Our review of the trip!

WE DID IT: we travelled 91,000 kms (more than twice around the world at 40,000kms !!) over 266 days/9 months, visiting 22 countries, 125 nights in 60 hotels, 110 in rental houses/apartments (plus 21/RV, 16/Boats, 8/Tents) using 54 flights, 72 boats, 25 trains, 15 hire cars and loads of buses, taxis, vans, Tuc-tucs, trams and even an elephant!

In 2009 we visited USA, Canada, Anguilla/St. Maarten, Peru, Galapagos Islands, Ecuador, the Amazon, Chile, Easter Island in South America, Tahiti and Cook Islands in the South Pacific & NZ.  

In 2010 we visited Hong Kong (twice), Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Japan, China, Borneo, Malaysia, Singapore and London!

We went travelling around the world as a family for a number of reasons:

* To open our eyes to the world away from a cocooned life in London and the UK.

* To experience different cultures & people from a range of countries and histories; 

* To make new friends and see the sights of the world;

* To spend time as a family group and most importantly, have some fun doing it.

We decided to record it via Ian blogging here at www.westfamilyrtwtrip.blogspot.com; Sam (12) and Toby (10) wrote daily journals; Sheena did a diary; Megan did pictures.

We took 10,000 + photos (those are the ones we kept) and some 3000 video clips! creating eight 100 page albums! with the kids having their own one each!

The kids were home schooled for 20 weeks and had 12 weeks in total - 6 weeks each at very different schools in the South Pacific & China. 

We all made some great world friends and contacts for the future. We all learnt a lot about the different countries. We had some amazing times & saw some awesome sights. It was a really great fun experience all round and one that we would all highly recommend to anyone brave or mad enough to consider it!!

Here is our rough overview itinerary and the blogs of each area are below on this blog - feel free to go to one relevant to you if you are interested.

USA - 8 weeks

Canada - 3 weeks

Anguilla - 1 week

South America - 4 weeks

Tahiti - 1 week

Cook Islands - 6 weeks

NZ - 4 weeks

South Asia - 4 weeks

Japan - 2 weeks

China - 8 weeks

One of the most influential pieces on the internet we read whilst planning our trip was the blog of a young, similarly aged, family from Toronto who travelled for a year round the world. It was incredibly helpful in working out what we did and did not want to do - so hopefully our blog may help someone else decided whether to go for it or not! And if yes, where the appropriate places may be for them.

We had a window of opportunity - We had one year until our eldest sons education gets more serious when he is 13; Our youngest daughter we felt needed to be 3 and a half or more to enjoy it and help us enjoy it (good decision!); We decided to build a basement under our garden so would need to rent for a year anyway; It seemed like not a bad time to leave the UK! We wanted to ensure the children and the adults benefited from seeing the world. The rest we made up - we thought 9 months was about right! We picked the places as a family that we wanted to go - It turns out you cannot see the world in 9 months so you really need to be tough about picking the places and allocate enough time to spend at each place. After 6 months of planning and alot of help from the travel experts at Amex, we were ready to go on a round-the-world ticket. 

We would all highly recommend it - although some of us felt homesick at times we felt 9 months was about right. A year would have been too long for us but 6 months would have been too short as well. Each of our views and advice is below - the rest is in the blogs and pictures attached - if you are off - good luck!

Dad/Ian - Even though we spent 6 months planning most details it was alot harder organisationally to take a family of 5 around the world than I thought it would be! We got really lucky on the places we picked as being perfect places for good experiences! The kids going to other schools and experiencing local life really made the trip real. But overall a truly once in a lifetime experience for a Dad and husband!!

Mum/Sheena - You need to be prepared to live out of a suitcase for weeks on end - pack and repack bags for different airline luggage policies. It has opened my eyes to the world and the children are different people - hopefully for the better !! I can't believe we have actually done it.... 

Son/Sam (12) - It is a great experience but you need to be prepared to give up normal life - your mates etc.... I enjoyed going to school in different countries and meeting people from all over the world. I would recommend it to any 12 year old.

Son/Toby (10) - 9 months is about the right time - 6 is also not a bad length. A good experience to see how different people live, where they live and what they eat. I learnt alot and will miss the friends I made. But pick your places as you can't see the whole world in 9 months!

