It's done.

After spending 2 hours and 5 minutes flying from Shanghai to Macau, a 2 hours plus in a Buddhist temple kneeing, bowing, standing and inhaling joss incense, the official end of the 21-day morning period for my grandmother was over. It was quite an interesting event; the Buddhist monks that were at the funeral were once again back for the ceremony. I was surprise. And then I realized why the cost of this "closing out" ceremony was so expensive; someone within the Lo siblings had hired them back. A whopping HK$50,000 for this little event! Dad was in tears. I was mad as hell! That was such a wasteful of money and displayed of nothing. There are people dying from the Sichuan earthquake and in Myanmar cyclones survivors that need help; and someone had just decided spent that much money for one dead person whom they didn't really care much for while she was still alive? Maddening! That was only the ceremony cost; then you had to put $20.00 in red pockets and then double that for immediate family members, their siblings, their siblings' siblings, all the way down to the nth degree; then the close relatives who attending this ceremony. In all, I believe the cost was over $100,000.00+ including the funeral and all. Give your head a shake.

The ceremony was interesting; the monks started at 2:30pm, praying and praying until 9:00pm non stop. During that time, lots of joss sticks were burned. We might created the most carbon dioxide pocket in Macau for the day. Need to buy some carbon credit. During one of the ceremonial sessions, one of the monk wore a head gear, prayed and drew symbols on the tables with rice and did different figures with his hands.

When the ceremony was over, the exit was fast and fury. The monks just disappeared very quickly.