November 6 Friday I spent the morning taking care of laundry and surprisingly the dryers here did their job. Most places the dryers do not work properly and I have air dried my laundry almost exclusively on this trip. I got a positive response from one Hong Kong couchsurfer so my first few nights are in place and I will book a hostel for a few more. I might still get another response from one of the other couchsurfers I contacted. I returned to the post office and mailed off just under a kilo of papers and seashells by the slowest method possible, so it should arrive in a couple weeks. I had culled a couple shirts and a pair of shorts and those went to a donation bin in the hostel. Similarly, I dropped two books off at the mini library at the hostel. They did not have anything that I wanted to take in exchange, but I still have four books to work through in China, then I'll have to start hunting for more reading material. I checked my records and I have read over 13,000 pages so far on the trip. That sounds like a lot, but it is only 38 books. I started the trip with 6 books and have been fortunate to keep finding places to trade/exchange them as I finish.

November 7 Sabbath Mathew was true to his word and I got a text that a ride would be by to pick me up at 8:40. A church member with two of his teenaged children brought me to the church. Mathew had said he might not be there, so I was not expecting to see him. I went to the young adult sabbath school class and a small group of us went over the story of the rich young ruler. I enjoyed the class. One of the people in the class was a Thai woman named Mary. I spoke with her after the class and she gave me the name, email and phone number of a church leader in Bangkok to contact when we arrive there. She said the church would happily give us some housing if we needed it and could help them in some way. We shall see, but it was great to get another contact like that. The church service was kind of like a second service at PUC and the place was full. The sermon was excellent and it ended with a story about the Christian musician Steven Curtis Chapman and how one of his older sons had accidentally run over and killed his five year old sister. That hit me emotionally as I thought of my friends that have killed themselves and my father's death a year ago. A girl who is a teacher talked to me for a while after church was over and then Mathew also came. We went to the potluck, where haystacks were being served. They were good and I got seconds, plus desert. When we left, we took a drive out to the coast on the eastern side of Auckland and took a walk and talked. It was very pleasant. Before dropping me off this time he said his wife was returning that evening from a conference in Manila and they would like to invite me to dinner Sunday evening. I had a small late dinner because I had eaten so much at potluck. I seem to have just the right amount of food and will use everything I wanted to finish before I head to China.

November 8 Sunday I finished off my Nutella and peanut butter this morning.I went to the library and really should have done this sooner because the speed and connection is great. They have a 100 mb download limit, but no upload limit, so I could have been backing up my pictures to Scott's server. My guidebook for what is going on in Auckland in November had info on a short film festival. They are doing the screenings right next to the library so I went and got tickets to two of the sessions for Monday. At 6 pm Mathew and his wife, Helen, picked me up and we drove along the harbor for a while before making our way to a Thai food place called Grasshopper. The food was excellent and the company very nice.

November 9 Monday I spent more time at the library today getting the blog up to date and in the afternoon went to the shorts film festival showings of 12 shorts, six on the theme 'Calamitous Love' and six on “Curious Children'. The children set were better on the whole, but I enjoyed both sets. I got my bags pretty much set how I want them and will be able to finish packing quickly. I only was left with some cous cous that I wanted to take with me anyway and a Cadbury chocolate with macadamia nuts bar.

November 10 Tuesday Breakfast this morning was 2 minute noodles and a banana and with that I have used up my food. I'm heading to the post office to send out a couple postcards, then a quick stop at the library to post this, since it may be the last you hear from me on this forum for 6 plus weeks. I hope that is not the case, but it could be. My flight leaves at 1:30 and should take more than 10 hours, which means I'll be arriving rather late in Hong Kong, but my couchsurfing host gave me very good directions to get to his place. Mathew is picking me up and taking me to the airport in a few hours. He has been a godsend here in Auckland. Because of he and his wife I enjoyed my time much more than I would have otherwise. The next few weeks should go something like this: I have ten days of accommodation in Hong Kong, I may add a few more before leaving. Most likely I will take a two day train up to Beijing, if I can stop on the way for a couple days I might do that. Gabe is targeted at arriving in Beijing on December 1 or 2, not sure with the time change and then we will have to see from there. I hope you enjoy the pictures I posted yesterday and I post more as soon as I can.