Daughter/Megan (4) - I have travelled for a quarter of my life - I never wanted to leave anywhere we went - I loved being with my family and meeting lots of friends. I am looking forward to going home.

It was the best thing we could have done - I hope if you do it you will enjoy and get as much out of it as we have.

Borneo/Malaysia - final part of the trip

After being in China for 8 weeks we were pretty sure we would want a relaxing week before returning to the UK - and sure enough we were right. We arrived in Borneo and were hit be the heat as we met our friends Alice & Mark and their family  at the airport. It was great to see some long-term friends, especially as we were being entertained in Alices home town of Kota Kinabalu. 

We had a great week of relaxing around the pool, swimming in the sea, doing a small range of activities. A perfect week to prepare us for the UK again!

We stayed at the ShangriLa hotel and it was a nice relaxed family hotel which was perfect for what we needed. The kids did some Flying Fish Ringoing, we visited the islands off the coast, including a brand new resort which looked great but still needed a few customers. We saw the Orangutans in the jungle, the Proboscis Monkeys and fireflies on a night river cruise, and toured the US navy flagship of the 7th Fleet, the USS Blue Ridge. We were well looked after by our hosts Alice and Mark and the kids had a great time together. The food and drinks were great - it was nice to have drinks watching the sunset and dinner outside in the warm with good friends.

A great way to end our RTW trip - a good swansong.......

Our plane from Malaysia was delayed by 6 hours so we re-routed to catch our plane to Singapore via Kuala Lumpur - an extra flight to add to all the others!!! And then catch our BA plane home to London - really, really looking forward to getting home but wondering what it will really be like when we get there, what and who will have changed and how we will all settle in over the next few months......

China - living in Suzhou

China - living in Suzhou.

We landed in Shanghai after a very bumpy flight and met our guide/car to drive us the hour and a half to Suzhou. We had decided on Suzhou rather than Shanghai itself in order to experience a more Chinese life experience - as we had been told that living in Shanghai was like living in any other big city like London/New York. Suzhou was named "The little Venice of Asia" by Marco Polo but had changed just a little since then and looked nothing like Venice when we arrived!  Between Shanghai and Suzhou there was hardly a green field in between the 2 towns - Shanghai is just huge and has 18m people - Suzhou is smaller and has 5m - but with another town Suzhou has merged with next door it is claimed there are 10m - so between the 2 towns there 28m people - nearly half of the UK population in a much smaller area! We started to see why it is so densely populated with apartment blocks! 

As we drove into Suzhou we saw huge rows of apartment blocks with huge roads - very well built and quite spaciously laid out but almost like a Milton Keynes meet Hong Kong or Monaco! Our hopes of living in a little village with Venice features disappeared then and there. As we drove through miles of factories for companies like Apple, Black&Decker, Caterpillar & Samsung we realised we were in the hi-tech manufacturing area of China - not little Venice. As we turned down the road to our hotel/apartment blocks we were very disheartened and started to ask ourselves - What have we done?? And then we arrived at HoJo (short for Howard johnson) hotel and apartment all suites hotel to move into our serviced apartment. Our apartment was 170 sqm and on the 11th floor - it was a great little apartment and the view from the balconies was over the town and the JinJi lake - getting better all the time! But no washing machine! We could also see over the city for miles and see the generously laid out (for china) city before us with huge open roads/parks/smart tower blocks and factories all around the city. We arranged the apartment over the internet with Julia - the very helpful lady at Hojo and so we felt we had lucked out on the apartment and the block which had restaurants, a pool, a gym and a concierge, essential in china to help you get around!

We have since learnt that Suzhou is a new town that has been built over the last 5 years for the middle class of China in the area that will arrive over the next 5 years.  As a result Suzhou felt pretty empty with many apartment blocks only 30% full and the shops empty except at the weekends. There is also the huge 15km JinJi lake which is very beautiful and has a whole range of attractions/fountains/a birds nest like stadium/cinema/fair all around the lake - which you could cycle round on paths all the way. So pretty nice middle class living - even for westerners - and the shopping centres were brand new with all the major brand shops. All in all Suzhou was probably the best place to live in China - that is what we were told by the local chinese and the expats thought this was the best place to live in China for them as well. Plus all the roads had separate cycle lanes so we could cycle everywhere rather than get into the cheap taxis (£1.50 anywhere) whose drivers were a bit mad. Suzhou had undergone a massive change in only 5 years from a small village in the countryside with fields - to a new big city for the middle classes with all the facilities of modern living - all built and planned by the Government as though they saw that this is how the China of the future will live! And we liked it !!

