The bike, summer school, and congrats!!!

Yeah I know its been a while since we last blogged, but I've been really busy! Maybe not that busy....maybe not even busy at all...just a little lazy.

Anyone who knows Amanda, knows that she is very active and always has to be doing some sort of physical activity. Here, all she pretty much can do is coach her soccer and basketball teams, as well as run on the weekends. Dane had always biked in the mornings before school and invited us to join him. I was an adamant NO and Amanda was all over it. At first, she just used Kirsten's mountain bike and this made for some strenuous workouts in the mornings. The circuit they bike is approximately 15 kms and it probably felt like 30 kms on a mountain bike (this is what I hear). Amanda had decided enough was enough and went to Zhuhai to purchase a road bike. Thankfully for our friend Dan (another avid cyclist) took Amanda to purchase her bike and she returned with quite the specimen. She brought home a Giant OCR 3300 in rocket red! She was quite proud of her purchase and it has been put to good use every second morning at about 6 AM. Before she bought it, she asked me if I wanted a bike too. I said no and didn't think I would use it often enough, but I must say that it has been a real treat for me so far. Not that I use it for exercise per say, but I can run around town quite swiftly! A normal 15-20 minute walk to the school now takes me only 3-4 minutes to ride there. Riding a bike here is quite the intimidating feat! When Amanda rides in the morning, there is hardly any traffic since locals don't wake up until late morning, but I always ride during the day. You have to keep your head on a swivel and just ride like you're a vehicle. This way gives you the best chance of survival!

Since we decided not to go back to Canada this past summer, Amanda and I both taught summer school for the month of July. Initially Amanda was the only one going to teach, but the opportunity came up for me to teach and that Kaidyn could come whenever he wanted to! Amanda taught Jr and Sr English and I taught primary drama and English. You definitely meet some interesting kids at summer school, but it was overall a fun time and made for a short summer. Amanda complained about how short her summer was, but for me who has never had a summer off, I thought it was great.

As for the rest of the summer, Amanda, Lynn, Kylisha and her friend Rachel headed on a 2 week trek to Viet Nam and Cambodia. I'm sure she will be updating the blog with their adventures and from what I can tell, they had an absolutely marvelous time! That left the boys here in Macau to chill and do guy things for 2 weeks. Basically it was play, eat, swim, eat, play and sleep....REPEAT for the entire time! It was great! I even asked Kaidyn if he wanted to go to HK Disney, and he said not really....he wanted to wait so mom and Kylisha could come! I think the Disney novelty has definitely worn off this kid and he's only 6!


BIG congrats to Amanda's BFF Lynn and her man friend Dan who got engaged 2 days before coming over for their girls' trip. Amanda (of course) cried some tears of joy and I am guessing the girls talked wedding once or twice while they were on their trip this summer. Congratulations, Lynn and Dan! We can't wait to celebrate your special day with you!




We would also extend a huge congratulations to our dear friends Dane and Kirsten who are now expecting their first Oilers fan into the world. They have since moved back to Perth and we miss them a lot. Amanda mentions them daily it seems! So congrats to the 2 of you and we're looking forward to an Aussie x-mas! Bring on the meatfest!

55. Have brunch at Wynn

Just over a year ago we were in Vegas and had THE most amazing buffet experience there with our friends Brad and Leah and Amanda's BFF Lynn. It was the most spectacular spread and all buffets for the rest of eternity will be compared to the Wynn Vegas buffet!

So, when we found out that there was a Wynn in Macau, we knew that we had to "buffet" there and compare the two.

In June we headed across to Macau on a Saturday morning to indulge. We arrived at 11:05 am. The buffet closed down at 11. We did eat there, but didn't get to experience the wonderfulness of the buffet. The meal we had was delicious, though. The french toast was the best that Amanda and Kylisha have ever had. BUT-it wasn't the buffet. We would have to try again.

So-today we ventured over at 9:30 am in order to give ourselves a good 1 1/2 hours of eating time.

And...it did not disappoint. While it wasn't as huge as its Vegas counterpart, the buffet here was well worth the 200 MOP per person.





That's 50 down!! Half way there!!!

Passports, Cheung Chau Island, and Steak in Macau?

Amanda and I had a recent adventure to the Canadian Consulate in Hong Kong to apply for new passports. Our passports don't actually expire for another year, but they are both full. We figured that because:

a. the passport office here is only open from 8:30-1pm and
b. there are only around 25,000 Canadians living in Hong Kong (we thought)

that the passport office would be dead and it would be a piece of cake! After all, how many of those 25,000 Canadians could actually be at the passport office on the day we picked?

Apparently all of them! AND-we found out that there aren't 25,000 Canadians living in HK, there are 250,000!!! It was busy. And, we had a couple of other issues. First of all, for international passport applications your guarantor still needs to be either a lawyer or a mayor or one of those people. Back in Canada we were the guarantors for our kids and have been guarantors for friends of ours too. But, overseas passport applications require a "professional" guarantor. We have also only lived here a year, so even if we did know a lawyer or notary public over here, we couldn't have known them for the 2 year minimum.

They also needed our old passports which meant that we would be trapped in Hong Kong and unable to return to Macau-our blue card info is stamped in our old passports.

So, these little glitches resulted in extra paper work and some "solemnly swearing" business. And, after what seemed like 8 hours in that little passport office, we were on our way. Let's hope we get them back soon! It's tough being trapped in Macau-how am I expected to keep up with my twice weekly China massages? Think of how stiff and sore I'll be!

I'm not a fan of Hong Kong. Every time I've been there the weather has been crappy and I've had to piggy back Kaid around. Amanda loves the place and heads over about twice a month, and I avoid going as much as possible.

So, when Amanda announced that we would be spending the day there and exploring a little island that can only be reached by ferry, I admit that I wasn't thrilled.

But, I ended up having a really great day. We headed over with our friends Dane and Kirsten and Nick and Gill. We spent the afternoon exploring Cheung Chau (which is only about 2 square km big). We rented little tricycles and the boys biked the girls around for the afternoon. We had lunch at a Thai restaurant along the waterfront and checked out a beach there. Here are a couple pics:

Kaid loved that Nick would pedal and he could steer. This "configuration" caused many near accidents (and several small heart attacks for Gill)-





We hiked to an old pirate cave which wasn't exactly a cave as far as we could tell? We may have been able to lower Kaid down into the "cave" a la The Rescuers, but we didn't have a bucket. So, we weren't able to hunt for booty as we had planned. We did take some pictures, though. You may notice that one of the Kiats is missing from this pic-the early ferry ride over to HK was not to her liking. Take note that I also chose to wear jeans that day. It was cloudy. Apparently I forgot that it can still be 40 degrees even when it's cloudy. Didn't help that I was riding a bike all afternoon either!




There are no cars on Cheung Chau. But, there are PLENTY of bicycles and LOTS of people with training wheels!!



Kaid loved checking out the fresh seafood on the island.



Beef is expensive here, so it's been tough for Kylisha and I who are used to frequent steak consumption back home (especially in the summer). That is why my dreams came true a few weeks ago when the Hildefranklins invited us to Morton's (A STEAKHOUSE) for Kirsten's birthday. It was magical. They wheeled a tray of meat up to our table and I knew this place was for me! My steak may have actually weighed more than I do. And I finished every bite. In fact, the four of us literally gorged ourselves on the greatest feast known to man!