It has warmed up quite a bit in Macau and now we are in the monsoon season - the humidity is increasing and the daytime temperature is hitting 30 or more consistently. I don't find this too bad when humidity is 70% or so, but when it gets to 90% humidity it gets more uncomfortable. Pleasantly the skies have really cleared in the last few weeks and we can see clearly for many kilometres to the natural horizon. I think we can even see parts of Hong Kong from here. It is a joy to see the sky being quite high and if the sky is grey lately - it is raining, not pollution.

During May, the International Ladies Club of Macau held their annual ball and I, like many others, had a dress made for the occasion. I found a picture on the internet of a designer outfit and had it copied. I was pleased with the result and it looked and felt very nice to wear on the night. It was also the night of the opening of Crown Macau - Packer's first Macau venture and so numbers were a little down on what was expected. The Crown is not really finished, but the casino section opened and there were loads of floral wishes outside the foyer. I had a look the next day and whilst it is stylish, I am sure they would have hoped for more visitors on the opening weekend. The casino did have a few empty tables. In the time since opening many of the buses going from the ferry terminal to the casino are empty - not such a good sign and I wonder if there are too many casinos now in Macau - the Crown makes 27!!!

Of course there are lots of Aussies here working on Crown and City of Dreams given PBL's interest in both of them, and therefore the largest nationality represented at the school is Australian. This makes it even funnier that the curriculum is Canadian, when you are hard pressed to find a Canadian except among the staff.

School is progressing well for the kids - they continue to enjoy Mandarin and often have heated arguments at home over the pronunciation of different phrases. They did practice their mandarin whilst in Beijing, though they can't really have a conversation as they don't understand when someone asks them something that is not directly as from their text book. However they are getting there and people did indeed understand exactly what they were telling them. I was chatting to a man in the immigration queue in English and he then had a little conversation with Stephen who told him in Chinese that Rich was a teacher, the man said "really?" and Stephen said in chinese "no he's not" - the man already knew what Rich did - but it was quite funny.

There are so many foreigners here that the kids are nothing special, except when we come across busloads from the mainland and then it is just like being in China. Claire gets the most attention - she averages 40 photos per day from strangers, when we are in China. I wonder where all those photos will end up.

School finishes for the year on 29 June and when we return after the holidays on 1 September the kids will be in Years 2,4,6. They certainly didn't find they had missed anything by being away for 6 months of last year nor for starting half way through the school year here. That is possibly because of the very high proportion of non english speaking kids at the school. It does mean that the standard of the class is lower, however lots of other things within the school community compensate for that.

I have been teaching kids one on one on a volunteer basis and have been at the school most days from 8.30-10 or 11. I think in the next school year I will put my name down for casual teaching in the classroom and only do the volunteer stuff as parent reading. I would like to get some more classroom experience. Unfortunately I haven't finished my degree - being one subject short - my last prac, but the uni conveniently never answers my emails or calls, so I will have to defer until I return to Australia.

Rich is not sure where his job will take him, nor how long he will be here. The politics are such that nothing is certain and we live from moment to moment. As a result we are doing as much travel as possible and would like to travel within China in July, despite the heat, just in case we are home by August.

It continues to be a fascinating experience, it is only a shame that it is not entirely true for Rich as the politics continue to interfer.

Living in Macau is really very pleasant - great food, cheap restaurants, access to cheap goodies in China and good to travel from. The kids have made friends and are enjoying school and we have even got used to living in an apartment. It is especially good now that the pool is open and we can swim most days (provided it is not a thunderstorm).

It would be lovely to have visitors - so let us know if you want to come.