On the first day - a Sunday - we found a Starbucks and Singha plaza which was a few kms from our base. It was the hangout place for the expats and we bumped into 2 families - both with links to the school that the kids were going to - A bit like our first outing in Rarotonga where we met the locals with links to the school - again the school got a great billing!! We were told we needed a few sports things and trotted off another few kms to find Decathlon - a sports shop. There we bought bikes for us all (£300 for 5 bikes/child seat/pump/locks/hats etc... !!) went to Auchan (the biggest supermarket we have ever seen - it takes 10 mins to walk from one end to the other when there are no Chinese in there!) to get some food and provisions and to search black shoes for school - which are impossible to buy in China! 

We cycled home in the cycle lane feeling very Chinese as all the chinese stared at us as if we were mad!! The hotel let us park our bikes in the staff cycle area. 

On Monday we were to go to the school and meet the Headmaster and the teachers. Again we had arranged everything by email and the internet so we had no idea what to expect. It was a Dulwich school - an international school housed in the same grounds as Suzhou high school, who shared facilities. We wanted the kids to get an international and chinese experience for the 6 weeks they were here. Immediately we arrived at the school we felt at home - the headmaster was very nice and the other teachers we met were all very welcoming. We saw round the kids classrooms and met the teachers (who were on a training day at the school) and then had an hour long fitting to buy their school uniforms and games kit. Again only £300 for all of their school gear - which seemed incredibly good value. The school felt homely and that the kids would settle in well. We bought their lunch smartcards and school bus passes (the school collected/dropped them from our apartment building each day - even Meggie went on the bus on her own! The first day of school arrived and the kids had a ball and loved the school from the first day. Sam had a small class of Koreans, Americans, HK - 12 in total - no more than 25% of any nationality in each class. Toby had 20 again with a mix of many nationalities and Megan had 4 - with a full-time American teacher and a chinese teacher just for their class! Suffice to say the kids all really learnt alot over the time they were at Dulwich - Sam got 98% in his Maths and was commended for an English essay written on Shakespeares Julius Caesar - and played for the Rugby team against Shanghai - winning the praise of the PE teacher for being a crunch tackler! Tobys English and Maths improved well - partly driven by his challenge to do well so he could go on a school outward bounds course at the end of the 6 weeks - which he passed to go on! And Megan with her almost private tuition learnt to write her name, her numbers, her letters, her shapes and her left from her right - incredible progress in such a short period - All the kids were very sad to leave as they had a great experience at Dulwich. They worked hard, played hard, learnt alot and made a load of friends from a range of nationalities. I think we can say mission accomplished in terms of a learning experience - and our huge thanks goes to Dulwich college and all the teachers who made a real effort with all of our kids despite only being there for 6 weeks - it is a real up and coming school that has only been going for 3 or 4 years - and anyone in the area should consider it as the best option around. Many of the expats we met said that one reason they did not want to go home was because the schooling at home was no where near as good as the education their kids got at Dulwich Suzhou!! Dulwich did so many things well - like Megan got a school report everyday on what she had achieved - the parents got a school manual with every teachers email and school schedule and activities at the school - including all the afternoon activities after school - all in one brochure. And the teachers were all really enthusiastic and immediately seemed to connect with the kids. The kids played in Rugby tournaments which they both enjoyed. We went to visit a school in Shanghai for the tournament which had some good quality rugby players. It was good to meet a few of the other parents who had lived in China for 2-14 years and all had interesting views on China and their experiences. I met a Dane, a Swede and a number of Americans from all over the US. One company was moving their manufacturing operations from China to Thailand which was an interesting move.

The kids made friends and had sleepovers within a few weeks of arriving at school. We felt very safe in Suzhou and the kids generally spent their times with friends in a secure living compound - which sounds horrible but actually they were nice expat housing where all the kids could play safely together. The kids were very sad to leave China and their friends - and did not want to leave - they had a really great time. Sam could not go on his school trip as he could only have gone for a few days before we left and it was a flight away but Toby's outward bounds course was only 2 hours drive away so he was able to go for 3 days and Ian was able to pick him and take him straight to Shanghai airport for our flight our of China. When Ian arrived Toby was being given 3 cheers by 50 kids, given a goodbye book which everyone had signed and he left with tears in his eyes! Sam was also given a goodbye card which his mates/friends had signed and Megan was thrown an English tea party by her friend Kate's mum at school on her last day. We were very pleased Dulwich worked out so well for all of the kids and that it really was a positive school experience. Maybe the home schooling had driven them to really appreciate the benefits of proper schooling again!!

