This man right here...

Single-handedly kept the first day of school in Macau from being an unmitigated disaster.

How, you ask? Well first he got up early. Popped awake, by himself, and got ready for school with a smile on his face. He ate his pancakes and liked even the runny syrup. He wanted to take some pictures. He practically led the way out the door and on the elevator. He got a little nervous watching his sister struggle (I'm understating here) to follow her class upstairs. And then he went to his own class, no problem.

Mom needed him to step up, and did he ever. Let's review the previous couple of days, to see why this was important.

Three evenings ago, dad cooked some cutting-edge (read: untested) Chinese-ish food involving meat that none of us had ever had (pork neck?). Strangely that night, whether related or not, Leah was up all night sick every 30 minutes. Ian followed suit, as did Abby. So we had a sick day, no big deal, followed by a more or less un-sick day. Yesterday afternoon, we all got out for along walk in Macau for final school prep. Then last night, Cade got sick. For those of you keeping score, that's 2 of 3 essentially sleepless nights for mom, right before the first day of school in a foreign country; does anyone not see where this is going? By the way, Dad gets up too. However, on realizing that mom will not sleep anyway, he goes back to bed trying to be somewhat capable in the morning.

Cade was way too under the threshold of well-being to go today, at all. Leah got sick in the morning again. Abby's a nervous wreck and crying, won't eat. The whole walk to school is a struggle, and she's crying and just about didn't follow her class. It's a train wreck, but in the middle of that train wreck is a 56-lb toe-headed hero who is ready and excited for Kindergarten - come what may.

And that's one reason why we love our kids. We don't have tons of sick days and other disasters, and first days of school in foreign countries are rare. However, when events do take a nasty turn, at least one of them is ready to show us all how it's done; today that one was my man Ian "E-doo" "Thomas Jefferson" "Spiderman" "Car Guy" Kisebach, to whom we owe tremendous gratitude.

Buddhist Shrines

Buddhism is the predominate religion in Macau.  As I understand, Buddhists worship daily by burning incense.  Consequently Buddhist shrines can be found in many different places. 

There are small cans and jars lining the sidewalks for incense burning,

 more ornate shrines located next to shops and residential buildings,

many are in the parks, 

 a Temple sits atop a hill,

and this four-faced Buddha shrine is located in the middle of a road. 

This week we've had notices in our lifts (elevators) about an upcoming Buddhist festival. The notice encourages those who will be celebrating the festival to burn incense outdoors so they won't bother the other residences.  However, the notice also states that if any worshippers NEED to burn incense indoors to please keep it to a minimum.  I guess we'll find out soon if we have any indoor worshipping neighbors.

To Squat or Not

Before coming to Macau we were asked numerous times what the bathrooms were like here.  Since, so many asked, I'm going to share.  First of all, they don't use the word restroom or bathroom, it's best known as toilet.  And yes - the infamous squat toilet (or as we call it the squat pot) is here.  We've only seen the squat pot at public parks but often there's an option - a western toilet or a squat pot.

The squat pot is what it is - a hole in the ground.  There's no throne, no handles, paper waste goes in the garbage not the pot, and the upscale ones have doors.  Plus, it's BYOP - bring your own paper.  Some of the nicer toilets have a supply of toilet paper but it's located outside of the stall so make sure to get some before entering to do your business.

Guia Hill & Lou Lim Leoc Garden

There are so many beautiful parks and gardens in Macau.  Most of them combine neatly cared for plants and flowers, Chinese styled gazebos, stone paved walkways, and large water features filled with big, colorful fish and turtles to create a perfect little paradise.  Often times there's too much to see in one visit so going back may reveal a totally new view of the park.  Our visit to Guia Hill was filled with lots of fun things but we definitely have to go back to see everything we missed.  It's a very cool park!   

To begin our trek through Guia Hill, we took a short tram ride to the top of the hill.  There were some beautiful, breathtaking views over the garden.  We ate lunch at the top and then slowly wandered back down through the park.

  Many of the parks have these pathways made of smooth stones laid out in patterns meant to be walked on in bare feet.  I believe there's some kind of healing associated with them but I find them pretty painful to walk on.  The kids, however, love them! We have a park near our apartment that has a similar path and they've been practicing almost daily so they can walk the entire length of the path now.  

This park also includes the Fortaleza da Guia (built sometime between 1622 and 1638) and the Guia Lighthouse (built in 1865 and is the first modern lighthouse on the Chinese coast).  

