BEEP, BEEP, BEEP it was 5:30 and the dreaded sound of my alarm clock was just going off! My bag was all packed and I was ready to go after a very cold shower.
At 6:30 I got to Repulse Bay. After my mom walked me into the school and made sure to hug and kiss me a thousand times, I WAS FREE. Ready to go to China for the first time without my mom.
At 6:45 we started to go to the Kowloon Ferry Terminal. We waited for a while and got McDonalds at the Ferry Terminal.
Then at 8:10 we got on the Sanbu Hydrofoil and were ready to go. Unlike when going to Macau last year, we got to sit wherever we wanted. I played Spit, Go Fish, and another game whose name means "You gotta be kidding me" for most of the ferry ride. We passed a couple islands on the way that were covered in evergreen trees. As we approached Kai Ping the river got thinner, I noticed that the land was flat all around us. The small houses seemed stacked on top of each other. That got me thinking how lucky I am to be living in a big Redhill house. The water was very calm not anything like the water in the Kowloon Harbor. There were big green beautiful trees lining the banks of the river, and there was rain sprinkling around us.
We reached Kai Pai at 12:30. Then we got into immigrations and lined up in alphabetical order. It didn’t take as long as I thought for all of us to get through immigrations.
At 1:02 we left the Immigration. On the way pulling out I noticed an old run down basketball court. It looked like it had never been used but come to the bad condition from being there so long!
Then we took the bus from 1:21 – 2:01 we get to the place that we picked up our bikes, It was still just drizzling outside. The grey clouds were briskly moving over our heads and passing so it looked like a great day ahead of us. We got out bikes and realized that Ian the BIKE MAN who said he checked all of the bikes personally was so wrong. All of the bikes had at least one problem. Mine had two flat tires and then the wheel detached from the rest of the bike. Every one else’s bikes had flat tires, and loose chains.
Finally at 3:30 we left and started to bike. The weather was a little humid, but there was a nice breeze passing by. We were warned that today was all up hill but I really didn’t take that literally. But it was all up hill, and when I say all I mean all! After about 20 minutes of biking it started to poor. We all pulled over to the side to put on our ponchos. We were all yelling and shouting like cowboys. I got soaking wet. I think that my poncho was a default it didn’t work. I tried to shake off the water but for some reason it just soaked into my clothes. After about an hour is completely stopped raining. We started at the 80km. Marker and we biked all the way to 53. We biked 27 km in 2 hours. My thighs are rock hard; I am going to be the buffest person after 5 more days of this. From 80 – 69 I was pretty much biking alone in the rain, with a huge group infront of me, and a huge group in back of me. Then after we rested I was biking with Katherine, Jamie and Steve. We saw workers and water buffaloes. The smiles on the children and elderly people were so cute. They looked so happy even though you know that they have to fight to get food on their plates 3 times a day. We saw rive patties, an uncountable number of cow patties, and beautiful mountains.
We finally made it to stop 53 in a small village at 5:40. We were the last 3 people to come everyone was cheering for us. Even the sweep Mrs. Manville was infront of us. Some good sweep she was. I used some of my Mandarin skills and talked to a mom and her 13-year-old daughter. I could be a giant in this country, I was at least 5 inches taller then both of them. From 5:55 to 6:50 we bused to our hotel the Chinese Foreign Merchants Hotel.
We arrived at 7:00 at came down to eat dinner at 7:30. The dinner was great. I ate noodles, meat, and all different stuff. It was a great day. But I am glad that tomorrow it will not be all up hill.