Sheena and Ian cycled everywhere - Suzhou and the lake was made for cycling so it was biking heaven - flat, open roads with your own cycle lane - although the danger of cars turning right whenever they liked was a bit dangerous - or blue construction lorries that seemed to think they could drive through whatever colour light they want!!  made it slightly dangerous to cycle around. The lake was really nice to cycle around and cycling made us feel much more part of chinese life - especially when we cycled into the old town of Suzhou - inside the old city walls - where it was very crowded and only chinese people around. Again people looked at us as if we were really odd - which I guess we were.

Sheena and Ian set about organising the 10,000 photos and settled on creating albums via iphotos albums - we created 8 Albums - one each for each of the kids with photos of them and each of the places we visited and relevant text put in with each of them and country facts etc... and 5 other albums for each of the areas we had visited - USA/Canada; South America/South Pacific; New Zealand; Southern Asia; and China. Each album took ages to do but we managed to finish them before we left - quite an achievement we thought as there were 500-700 photos per album over 100 pages - so hopefully some of them will be at home delivered in the UK when we return!

We also had a load to prepare for returning home such as renting a house as the building work on our london house was not going to be finished as expected. Sorting out our return to the UK took up quite a bit of time. But we also enjoyed Suzhou when the weather was good - we cycled round the lake, saw how chinese lived, shopped for food which was a real experience in it s own right! and we both learnt chinese with Mary, our very patient teacher. We started very enthusiastically, 3 lessons a week from as soon as we arrived and Sheena in particular did well. But we quickly realised it was incredibly hard and in 6 weeks we would not really make a dent on the language. So we concentrated on key phrases and words that would help us shop, order food/drinks, talk to taxi drivers, staff at the hotel/Apartment block and generally getting around Suzhou where people generally spoke no English. We made progress and started to feel more comfortable that we could actually get around without staring blankly at each other when asking a chinese person where to go - but yet again we thanked our lucky stars that we are English and our forefathers had gone out to conquer the world and spread the word of English - and so many people we have met around the world speak English as their second or third language which has made it so much easier for us!! We realised in Mandarin that it is so hard to learn that unless the Chinese start to learn English (which they now are - all school kids from a young age have full-on English lessons and more Chinese speak English than Americans!)  China will find it hard to become the dominant world super-power because Mandarin is just so hard to learn more than the real basics of the language. Sheena and Ian also tried to get less unfit before returning to the UK. It is harder than we thought to keep fit whilst on the move touring around, especially if home schooling as well. So it was good we could stay in one place, use the gym each day and the swimming pool and generally get back to a reasonable level of fitness.

China kept being a fascinating place each experience we had. We have only scratched the surface in the 8 weeks we were here but there is so much more to learn about the country. We learnt alot about China during our tour around and that was the basics about the history and modern day China. Living in one place showed us more what modern China will be (or hopes to be) in the future. Suzhou is one of Chinas oldest and wealthiest towns and the new extensions around the old city to house millions of the new middle classes was an incredible sight to see - especially as many of them had not arrived yet.... We really had lucked out by selecting Suzhou out of the all of China!! So many times we were told by Chinese and expats that we had probably chosen one of the best 2 places to live in China - and we had such a great time there that we really agree with them. The time came to leave and despite this part being the last part of a trip of 9 months we still felt that we did not want to leave - we were all enjoying it - which after 9 months is a tribute in itself!