The kids are standing in front of the storm signals that were hoisted during typhoons to express the strength and distance of the coming storm.  I thought the typhoon warning we had last week was worded funny when it said "level 3 has been hoisted".  Now I understand it was not an awkward translation but a reference to how they used to signal a storm was coming.

It's not a bush, it's a dragon!

And this is a real, working clock behind us - what clever gardeners!

While we're discovering these fun and beautiful parks in Macau, life in Utah continues on without us.  This week we're missing a big, special event - my brother's wedding.  Wanting to still be part of the celebrations, we made a video during our walk through Guia Hill park as well as another park nearby, Lou Lim Leoc Garden.  The following pictures are from both of these parks and were used in the video we made for my brother, Bobby and his bride, Amy.  The captions may not make sense but they're the lines they said during the video, The Top Ten Reasons Bobby and Amy are Getting Married.

2 years of dating is long enough!

True Love! (take 1)

True Love! (take 2)

The magic of Bear Lake - it worked for us!

Why do Bobby and Amy want to get married?  'Cause they want to get married!

Amy memorized the BYU fight song.  Go Cougars!

Bald headed boys are cute!

To Bobby and Amy (if you read this blog), we had lots of fun making the video and wished we could have been there to celebrate your special day.  We can't wait to see your wedding pictures and videos.  Hope it was the best day ever!  We love you and miss you tons!!

Life in Macau

In simple terms, life in Macau is not that different from Utah - we eat, we sleep, we travel, we work, and we play.  But it's the details that makes Macau so much different from Utah.  Here's a few of those differences.

EATING - There are tons and tons of restaurants, mostly Chinese and Asian, some Portuguese, lots of McDonalds, and we even found 2 Mexican and Italian restaurants.  

Some restaurants prepare their food in 2 different styles, Chinese or Western.  Restaurants usually give you hot water for teas and such and look at us strange when we ask for ice water.  We've also learned there are often twists when ordering what appears to be "westernized food".  For instance, a ham sandwich is simply one slice of ham on white bread while a hot dog is super extravagant with the meat sliced in half and topped with mayo, pickle, cucumber, tomato, and lettuce on a huge round roll.

Grocery shopping is also a unique experience.  Food stores are everywhere and typically located on the street level of high rise buildings.

Grocery shopping reveals much about the Chinese tastes and preferences.  The rice and noodle isles are extensive.  I never knew there were so many versions of Ramon noodles.  There's also a huge variety of fruits and vegetables, much of which I've never seen before but am anxious to try.

The meat and seafood departments, however, are harder for me to get used to.  Many of the displays look like aquariums with live fish, crabs, etc. while other displays of chickens, duck, and such still have the neck and head attached.

I DO NOT want to know that my food was once alive and it's really hard to do that when the eyes are still looking at me - YUCK!  Other things like breads, cereals, and milk products are limited and very difficult to find.  Also, some products look the same and may be made by familiar companies but a have a twist to the ingredients.  For instance: an ice cream drumstick with sesame seeds or neopolitan ice cream with coconut, mango, and pineapple flavors. 

I still haven't gotten used to the prices here.  It seems strange to spend hundreds on only a few grocery items that won't last us very long.  I have to remember that $1 (US dollar) equals MOP$8 (Macau pataca) so a quick trip to the store can easily come to a total of MOP$350.  For instance a loaf of bread (only has 10 slices which doesn't even make 1 sandwich for each of us) costs MOP$10 or a package of 4 medium apples (again, not enough for all of us) costs MOP$25.  Because packaged quantities are small and we don't have lots of space, we go to the grocery store daily, sometimes multiple times.  I can't imagine what Costco would be like here or how easy it'd to spend thousands in just one trip.

Store hours are also a little odd here too.  Grocery stores don't open until 9 or 10 am most days and not until 11 or noon on Saturdays.  And if you go out Saturday night after 10 to get something for Sunday dinner, you're out of luck, all the stores are closed (we learned that the hard way).  There's no such thing as extended hours or "open 24 hours" here.

SLEEPING - Kyle warned us that the Chinese people like firm beds but I was still unprepared and very surprised at how hard and stiff the beds really are.  The mattresses feel more like box springs to me.

We tried a few nights to sleep on the hard beds but I woke up with aching shoulders, hips, and back because I'm a side sleeper.  Kyle and the kids don't seem to mind as much.  We bought a mattress top that we were told would make the bed softer.  It's definitely an improvement but still very firm.  I might just need lots more pillows to soften my bed and get a good night's sleep.

