A tour of Macau with Dane and Kirsten

Mike and I went to Macau to meet up with Dane and Kirsten who are working in an international school there. It was a lovely weekend. The streets of Macau are lovely. The Portuguese influence on architecture was such a surprise, there were streets that looked exactly like a European street. (apart from the millions of Chinese people of course!)

This is the remaining facade from St. Paul's Cathedral that was ruined in a fire. If you squint you can see Mike, Dane and me in the middle window.

Mike on a cannon at the Macau fort.

Mike loves these wooden figures with the faces cut out. This was a pair of royal figures, a king and a queen. After taking the picture a Chinese fella came up to us and asked us did we realise that Mike was in the Queen cut out not the King!

The Venetian casino! What an awesome place. We didn't actually gamble while we there there but the inside it just so huge and beautiful you could spend days in there. We spent a few hours in a bar called Morton's which has a really fab cocktail happy hour from 5 -7. You have a choice for 5/6 classic cocktails on special offer and while you are drinking them they bring you free steak sandwiches!! Mmmmm they were so good! We ate so many as they keep bringing them if you keep eating them!

Kirsten, Dane and I at the big Christmas tree in the Venetian.

The Venetian has canals with real gondolas and them men who paddle can sing opera!

The roof is bright blue with clouds so the gamblers don't know that it is night time, hoping they will gamble all night. It was really cool.

The magic tree!!! This was a a feature in the MGM casino. It is called the Tree of Prosperity and it is SUPER cool....that's all I'm going to say about it.

This is A Ma the protector of Macau. It was a huge 20m statue near the Tian Hou temple.

This is the Tian Hou temple.

This is the little village of Coloane. We met up with a few of Dane and Kirsten's work mates for a few drinks there in a little outdoor restaurant. It was really nice, so quiet.


All in all it was a great weekend thanks to Dane and Kirsten. Or as I should say Kirsten, if Dane was in charge of the sightseeing he would have bought us postcards of the sights and showed them to us in the pub!

Fashion Show

A few weeks ago our school was approached by the British Embassy for volunteers to take part in a fashion show. It was a charity event to raise money and awareness for a school in Tondo, Manila. The charity and school was founded and is run by an English woman called Jane Walker who does an amazing job there. Needless to say I was too chicken to take part in the show but went along to cheer on Jo and a few others that were taking part. The free wine and food helped as well!

Jo B before


After! (Sorry about the rubbish picture Jo)


Liz


Jacky


Manila's next top model - Jo!


Stash


Glenn


The Ambassador


Me and Aiden

Long weekend in Bohol

During the last weekend in November we went away for a few days to Bohol and stayed in the Bohol Beach Club. The resort itself is absolutely stunning and it has a private beach. Here is a few photos.
Sunbeds on the beach

Liz and Jo relaxing

One of the three pools

Mike cooling off

Scuba time! Mike and I went on a really nice dive there

The view from our beach bungalow first thing in the morning. For once it actually meant we were on the beach!

Jo B, me and Mike at the Chocolate Hills

Me ringing the wish bell

Scary scary scary bridge

Jo B

Mike

I was concentrating SO hard when walking across the bridge, it was raining and the bamboo was really slippery!

Teeny Tarsier humping!

Last weekend Mike and I plus a few friends flew to Bohol for the weekend (pictures to follow). When we were there we saw some tarsiers, I saw one last year as well when I was in Bohol, they are a major tourist attraction there. Anyway when we were looking at the one little ickle girl tarsier, this boy tarsier came up and started to hump the girl!!! It was so funny and a wee bit disturbing, I had to walk away as I couldn't look. Luckily my friend took some photos to document this funny occasion.

1. Little lady tarsier happily clinging to her branch chilling out


2. She can see him coming and is looking worried


3. He has her in his sights and is closing in on her


4. Uch! Look at the expression on his face, gross

Next door neighbours

The apartment block Mike and I live in has 3 apartments to a floor. Our next door neighbours door directly faces ours. One night last week we discovered that the had wrapped their door in paper with a "Welcome to Heaven" sign on it....bizarre.

Mike posed for a picture with it really quickly one night after coming back from the pub. We were really afraid in case they could hear us laughing and come out and see us taking pictures.