There are also a whole range of items which are incredibly interesting in themselves about China - in no particular order: The single child policy from 1980 means that there have been a whole generation and a bit of single children growing up with their parents and grandparents doting on them - I am not sure whether this will be an issue having 300m single children running the country in a few years time or not but i am pretty sure it  would be if this happened in the UK! The food we heard was eaten included baby rats as a speciality and dog, cat and rat as regular dishes - we don't think we ever had any of them! The chinese are just starting to live more normal (western) lives over the last 5-10 years - with cars and apartments - there is still a party when they buy their first car as it is a novel situation and a real achievement - so although in many ways China has caught up and is catching up - there is still some time to change the mentality of the people to their new lifestyle; The chinese don't commute generally - they live where they work. Although some people are moving to towns from farm areas to find work - general movement is less normal currently; Many drivers still drive their cars like mopeds - as they are still learning to drive! Chinese are very pragmatic people. It is a country where not everything works like most countries but generally they just get on with whatever they want to get done in a pragmatic way with the tools they have. Democracy would not work in this country - it would be a disaster. There seems to be a push on the government to change in areas where they will become unpopular and probably the thought of a mass protest or mass unhappiness in a large group of many millions drives the government to try to stay one step ahead. You hear of corruption but we never saw any - Is buying the right to have a second child for £5k corrupt or a fine. I don't know. Does having a successful shop license in Shanghai mean you have to keep open a less successful shop in Suzhou - as negotiated by the government - it is hearsay but who knows if it is true - there is usually fire where there is smoke but generally the system seems to work - people know their roles and they get on with it. The government seem to do their best and fight hard to ensure the 1.5bn people are fed with jobs where possible - China seem to have managed the financial crisis better than other countries - certainly than the UK! We felt safer in China than the US or the UK. We were told if the police found a gun they would probably use it on the owner which is a great deterrent. The chinese seemed to be a lovely race of people - very kind and helpful and smiley. The toilets were a bit of a shock, as was the spitting and the noisy eating of noodles and rice. But generally we felt China was a happening place with lots of drive to make things happen and to make money. And a country that has a range of things to change and improve but were charging off in the right direction. And that all made it a very interesting place to have been and to watch/return to in the future.

But now we were all ready to start the trip home, via an Easter holiday with friends in Borneo/Malaysia, before landing in the good old UK. There had been times when each of us had wanted to go home but we all went through to the end - and had enjoyed each part of it as each place brought exciting and interesting new experiences and challenges. Many of the people who we had met who had done alot of travelling told us before we left - you should start with cultures close to your own and gradually move away to cultures furthest from yours - that is really brilliant advice that we luckily followed. We planned Asia and lastly China as a result and really enjoyed them all. If we had landed in China straight from London I am not sure we would have had the same positive and interesting experiences!! 

Goodbye China - you were a real thrill and interesting experience for us. There is no doubt you will be the strongest power in the world in the near future - no doubt with a few more bumps along the way - but having visited we are sure you will get there. The driving force that you see in people in the country shows a hunger that we did not often see around the world - and this momentum seems as though it will drive China to the top of the world. We all want to come back - but we are not sure when or where - but we will be back.........

China - our tour Feb 2010.

China Feb 2010 - Tour of China - ancient and modern history:

(You may want to read China History first - see below between lined sections)

Beijing - capital city and 15m people. 

We arrived in Beijing to the real cold - snow, ice and below freezing - for the first time on our whole trip! We stopped on the way to the hotel from the airport to buy jumpers, coats, gloves and hats from a Chinese department store, which was an experience on its own! 

We were staying out of central Beijing at the Aman hotel at the summer palace, as it had been recommended to us by a friend and told it was one of the great hotels to stay at. And she was absolutely right - we landed and everything about the hotel was superb. A cinema, fab pool, gym, amazing decor, 3 restaurants, wine tasting, calligraphy, a fabulous suite of rooms and 271 staff just for us and 2 other couples!! the Hotel manager and the deputy manager were all really helpful and we just had a fabulous stay at this hotel. Easily voted top hotel of the West RTW family tour, by a mile! But we did not just come to Beijing for the hotel - although that would have been sufficient! 

We set off for the modern Beijing and found the Birds nest, Watercube and a strange shaped hotel built for the Olympics in 2008. We all remembered the Olympics as an amazing ceremony and event so we were all in awe of actually being there and seeing it with our own eyes. It is hard to believe that the chinese built the Birds Nest in only 16 months and inside it was impressive also and huge. 