TRAVEL - Macau consists of the Macau peninsula (connected to mainland China) and the island of Taipa and Coloane (connected to Macau by 3 bridges).  We live in Taipa and find it easy to get anywhere in Taipa on foot.  There are lots of stores, restaurants, parks, the school, other activities all within minutes of our apartment.  Kyle's work is also only about a 15-20 minute walk.  Lots of people ride scooters around and a few have cars but parking is limited and can be a challenge.

Walking in high humidity means lots of sweating but we're getting used to that.  We're also learning to look in the opposite direction when crossing the street because people drive on the opposite side of the road.  Getting to the Macau peninsula (where church and lots of sightseeing spots are located) or Coloane (where the 2 beaches are located) we take a bus.  The busses are often crowded.  I usually can get a seat so Leah can sit on my lap but Kyle and the kids are mastering the art of standing in a moving vehicle.  During bus rides, we also gets lots of stares and fascination looks.  Many brave ones even want to touch Ian and Leah's hair.

WORK - Our chores are a little different here.  There's no carpet in our apartment which means no vacuuming but we have to sweep and mop the tile much more often, especially because most of it is white.  We have a washing machine but no clothes dryer.  That means hanging clothes up to dry either outside (which seems to take FOREVER) or in our spare bedroom with the air conditioner on a dry setting (this method usually takes a full day to dry a load of clothes).  It's still a long process and with my big family there's always a need to do more laundry.

Washing dishes is also a little different.  There's not a dish washer or a garbage disposal.  The custom here is to use a disposable table cloth during meals, after eating scrape all the remaining food/garbage onto the table cloth and throw it away.  Then wash all the dishes by hand.  We have a very small dish dryer.  It doesn't hold very many dishes so we also have a plastic countertop dish holder to air dry our dishes.

Kyle's learning to balance work with the people he works for here in Macau as well as corresponding with his coworkers in Utah, who are 14 hours behind us.  This makes for a unique work schedule.  He often gets up early to communicate with people in Utah, spends the morning with the family, goes into work in the afternoon for a few hours, then comes home to be with the family, and may do a little more work before going to bed to communicate with Utah people again.  His flexible schedule has been extremely helpful as we get adjusted to life here in Macau.

PLAY - It's been hard not to have a backyard or bike friendly streets but we're adjusting to free time here in Macau.  There's a great park close to us that we've been escaping to almost daily.  The kids enjoy the playground, stone walkway, pond with fish and turtles, and the exercise equipment.

There is lots of red and yellow exercise equipment all around town.  We see adults using them anytime of day but they're especially popular in the mornings and evenings.  I've used them a few times and think they're a good little workout.

Although we live next to the Macau Olympic Stadium, the field is not for public use.  They use it for croquet tournaments in the day and organized soccer in the evenings.  We're still looking for a good patch of grass to play soccer on but that may be hard to find here.  For now, we're having fun with the more popular activities of table tennis and badminton.  There are numerous tables and courts for these activities and they fill up quickly.  We spent one afternoon playing table tennis and observed some very talented and intense players around us.  You can tell it's a much more serious game here.

 Badminton is fun and less intense.  We bought some badminton racquets and shuttlecocks so we could teach the kids how to play.  We hope to take advantage of the numerous courts and improve our skills so when we return to the States we can challenge our family and friends.

Church Super Stars

Although church attendance is nothing new for us, attending church in Macau will be a whole new experience.  First of all, church starts at 5:00 pm and ends at 8:00 pm.  Secondly, we have to take a 30 minutes bus ride to and from church.  Plus, often times there are church activities/socials before or immediately following the 3 hour block of meetings.  Talk about super long Sundays! 

Our first Sunday bus ride was very pleasant.  The bus was not crowded and we all got to sit during the entire trip.

From the bus stop we have a little walk to church.  The meetings are not held in a traditional LDS meeting house.  They are located in the main floor and basement level of a high rise building.  The Hong Kong Mission oversees and maintains the space.  

The main floor has a lobby and large room used for Relief Society, Gospel Essentials class, and Sacrament Meeting.  Downstairs is the Primary room and large open area used for Gospel Doctrine and other church activities.

We arrived early to church and received a big, warm welcome from about 8-10 missionaries.  We observed that each person that entered the building was equally greeted by the missionaries.  What a tight-knit church family!

Eventually, everyone divided up into their different classes (Mormon standard time plus the laid back Macau mentality=late starts).

