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!

Kaid's graduation, awards and good-byes

There are a lot of graduation ceremonies here. There's a grade 6 grad, a grade 9 grad, a grade 12 grad and a kindy grad. Because there are 3 kindergarten groupings- PreK, Junior K, and Senior K that means there are 3 years of kindy. Kaid is in Senior K and he had his graduation ceremony last week. Kaid got to wear his graduation cape and walk up on stage to receive his diploma. The kids also sang some songs and then there was a little reception. Kaid is pretty excited to go into grade one and mentions it quite a bit. Almost as much as he mentions the 60 days he will have off this summer!!



A little singing in English and in Mandarin...


Kylisha's had a great first year of high school and we're just so proud of all of her accomplishments and the wonderful adult she is growing into. This year she has been consistently achieving honours. At the athletic awards banquet a few weeks ago she received MVP honours for both soccer and basketball. She also received the Female Athlete of the Year award! At the academic awards last week she received the PE 10 girls award and the English 10 Pure award. Let's hope she still wants to come home to graduate...


Good-byes suck. It seems like we've had our fair share of them in the last year. Saying good-bye to our friends and family in Canada was tough (especially for Amanda and Kylisha). It was an emotional few months as we prepared to come over here. But, we made it through and quickly came to realize that it was the smartest decision we ever made.

You would think that our good-byes ended last August, but it's only gotten worse since then. As you know we have been lucky enough to have several visitors this past year. This is both a blessing and a curse. Obviously we love spending time with our friends and family who come all the way here to spend time with us. But, the good-byes are really horrendous when they leave us to head back to Canada. Maybe it's because we're the ones being left behind this time or maybe it's knowing that we won't see the people we are saying good-bye to for a LONG time. I just know that it's really tough for the females here in 22J!!!











There's another new set of good-byes that we also have to worry about. At the end of June each year some teachers go back to their country of origins and don't return. We've made some really great friends here this year and it is going to suck to have to say good-bye to them. These friends are actually more than friends, they are our family over here. It is hard for us to imagine life here next year without them.





Good byes suck!

38. Hire a tailor to make us something

We've actually had a few things made since moving here. When I went to Vietnam with my brother last December we went to Hoi An and I had some pants, some shirts and a pair of shoes made. Amanda has been to a tailor here in Macau many times and as I mentioned in a previous post, he doesn't speak a lick of English. Here's a picture of her wearing a dress she had her non-english speaking tailor make for her for the year-end staff party (the dress was made according to a drawing she gave the guy):



49 DONE...51 LEFT.

The Sequel

Here is another video chronicling our recent adventures to Beijing, Xi'an, Chiang Mai and Hong Kong!

97. Go to the goldfish and flower markets in HK

When we found out we were moving so close to Hong Kong we started researching what types of things we could do there. Amanda really wanted to check out the various markets and last weekend the girls stopped at a bird market, a flower market, and a goldfish market in Kowloon. They also visited the Ladies Market and the beginnings of the Temple Street Night Market. Sounds like a lot of markets to me. The girls took LOTS of pictures of birds, flowers and fish. There was also a questionable video on the camera of a totally different type of merchandise?? Not sure what other market they visited, but the video in question showed some treasures that wouldn't be sold at a goldfish or flower market, that's for sure!!

Birds from the bird market:






Flower market:




Goldfish market:







48 done...52 left to go