Catching up (Oct - Dec)

It seems like we just blinked and it was December already - we had a very busy couple of months. Our flight back to Macau in August was cancelled due to a typhoon in Hong Kong and ended up arriving here well after midnight Sunday; then back to work we were bright and early Monday morning. It seems like we haven't caught up since!

We were able to spend the October break traveling into China with mom and dad. They arrived early in October, were able to spend a week here getting over
the jet-lag and then went into Guilin and Yangshou for a week. We had arranged for the same tour guide that Yvonne and I had when we went last year and they had a good time. During their time in Macau we took in the Zaia performance (Cirque du Soleil), had a meal at a "real" Chinese dim sum (absolutely NO one in the restaurant spoke English, in fact, our Chinese friends that took us before filled out one of the menus by circling the items which we ordered and we brought that!), and even tried our luck at the Wynn's slots.

Upon their return to Macau, the four of us flew to Beijing and spent three days there climbing the Great Wall and seeing the sites. One night was spent pampering ourselves at a nice little dig called The Commune. It has won quite a few architectural awards, each villa has a different design. As well as touring the Forbidden City etc, we went to the Summer Palace, Olympic Stadium, and of course the silk market (one must keep the bargaining tactics fine tuned).

We then took the overnight train to Xi'an to see the Terracotta Warriors. That was probably the highlight of the trip for me. It is amazing! Traffic in Xi'an is also not for the faint-of-heart, I would say the worst encountered so far in our travels. Of course it didn't help that they were upgrading the metro system!





From there we flew to Shanghai and spent the last couple of days of our trip. It is a big, polluted city but we did manage to contribute to the economy by doing some shopping. Yvonne has turned into quite the bargainer and was able to procure some fine deals for all of us. We are not totally convinced that we need to make a return trip to see what else Shanghai has to offer, apparently it has some of China's best restaurants.

I have also been very busy at school, as one of our teachers was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer at the beginning of October. He flew back to Canada immediately so I picked up a Science 10 class to add to my Math 20. I also became the division co-ordinator so it has been a very hectic few months. I am keeping my fingers crossed that they will find someone (for the Science 10) to come for second semester!!

Yvonne ran the Macau half marathon early in December with 2 other girls from school. It was the first race for one of them and they all had a great time. I was hobbling along with a sprained ankle that I got playing some volleyball at school but I was able to travel along the course on the scooter and get some action pics. Yvonne is already planning on us registering for next year's race as she said the course was really nice - very picturesque and one that you could go for your time - if you wanted to that is! [note from yvonne: when dave mentions his "sprained ankle" you must understand that this happened on october 1st and he actually pulled all the tendons/muscles right off the bone - early on his "self diagnosis" did not require any professional opinion - but he was "encouraged" into therapy by certain sources - all i Oops i mean those certain sources had to mention was that he may not be running any time soon, if ever! that seemed to do the trick. at the last therapy session at the end of november, he hinted at the half marathon coming up and that was met with a rather immediate response of "DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT". he has been careful and very diligent at doing the prescribed exercises and has just started up running again. so far so good!]