Day 4

Day 4 – Saturday

On Saturday we headed back to the church to spend the day with the youth. In the morning when we got there to find out that the power was out in the main fellowship hall. Someone had done some “creative” wiring….I’m not sure those were the words that the Bishop, who is an electrician used, so we had to move my seminar into the church hall, which was smoking hot. Even with the fans on full speed I was still a little wilted. So I had one half of the youth for an hour and the Bishop had the other half. Then we switched. Again because of translation etc, we ran a little late. We had lunch with all the youth, the cooks prepared a special white guy version, so we didn’t burn our tongues off with their spices. Everything was very good.

The afternoon was spent with some more music before heading to the “beach”. Now its not really a beach, its more like a park on the water. Just in case you didn’t know Sri Lanka is an island south of india. The youth split up into boys and girls. The boys played cricket, the favourite sport in Sri Lanka and the girls played something like…..European handball. Apparently the girls are very good at Net ball…. I’m not too sure about net ball, its like basketball but with back boards on the nets and because they didn’t have nets either they had to slam the ball on a rock. That game was pretty intense, luckily one of the youth leaders was a ref. They boys let me take a try at cricket, I think it was pretty funny to them until I smacked one over their heads. Mind you they were delivering the ball pretty slow to me.

The bishop also decided that I needed to experience a ride in a tuk tuk. It’s pretty much a death trap on 3 wheels that you don’t want any appendage sticking out on. They come so close to each other all the time I’m not sure how they don’t bash them up all the time.

By the end of the day I’m pretty sure that I have very clean pores because I’m sure that I sweated out of every one of them today. It was really nice to go to the hotel swimming pool and float in the pool for an hour. Funny thing at the pool, one of the managers comes over and is talking to us, he asks the bishop a question, he responds, and asks him a second question and doesn’t get a response. I look over and he’s dosed off!! Like in a second he’s out. I seem to be handling the time change better than he is……

Day 2/3

Day 2/3

I guess its actually day 3 because Day 2 was just part of the whole trip over experience. The flight from Bangkok to Colombo was a little fuller, more locals, than the previous flights so far. It took about 3 hours for the flight, most of which I slept. We went straight thru customs….they didn’t even ask us any questions, our baggage was on the conveyor when we got there and we headed to the door, and then stopped. The Hilton, where we’re staying was supposed to have sent a van to pick us up and after a couple calls we figured that they hadn’t arranged anything. So we got a guy at the airport to arrange a van to take us downtown. It was around 1:30am local time.

We arrived to a National holiday called, Vesak Full Moon Poya Day, a 4 day long weekend so everyone was out and about. Our taxi driver took us on quite the detoured drive because certain streets were shut down because of the celebrations. Some interesting sites…cattle walking down the side of the main road, lots of people everywhere and it was 2am. We arrived at the Hilton and checked in and finally got to sleep about 3 am local time. That completes “Day 2”.

Got some got a good sleep and feel a lot better. Had breakfast in the hotel and then at 11am we headed off to church. I just got to say something about driving here. Firstly they drive on the left side here….actually they all mostly drive down the center of the 4 lane road, it doesn’t seem to matter which direction you’re going. It’s pretty much everyone for themselves. From my observations to drive here you need to master the following techniques..1. you must learn how to use your high beams to flash at everyone 2. You need a working horn, this is essential, and you need to randomly honk it at people and at motorcycles, motorized rick shaws known as tuk tuks, other cars and you can even attempt to honk at a bus or truck but the rules of the road are, the biggest vehicle wins. 3. You also need to know how to use you signal lights for no apparent reasons. 4. you need nerves of steel.

We arrived at the church which was hosting a Youth camp. About 50 youth with leaders gathered from several congregations for a 3 day camp. We met all the youth and leaders and a small group of played some contemporary versions of several church songs. Instruments included a bongo drum ( not sure if is called a bongo here) 2 guitars (both slightly out of tune) and a little shaker thing. They love playing music and were involved with it as often as possible. After lunch we launched right in to our first seminar. The seminars went a little longer than expected because I was talking in English, which then needed to be translated into Tamil and Singalese. There were several of the youth and leaders than could understand English and when there was some confusion about what was being said then there was a conference of several people to make sure that A: they understood what we were saying and B: they had the right translation. When the youth were finished then the bishop had a little seminar for just the leaders. So instead of making it a short day we were there until 7pm.

Did I mention that its Hot. I know Ontario is experiencing some good temps, but this is hot, and humid, especially in a building that doesn’t have AC. I’d guess it was mid 30’s. Anyway we had a nice meal at the hotel, they have 6 or more restaurants, and then did some pre-work for the seminars on Saturday.

Day 1 – The flight West...kinda

My butt’s sore and I still have 5 hours left to Hong Kong. Day 1 started at 5 am this morning, at the airport by 7:20am for our 9:35am flight. First thing we noticed is that there’s not a lot of people in the check-in line. We are on an upgraded 777-300ER which for the Business Class people (the Bishop) means they have the pod seating and for the rest of us we have, believe it or not fairly comfortable seats with our own entertainment center. The best part because they’re not full….I would think the flight is maybe 40% full, pretty much everyone in economy has a section of 3 seats to themselves I’m in a window seat - 61K, right near the back.
We took off on time and the coolest thing on this plane is they have a camera that on the belly of the plane…must be under the wings…so you can see forward.

I could watch us takeoff and the nose gear going up…which for me was pretty cool. The flight plan takes us up over Bracebridge, over Hudson Bay, past Churchill, Alert and apparently 135 miles south of the North Pole, across the Arctic Ocean (which had ice chunks on it..I took pictures and then across Siberia and down towards Hong Kong. Right now (8pm Wednesday, which is already mid morning on Thursday) we’re flying past Irkuts….I think I’ve seen that on the Risk board.

The most annoying thing for me, a guy that likes to look out the window, is that they made us all shut the blinds, then they turn off the lights. People hate it when I open the blind to see outside…..So far I’ve read the inflight magazines, watched 2 movies…The book of Eli and Up in the Air…I’ve read some of my book, read some of my stuff for the youth seminars, ate 2 meals and now playing on my computer.

We made it to Hong Kong about 1:30pm Thursday…which for you in the eastern time zone is 1:30am Thursday. It’s pretty cloudy so you can’t see much of the place. We looked around the airport a little until we found the Cathay Pacific Lounge where we got fresh Wonton soup and I connected to the internet to send and receive a couple of emails. We headed to our gate for our flight to Bangkok and the clerk there told us that the plane was only 20% full. So I was in the same seat at the back of the plane and there were only 5 only people in the section. So a plane that can hold 301 people, had maybe 50 people on it. It was only 2 hours long.

Now we’re in the lounge in Bangkok and waiting until our 10:55pm flight to Colombo, Sri Lanka. We have about a 5 hour wait. Might be time to get some shut eye. I think the rest of the trip should go onto Day 2 considering that I’m technically into it.

On a Mission....

Not much to report at the moment except last minute packing. The real fun starts Wed May 26 at 6am when we leave for the airport. First stop is Hong Kong, then on to Bangkok, then on to Columbo Sri Lanka. I am looking forward to this adventure but of course I will miss my beautiful, loving, sweet wife, my 3 kind, well brought up children....and maybe even the dog.