Easter Holiday

Hong Kong (as well as Macau) seem to have an abundance of public holidays giving students and professionals days off of school and work. We've repeatedly been surprised by many no-school or no-work days since living here. Learning about holidays relating to Chinese culture has been interesting and fun. Chinese New Year is especially important and elaborate, Ching Ming Festival and Chung Yeung Festival are dedicated to honoring deceased ancestors, Dragon Boat Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival have unique food traditions (we haven't acquired a taste for moon cakes yet), and coming up next week is a holiday celebrating Buddha's birthday. With the European influence of Britain (for Hong Kong) and Portugal (for Macau), there are also many western and Christian holidays observed including Labor Day, Christmas, and Easter. Ironically, there are more work days off (Friday-Monday) for the Easter holiday here than in the US. 

This year, we had a fun, activity filled Easter holiday. 

One day, we attended an Easter activity hosted by a neighboring church with face painting (notice the red Easter egg on Leah's left check),

a large egg hunt,

lots of prizes, and even a short, kid-friendly sermon.

Another day, our church hosted an Easter activity with egg decorating,

sugar cookie decorating

and eating,

and a few games.

That afternoon we stumbled upon a community Easter festival with lots of carnival type games. The kids won a handful of rulers, pens, and stickers. There was also an Easter Bunny walking around and posing for pictures but it looked more like Bugs Bunny and my kids didn't want to get anywhere near it. They did feel sorry for the guy in the bunny suit because it was such a hot day and they were sweating like crazy in just shorts and t-shirts.

We also gathered with some friends to dye Easter eggs.

I was so glad someone found (and saved from last year) Easter egg dye, stickers, and decorations because stores don't carry a lot of Easter stuff and sell out quickly. I was among the late shoppers and missed out on the egg dying kits and decorations.

During the Easter holiday, with Kyle off of work for Friday and Monday, we also had some fun family activities.

Kyle and Cade started out on a nice hike just behind our building

that turned into a long adventure hike as they climbed higher

 

and higher

until they reached Sunset Peak,

the third highest peak in Hong Kong.

 During their descent, they had an up close view of a helicopter rescue of an injured hiker. They were close enough to see and feel the prop wash.

We also spent a beautiful day at the beach. I'll share pictures and more details of that activity in the next post.

During the Easter holiday break, Cade participated in a week long soccer camp. It was a more playful, less serious atmosphere than typical practices. They even held a mini World Cup tournament. Cade's team was England and they finished with the most points but lost in the championship game. Cade received the Star Player Award!

For Easter Sunday, we had some wonderful family time and uplifting Church meetings to help us remember the miraculous resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I'm in charge of our newly formed church choir (Kyle conducted, I played the piano, and there are about 15 people including Cade, Abby, and 3 other kids). We had our first performance singing a beautiful Easter song, He Is Risen. The choir did fantastic and really added to the sweet spirit of the meeting.

It was a great Easter holiday!