In contrast that afternoon we went to see old Beijing, Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. Arriving in T square was awesome - it is huge and the history of the place ouses out. Home to 1 million soldiers/people (videos show it is very impressive) every October 1st since the creation of the peoples republic of china here on Oct 1st 1949, it is absolutely massive - and housed with Chairman Maos mausoleum on one side, the Government buildings on one side and the entrance to the Forbidden city and picture of Mao on the other. We moved on to the F city and went through layers of walls, bridges and doors of square cities within cities as we got to the centre where only the Emperor, the Eunuchs and the wives/Concubines lived prior to 1925, when the last Emperor Ping Yu was thrown out of the city. Sheena and Ian had both read the book "the Last Empress" so were very much looking forward to seeing the old city where the book was based. The actual city was fabulous buildings and surrounds but beautiful in its simplicity - and the actual living quarters of these important people were actually very bland and simple - not the gold and pomp you would see in other royal homes around the world. The garden in the centre was not pretty with lots of very ugly rocks and no greenery - a typical town garden. We then visited the Temple of Heaven with its whispering circular wall (you could hear whispers from one side to the other) - it was designed to recreate Heaven but in my view did not do it justice. We visited the Emperors circular sacrificial monument where if you stood on the very middle part your voice was increased to 10 times its loudness. All the steps, layered areas around this area were 9 steps! We saw the Feng Shui layout of the temples with a huge temple on top of the mountain in the North and a river in the south - Good Feng Shui in this area apparently. We then walked out of the north gate of the Forbidden city and saw a huge city wall and moat around - which looked very cool in the snow/ice. We then went to old beijing and were cycled around the real backstreets and went to visit a chinese family at their very old and small house and had chinese tea with them. they showed us around where they slept, cooked and sat - 3 families in a very small area but normal life for them. Very interesting to see in the back streets of Beijing. We then went to the drum tower, where in the old days the huge drums were sounded in the morning & evening to tell people the city walls of the central city were opening/closing. We saw the drum ceremony which was very impressive and this was the same one used to form the basis of the Olympics opening ceremony - and we saw the actual drums as well. We also saw 2 clocks 1000 yrs old - one that kept accurate time over 24 hours using balls and one where a man chimed cymbals every 15 mins - very impressive old technology still working today! An incredible mix of old and new in Beijing.

The other thing that hits you in Beijing is the huge number of people. Everyone talks about the plans for Beijing and how it needs to change in order to house  millions more people in the future and how the country need to work hard to plan the food production. And you can see it when you drive around - the massive building works and construction of apartment blocks everywhere. People will live in apartments here as that is the only way to fit everyone in! And you can see their point. There are parks built for old people and families - separately so that people have somewhere to go to get out - and the old people can mix together during the day when retired (which they do quite early). It will be interesting to see the impact of apartment living in the future! 

We then had a day out at the Great Wall of china in Janshanling - some distance from Beijing but you could see part of the wall from 400BC and most from 220 BC at this place. Well we had all looked forward to seeing the great Wall of China and it did not disappoint. The area we went was hugely impressive and we were so lucky it was a clear, bright but cold, winters day and we could see for 70km to the far mountain peaks where the Wall and turrets were built along the top of the mountain ranges. It was much wider than we thought and with pretty regular turrets along the Wall. Parts of it were built from 440 BC to protect Chinas individual kingdoms, prior to the first Emperor unifying China for the first time in 220BC. At this stage he ordered the Great Wall to be created - 8000km across the North of China to protect it from the north and mainly Mongolian invaders. This linked old parts and joined them up with the new parts built - an amazing building feat when you realise where parts of the wall are built! Anyway there are around 5500km still standing - and it is very impressive and awesome - that is all there is to say - and it is worth going that extra bit to see the more remote parts. We will be back for a few days long trek along the wall (and another excuse to recover afterwards at the Aman!!) sometime in the future!!

We spent a morning going round the Summer Palace. The Aman hotel is built in the grounds so we entered through a secret door and toured this amazing place which covers a huge area around a huge lake(frozen when we were there). Very beautifully done and a breath of fresh air (literally) from the very enclosed Forbidden City in the centre of Beijing. No wonder the Emperor and the court are rumoured to have wanted to stay longer at the end of each summer before returning to town. The temples, palaces, stairs, covered walkways were all very impressive and well decorated. The kids all dressed up as the Emperor and had a photo of the bows bowing to Megan as they do already and will continue to do so in life - so we have it on camera! We walked for hours around on a nice cold winters day. We found an area dedicated to different areas of China and we found a Suzhou area - old town on a canal - the canal was frozen so the kids did ice skating on sleds which was great fun.

