Kirst Afloat

Macau Signs, Part 1

In our bathroom at the Wynn:

Someone had a sense of humor!

Hong Kong Signs, Part 5

A sign in front of Claire's school...

Love the English!  "Wrap up the mess and place it in a dog excreta collection bin"  Now there's a term native English speakers use all of the time!  And "Take your dog to a dog latrine"

Hong Kong Signs, Part 4

A street sign in Wan Chai near Claire's school.  It always makes me smile, especially since it leads to a public toilet/trash collection area.

Half Term

This week has been the half-term break for the kids.  It came at a good time because both have had slight colds.  James has a cough in the morning and then a slight runny nose during the rest of the day.  Claire also has been coughing in the morning...I was hoping that they'd get a lot of sleep this week but it hasn't totally worked out that way.

We all went to Macau on Monday morning.  I personally hadn't been back in five years---we last went for our fifth anniversary.  We had a private room on the Turbojet on the way over (and back).  Nothing fancy...just four seats in small room across from the luggage area.  It was nice, though, not be in with all of the other people.   We stayed in a one room suite at the Wynn.  (Actually it was in the Wynn Club which is a separate part of the Wynn.)  Our rooms were ENORMOUS.  We are totally jaded when it comes to hotels (especially after many years in Asia) but we were flabbergasted by our suite.  HUGE.   The main room contained a dining area, two large couches, a massive flat screen tv, a full sized bar , espresso machine (actually pretty crappy because it used Nescafe pods---I miss my Rancilio in the US---if only the damned turtle would die there would be space for one on our bar here on the boat), desk, etc.  There was an entire wall of windows overlooking the fountain (which was synchronized to music every 15 minutes---there were lots of lights in the fountain show at night as well as fire which shot upwards occasionally) and the ugly Lisboa and the much more hideous Grand Lisboa.  Two extra beds were placed in the room and you didn't really even notice them as there was so much space.  There was also a half bath and our own private massage room (a bit weird).  Our bedroom was also quite large and our bathroom was GIGANTIC.  Seriously.  The shower area could have held 15 people easily, there was a jacuzzi bath, his and her wardrobes, a separate toilet area, and a vanity table.

Anyway, we had a nice time in Macau.  It has a much different feel from HK.  We saw our Portuguese friends who helped us organize our wedding ten years ago.  We also stopped by the Military Club (although we never did make it to dinner there) and not much has changed there.  Which is a good thing.  We still have great memories of our reception there.  The Italian restaurant at the Wynn has amazing pizza and the best view of the fountain show.  Both kids really enjoyed that.  We also managed to stop by Praia Grande which is still wonderful.  Our waiter even went to fetch his guitar and sang to us  for 45 minutes. (We were the only people there as it was quite early---only about 5pm.  We had a bottle of wine and some snacks.)  He had quite a voice and I could almost imagine that I was at a bar on Block Island listening to music---until he kept pronouncing "something" as "someting".  But still, it was a great afternoon.  We did stop by the Venetian.  The scale of the place is something else.  But what a mess inside.  Huge crowds of mainlanders.  Most of the canals are empty still.  We did go to the main canal and went for a gondola ride.  They have imported about of Italians gondoliers although I did see a Filipina as well.  Our gondolier was Italian and he was quite interesting.  James had a great time waving to everyone we passed.  The mainland grandmothers especially enjoyed seeing him.  After seeing the Venetian, however, I am quite glad we picked the Wynn.

We arrived back in HK on Thursday.  The car service brought us back to Clearwater Bay but then James had speech therapy in Central in the late afternoon.  Last week's assessments went well.  His articulation is much better although there is certainly quite a bit of room for improvement.  He only missed being in the (bottom of the) "normal" category by one point.  Considering that he missed all of the blends (both the "l" and "r" in the blends he consistently pronounces as "w"---glasses are "gwasses" and sleep is "sweep"), he did well.  He's made tremendous progress since last year (although I don't think speech therapy has done that much for him---to me it just seems that the speech/language part of his brain has finally developed).  I do think that working on his articulation with Melinda will be worthwhile.  Also, James test above his age for vocabulary.  His current level (at least according to the assessment) is 4 years, 9 months and he is 4 years, 1 month.  James completed two more assessments yesterday and it will be interesting to see the results next week.

The big excitement of today was the Halloween parcel from Grandma.  My mom sent the perfect Halloween presents this year.  Each kid had a pumpkin basket (trick or treat bag) with a Webkinz, Webkinz trading cards, candy, a straw, a spider with bells attached to it and stickers.  James also received a Hallmark Spooky Tree which plays a Halloween version of the Adams Family Theme.  He coveted this item when we were in the States this summer.  We saw it several times at various Hallmark stores but I didn't buy it.  I never mentioned it to my mom but she somehow knew the object of James' desire.  Claire named her Webkinz frog Jumpz.  She was thrilled because she now has the Webkinz Pet of the Month.  James received a Googles which he named (not a surprise) Hot Wheels Googles.  He has a bunch of pets that are start with "Hot Wheels".  It was especially fun to see how excited the kids were to get Webkinz as they are not available in Hong Kong.

Next on our agenda:  Claire has TONS of homework over break.  TONS!  Hate that.