First Trip to Trio Beach, Hong Kong

Moving abroad helped me become a better friend. When I was younger, I was still dealing with a (unconscious) fear of rejection that made it hard for me to love those who didn’t love me perfectly. No one loves perfectly, of course, so I had a lot of walls up! I often preferred to withdraw rather than take a risk and invest more of my heart with friends.

But moving abroad, I needed friends as I could no longer rely on my family in the same way as I did when I lived at home. Thankfully God brought me a wonderful church community almost instantly! I found a church online that was doing a book study on a book I happened to be reading, and that Sunday someone at the welcome desk introduced me to the dad of someone who introduced me to my future small group members. Many of those who I met at Redemption Hill Church in Singapore are still some of my very best friends — thanks for loving me as I grew up! My friend D is one of these lifers and one of the most adventurous people I’ve ever met. He’s always hiking, snorkelling, travelling to far flung and remote destinations — and happy to plan and invite others in.

I thought about D this weekend, as I did a hike in Hong Kong. As I was hiking with my friend M, I told her how D planned a hiking trip to Mount Rinjani in Lombok, Indonesia and I joined in — which coincided with my 25th birthday. It was a 3 day, 2 night hike up and down an active volcano and easily one of the best and hardest things I’ve ever done.

M is a similar kind of friend — loves planning adventures, and she planned our hike this weekend. On Friday night, we went out for dinner with a few others, and started chatting about where we’d hike the next day… on our way home. We were both hot, sweaty and not exactly in the mood to think about a hot, sweaty hike.

So we signed off for the night and the next day, I woke up to various links to hikes — one of which was Trio Beach in Sai Kung, Hong Kong.

I hadn’t done a Sai Kung hike in years! Mostly because I have memories of hours in the scorching sun only to be met by a remote beach that had no facilities. But Trio Beach looked like a shorter, simpler hike — and anyway, I decided that I’d just follow M. Truly, I’m thankful for friends I can follow on adventures! I love to go but sometimes need that extra push.

M and I met last fall when I was in the middle of switching churches. I was referred to her small group, and during our initial phone chat, we got along so well that I asked her out for dinner! In the months since we’ve become friends, I feel we’ve really done life together — the two of us and with our small group overall. I don’t take it for granted — a few friends who have experienced difficult church situations have reached out to say seeing others find new, healthy community was giving them hope that God would do the same for them. Community will never be perfect but blessed are we to find brothers and sisters who are humble before the Lord and long to do his will. These people exist — may we keep praying to find / be this community.

If you’re interested in hiking to Trio Beach, I recommend this guide from Drone & DSLR. It’s a very smooth hike from the Sai Kung Pier — enough grit and forest-y areas to get some solid exercise in while being well maintained… and quite short at under 2 hours! The beach is also accessible by sampan boat which you can catch at the Pier — takes about 15 minutes each way.

We only spent about 30 minutes at the beach, refueling on drinks and fish siu mai (my fave!) before doing a little swimming. Others looked like they had been there for hours though — loads of families and couples who had either set up tents or rented beach umbrellas (HK$100 deposit).

Thankful for this trip to Trio Beach — my first hike / beach excursion since the pandemic started, I think!

TLDR: may we not cease to pray for community (have it, grow in it, be it); it’s an easy and accessible hike to from Sai Kung Pier to beautiful Trio Beach in Sai Kung, Hong Kong; challenging hikes are a great way to bond with friends old and new <3