Then it was time to move on from Beijing - it had so much interesting ancient and modern history that we really enjoyed that part. But the city also has the air of an old communist town with grey buildings, high rise blocks and oppressive controlled living - but you can see that is the old way and it is changing pretty fast to new china - an apartment/park life with lots of buzz/activity. Which is such a huge challenge for the government to convert people to a new lifestyle to fit them all in. When we went to the Wall we drove through a few hours of countryside and you saw alot of the old style China with run down farms and farmers but you also saw the incredibly well organised vegetable farms undercover to ensure growth all year round to ensure food for the nation. And it has so much history in and around Beijing both ancient and modern that it is a fascinating place to visit - really really interesting and a good place to start in China.

We moved on Xi'an, the ancient capital of China for over a thousand years, in central China. It was cold there too! But it is also where the real history of China from 2500 yrs ago and before are based! For example, they recently dug up a settlement from 6000BC whilst trying to build a tube line for a small city in China of just the 11m people! The settlement showed it to be a matriarchal society! The city wall of Xi'an was very impressive - 12-15m wide and high with turrets every 120m as the crossbow could fire 60m - so they could hit anyone climbing the wall. As it was Chinese New Year at the time when we were there, there were fabulous lights and silk displays everywhere - especially along the top of the 14km city wall (the size of Richmond Park) and there were fireworks everywhere, all day - and we mean everywhere - handheld by mad Chinese! but great fun to watch - especially the amazing hotel display at midnight on New Years Eve (yes we woke all the kids up to watch this once in a lifetime experience / snowing as well!) On NY evening we walked through town from our hotel to the city wall and the silk lanterns display - In Beijing, we had experienced people wanting photos with kids and wanting to touch Megans face and hair - not in a creepy way at all - just enthralled to see a kids with blonde hair and a cute girl. As China have a single child policy (although you can pay a fine for 2 of £5k - varies in different areas!) wherever we went people looked at our family with 3 children. On this walk through Xi'an in the evening we were the only westerners around walking through the crowds out enjoying New years Eve and with 3 blonde kids and megan in a pink - we probably were a bit odd - but we certainly attracted a bit of attention. And only one person in the hundreds we passed actually spoke English - so we really felt as though we were enjoying the New Year in true Chinese style!

The 2 best parts of Xi'an were day trips we did from the city. One was to the Huashan mountains - a beautiful dangerous mountain range of 4 peaks in one of Chinas few national parks where chinese go as couples to experience a bit of danger (Yes you can climb on ledges holding a chain!) and they lock padlocks around the peaks to signify their love etc.... We went up by cable car and it was very steep - all huge granite rocks formed 200m years ago (very like the rocks/mountains in Yosemite national park) but vertical 2km straight up - apparently this mountain range was the inspiration of the Avatar floating mountains but that may just be Chinese promotion! 

The second trip we did was to the Terracota Warriors - which were truly unbelievable - I mean truly unbelievable - if someone had told me they were made 20 years ago to promote tourism for the area then that would be more understandable! But no they were built in 220BC by 7000 soldiers of Chinas first Emperor who unified China at this time. (See history below!) He also built an underground palace nearby apparently but this has not been opened because it has a Mercury lake to protect it and also it is built so that if you open it wrongly it will collapse! Anyway both of these items were the dream of the first Emperor - who sounds an incredible guy, achieved so much and set China on its course for thousands of years after. But he also tried to be immortal, but died from the immortality pills he was taking - but he also built an army and a palace to come back to in his afterlife if he ever got there! The army to protect him and the Palace to live in!

So the Warriors - 8000 of them (1/km of Great Wall - not sure if true!), 40,000 weapons, all made of local clay which can stand thousands of years and earthquakes as it is so strong. Generals, archers, chariots soldiers all lined up facing the gate of the exit of the pit. Amazing site to see all of these in pit 1 - all were painted but the paint disappeared within days when the air got to them. In the lines of soldiers there were gaps where the wooden chariots had disintegrated. They had recreated 2 chariots from 1500 pieces of Terracotta - said to be the emperors and they were amazing! We met the farmer who had found the site when he was digging for a well in the 1970's - a lovely old farmer who signed our book. There were swords found with chromium plating that was only invented in Germany in 1937! The detail on the faces and shoes was incredible - all the soldiers were slightly different suggesting that each soldier had been independently copied from an original soldier!! All-in-all it was amazing to see and one of the real ancient sites of china - with so much more to find out and learn about the ancient times. We so loved the Warriors that we managed to visit the factory where the new warriors for the museum are made and managed to buy a couple of them and ship them back to the UK - mad but they do look amazing!

