqarium in the hotel , amazing and I really felt like I was in there with the fish.

Later in the afternoon a friend I haven't seen in 20 years and her very nice husband came to get us, and took us for a drive around the area, it was great, then we had a lovely bbq. What a great family, catching up and meeting new friends. It was a really special time. You know if you havent spoke to someone in a long time or haven't seen them, I really encourage you to do that this year! You know as I did you might feel like 20 yrs felt like 20 mins, just you look a bit older!

Today was a relaxing day, flopped in our room for most of the morning, I can say how nice that was to really relax, then we caught up with my friend, and had a lovely ride on a small boat, walk around the old part of Dubai, relaxing lunch by the water, and then to where you can buy gold everything, wow wow wow, nearly nearly got a eternity ring, so close to finding something I really really liked (note to self, you now know what you want, and if you don't find it you'll be coming back ha ha)

Well all I can say to you is if you want to go somewhere interesting Dubai is the place, and beaches look great too ! What a great start to our trip!!

Now must dash as its nearly midnight and I have a very heavey case to repack, and get some sleep up at 5am.. Blog you all in Hong Kong du bai xx

Good bye Every one...

I can not believe that we have had a month down south and today 1st Jan 2012, we have had to say good bye to all our family. Wow that was so hard, especally to the grandparents as thay are getting older and you never know what's around the corner.

Just a quick hi to you all Eileen, Merv, Denis, Jenny, Jez, Mark, Cate, Grandad G, Connor, Liz, Lilly and Niamh. going to miss you all xxx

So the cases are packed, and all I have to do is sort hand luggage out, finish this first blog and get to sleep.
Sounds easy doesn't it...Ha ha,

So tomorrow we get on a train, to get on a bus, which will get us to the airport, and hopefully on a big big plane, sounds like a movie lol.

This is all because we love our Father, and we felt he wanted us to go to Asia, and he is a good dad, and we trust what he says. So tomorrow, we go to Dubai to see Kathy's school friend Louise ( HI Louise) for 2 night's then on to Hong Kong, where the adventure we hope will really start!!

So just a quick funny story..We are in our home town and decide to go shopping, collect our train tickets, so we parked in sainsbury car park, shopped in there to I might add, then I had to get my contact lenses, then I thought a hair cut would be nice Ty Donna x. so we strolled back to get the car, put the ticket in the machine and it said £50.00 well I think we both nearly collapsed om the floor. apparently whether you shopped or not, you are only allowed 2 hours, after a few words to dad, the manager of the store said we could have a gift card to spend instead of the fine..ty Dad.
So we talked to dad and stopped for petrol and a freind bumped into Dean and bought the card of us ...
We do truely have a great Father, who loves us , and cares for us, thank's dad x

So hopefully we havent sent you all to sleep, and will keep you all updated in a few weeks time.
love to you all xx