The kids went downstairs to primary for the first 2 hours of church and as you can see our family doubled it's size.  The sisters were a little nervous with such a big group and are still trying to figure out how to best organize the primary.  Right now, there's a Primary President (the sister on the left), a teacher (sister on the right), and the kids ranging in age from 5 to 10.  This Sunday was more of a get-to-know-each-other day.  They played games, colored pictures, and ate lots of snacks.  My kids loved it!  Abby and Ian even sat by the primary teacher during sacrament meeting.  

Leah joined me in Relief Society since there's no Nursery and she'd falling asleep on the bus so she was not in a mood to go with any strangers.  I really enjoyed Relief Society.  The branch consists largely of women, many of whom work as domestic help to support their families in other countries.  I felt very welcomed and uplifted by their sweet spirits and testimonies.

Kyle attended Elder's Quorum where we was called to be the President.  They wasted no time to get him working in the branch.  He's very excited for this calling and looks forward to getting to know the brethren better and especially assisting them to understand and organize a home teaching program.  This priesthood assignment was just recently transferred from the missionaries to the branch priesthood holders.

      

The chapel is not very large.  Rows of chairs are set up in a large room with a podium and piano.  Our family fits in the middle section and the only row available to accommodate us was the front row.  We were so close to the podium that Leah couldn't resist touching it and even tried to climb on it a few times.  The meetings are all in English but the kids still had a hard time understanding some of the sacrament talks because of a variety of thick accents.

After church, the branch had their monthly birthday party.  They gather in the basement to serve dinner and desserts.  Special attention was given to those with August birthdays.  They even gave Leah a small gift because she turned 3 this month.  After everyone had eaten, it was picture time.  Our family was the subject of countless pictures.  We felt like celebrities, super stars.  Most of the sisters at church wanted a picture with our family as well as individual pictures with each of the kids.  With not many kids in the branch and many sisters away from their own families, they're excited and eager to be around kids, especial exotic, blonde kids.  You can find a few of their pictures on Facebook because they tagged the pictures with Kyle's name.  We were graciously welcomed into this wonderful branch family and are so excited to be a part of it.

Hac Sa Beach

One of the best beaches in Macau is Hac Sa.  In Chinese, Hac Sa means black sand - appropriately named as you can see in the pictures.

It was a beautiful day at the beach.  We were told it was a cold day to many locals so the beach was not very crowded.  The water was refreshing and we never felt cold even out of the water.  The kids loved jumping the waves and I tried to get an action picture (just like our picture of Cade and Abby jumping waves in Santa Cruz) but no luck.  I was actually competing with other photographers - my kids were the stars of the beach, everyone wanted pictures.  The girl standing just behind Ian and Leah was one of the more aggressive photographers.  I think she got better pictures of my kids than I did.

The sand was also fun to play in.  I missed taking pictures of the well designed sand castle, volcano, and flower but got pictures of Leah.  She liked wearing the sand!

After a day at the beach, our friends took us to an excellent, authentic Portuguese Restaurant right next to the beach.  We ordered an array of different Portuguese foods; fried rice, stewed meat and potatoes, BBQ chicken, tomato and onion salad, and clams.  I thought the fried rice, despite having shrimp in it, was very good (it made me think of JD's fried rice and I know why he likes it so much).  Everyone loved the meat and chicken, Leah loved the tomato salad, and Kyle, Cade, Ian, and Leah tried the clams.  They all said it was good but Cade’s 4th clam had too much sand in it so he didn’t eat anymore.  The clam sauce was also a big hit for bread dipping.  Abby and I just couldn’t get past the fact that you had to slurp the clam out of the shell - too gross for us!  

Home Sweet Home

Our new home is on the 14 floor of a high rise building.

  We have 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a small galley kitchen, a dining room, and a living room.  There's no carpet, just tile flooring throughout the house.  The main area and master bedroom have the large white tiles which show every spec of dirt so I'll probably be sweeping and mopping everyday - not fun!  There's also a small clothes washer but no dryer.  Most people here dry their clothes outside or on racks near their windows.  Washing will also be a daily chore with my large family.  The kitchen has a small refrigerator, a microwave, a super tiny dish drying machine (I still don't understand how it works), but no oven.  We plan to buy a large, super deluxe convection toaster oven so I can still bake:).  And one of our favorite parts of the apartment is the window seats.  It's not as scary as I thought it would be looking out 14+ levels above the street.  Plus, the view out the living room and master bedroom windows is the Macau Olympic Stadium.  We can watch soccer games all evening long.

Still to come - a video tour of our apartment