Back from our 7 weeks away from lovely quiet New Zealand.  It's been a wonderful time especially spending time with our wonderful family and friends.  Thanks to you all for putting us up, feeding and watering us, and generally being fantastic X

So from the beginning here goes...............

SYDNEY 

 
First stop!

Then onto England to see all our wonderful family and friends. 

We had some brilliant days and nights out thanks to you all..........


Legoland - always the best day out! We had a brilliant day out including lots of wet rides that we remembered from last time and we were very proud of grandma getting on some rides including the wonderful new Atlantis ride - highly recommeded!

AMSTERDAM

Adrian and I managed to have a lovely couple of days in Amsterdam with our friends Micky and Tori - we drank and ate and had a brilliant time. We also did some tourist things like taking a boat trip, checking out Dam Square and visiting Anne Frank's house.  Thanks to Grandma, Grandad and Aunty Kaz and Uncle Paul and Elise for looking after the boys and making it possible for us.







 Grandma very kindly drove us the the city of Bath where Adrian and I had always wanted to go.  It was a beautiful city and the Roman Baths were really fascinating and really well set up for children to get a lot out of it as well. and was also one of the highlights of the trip.

Harry Potter Studio Tour - this is a new attraction in London and we can highly recommend it, brilliant!  It has props and costumes from all the movies and a beautiful 1/24 scale model of hogwarts.  The boys and Elise also tried butter beer and brought chocolate frogs and bertie bots every flavour beans from the shop!







We had a lovely day out with Grandad at the Science and Natural History Museums - highlights were the rocket stage show which Jack managed to star in and the life-sized moving T-Rex at the Science Museum.



Jack LOVED his day out with Uncle Paul at the Swindon game and Tom had a FABULOUS time with Auny Kaz at the Planetarium and are both still talking about it.

IRELAND

We had a wonderful visit to Ireland and visited both Leitrim and Donegal to see all the family with Grandad which was really lovely.  Everyone spoilt us rotten and we ate and drank far too much as is the custom!  Thanks to you all for looking after us so wonderfully.Ireland is such a very beautiful place it was great to show the boys where our family lives and came from.

AMAZING CHINA 

first stop was Beijing (20 million people) which was crazy and exciting and unlike anywhere we've ever been before.  On the first day once we checked in to the hotel Adrian went to the supermarket, it was so very busy he queued for 1 hour in the check out, he didn't mind too much as he likes to watch life go by and that was a perfect place to do it.





We managed to get up at 5am and got a taxi to the Great Wall of China hours before anyone else which was magic, we had 1.5hrs walking along it without any interuptions from other tourists.
It was the most amazing place and we all loved getting to see it as the sun came up over the mountains that were covered in Autumn colours and it felt really special.



Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City was incredibly impressive and enormous, much bigger and more beautiful than we had ever imagined.  we could have spent another day walking around the city as it is just so huge.


While I was working the boys had a great day out visiting the Olympic Stadium (the bird's nest), they had a great time and thought it was a gorgeous structure and had a trip around the stadium on the tourist train.  We also visited the Silk markets which is where even the boys became expert negotiators, one instance is when Tom wanted a toy and the shop keeper showed us the price on the calculator (it was 120 yuan) then Tom took the claculator and punched in 10 yuan and handed it back with a smile.........we paid 50 in the end, nice work Tom.



After our Beijing we headed to the middle of China to Chengdu.  This city is much more relaxed and has beautifully designed buildings sitting alongside the Funan river,as was our hotel. It's located in the Sichuan area so the food is well known for it's spicy flavours.  We had a wonderful night out the first night walking until we found a local "hotpot" restaurant where everything is cooked in a large soup dish in the middle of the table.  We tried some amazing foods but none as brave as Adrian who tried bullfrog (eyes feet and all) and even managed to get Jack to try it (he didn't think much of it! came out of his mouth as fast as it went in).  No one spoke English in the restaurant but we still managed to have a great time clinking glasses with the other tables and saying "cheers" with our beers! 

The next day we headed off to the Chengdu Panda Research Reserve which was brilliant, they have a large percentage of the worlds Panda population there and are successfully breading Panda's so have babies as well.  It was amazing to see them in real life - a real treat.  We managed to get there early before they all ate and went to sleep for the day. Click on this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cdq9tGTv6-E




We also visited peaceful, beautiful temples which were a real oasis in the city and a great place to relax. 














Only Tom could be bitten by a pelican on one holiday and a chinese chicken on another!!!





Now this was an exciting way to get around! click on this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqD592LUaeA


The final highlight on our last night in Chengdu was a visit to a hutong (traditional chinese street) where the boys were one again the object of fascination amongst the locals. Jack even started to take photos of all those people taking photos of him so he's got a great portfolio coming along!  This film will show you what it was like all the time, we are sitting outside trying to have a beer but it's not that easy!! Click on this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZcNq666sWo


Guangzhou was pretty uneventful as the hotel was in a district a long way from the city center and it's a very industrial city.  I went to work the next day after landing and Adrian took the boys for a walk around the city, it was HOT!!!!! the metro was very, very busy and it took all of Adrian's energy to keep an eye on the boys wtih most of the metro commuters taking pics or movies of the boys. we shopped for a bit and ate lots with many ice cream breaks.






The next day we got a taxi to the train station to go to hong kong, a little man popped up as soon as our taxi arrived and loaded our bags onto a tiny trolly and said in velly bloken engrish "to Hong Kong?" Adrian said yes and he struggled with our 5 full bags to the platform which was about two mins walk away, once we got there he drew 200 on his hand for payment ($20ish) and Adrian said NO as it had just cost 150 yuan for the taxi across the city, he got very grupmy with Adrian as he gave him 23 yuan and told him to bugger off - I think it was too early in the morning for tough negotiations!

China was truely amazing - we braved subways at rush hour, taxi drivers with a death wish and no seat belts, working on our sign language to be understood, boy's continuous paparazzi, toilets that have to be seen to be believed and food that was both scary and delicious but we had the most amazing time and a holiday that we'll never forget.

HONG KONG

To ease us back into life again we had two days in Disneyland Hong Kong which felt like such luxury!  We had a wonderful time and a bonus that it was halloween so everything had a spooky theme, these Disney people certainly know how to make something impressive and are not short of money to spend on getting things perfect so it felt a bit surreal after China.



 



 

MELBOURNE

We also managed our last night of holiday in Melbourne visiting, Mike, Simone, Olive, Adam, Lisa, D, Shasha and Nico and we had a lovely hot summer BBQ catching up, it was brilliant and the boys finally got to meet their new cousin who they are besotted by of course!

Back to the real world now but we've had the most wonderful time, thanks again to everyone and hopefully we'll see you all here soon XXXXXXXXX