After the ancient capital Xi'an we flew south to Guilin, which was warmer, countryside and had very beautiful scenery with limestone mountains all down the River Li and the surrounding area. Now we have seen a few of this mountain type on our travels so we did not appreciate it as much as we should but these were the first fresh water Limestone mountains we had seen. We did however see the best limestone cave we had seen on our trip - it was amazing with huge caverns and reflective water pools - and some tortoises which were apparently up to 1500 yrs old!! That night we saw a very exciting and impressive chinese acrobatic show which we thought would have been a huge success in the west end of London! We did a river cruise down the River Li (and we were the only westerners on board!) from Guilin to Yangshuo - a little town in the country 3 hrs downriver. It was a town in beautiful country surroundings on the river. We saw false teeth being sold but weren't sure how false they were as we were shooed away when trying to take a picture. We went Cormorant fishing - which we watched at night as the floodlit boat shows the cormorants diving and catching the fish in front of our eyes. At £200 a trained Cormorant the fisherman cannot really make a life from it anymore but earns more showing the tourists - but we caught a basket of fish. We walked through the farming countryside and saw water buffalo being watered by the local farmers in the river and crops being grown by locals in allotments under the limestone mountains. 

We also cycled into the country and visit an old lady in her 300-yr old house. The countryside was very interesting - pretty run down and very old style farming. The house we saw got water from a well, made Tofu from a stone grinder, had wood fire heating and cooking facilities and was very cold in winter. The old lady was really lovely and gave the kids oranges and local indigenous fruits from underground! She was descended from a famous general 300 yrs ago and still lived in his retirement house - which was a tough life - and that was a good life around here. We cycled through villages where the kids played table tennis on doors with bits of wood as bats. And we went for a Bamboo raft ride down the river - which were punted along by local farmers who had to give much of their revenue to the government in tax for the privilege of entertaining tourists!

We saw a show at night with the limestone mountains behind lit up and a lake before us. It was directed by the same director who did the opening and closing ceremony of the Olympics and this was as good. 700 actors on a lake - typically grandiose and hugely impressive - we were very glad we all went to see it - a real one-off.

But the best thing that happened here was the the boys did Kong Fu lessons for 2 days with a master. They were taught a routine, helped to train by a Dutch master who had lived in monasteries over the last 10 years and studied Kong Fu. Whilst the boys learnt a routine of kong Fu well - they did not learn the discipline we wanted them to learn in life from the experience!! 

After a busy schedule we set off to Longji mountains - a long drive from Yangshuo - up some pretty dodgy and steep roads. Longji is famous for its amazing terraced rice fields and we were not sure we were going to be that impressed. How wrong were we - nestled at the top of a mountain valley and carved over hundreds of years, it was a beautifully tranquil place to go. No cars - you walked up or were portered up as Megan and Toby were. It was a really lovely place, with the most basic lifestyle and hotels in the area! The ladies all grew their hair and never cut it - so they all had hair to their feet. A very unique place to visit and very glad we went. We then had a long drive back to Guilin to catch the plane to Shanghai - to go on to Suzhou by car - a town we were going to live in for 6 weeks and the kids were going to school.

We had done a great deal of the best bits and most interesting bits of China on our tour. We had seen and done an incredible amount in only a few weeks. We realised how much more to China there is than we westerners see from our side of the world - and what an interesting, challenging and hugely historical place it is. And as the driving force of Asia and the world increasingly, what an insight we had gained into life in china - and we have not really touched the surface. We got on the plane very pleased with what we had seen and learnt and looking forward to learning and experiencing more of China.

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CHINA FACTS - a few on the History

1. First settlers in China from 8000BC was a matriarchal society. 6000BC settlement found in Xi’an, ancient capital of China from 221BC. Prior to this, it was split into different kingdoms.

2. In 221BC the First Chinese Emperor unified China - his name was Qin Shi Huang of the Qin dynasty. He became king at 13, took control of army at 22 and then unified China in 221BC at the age of 37 after numerous battles. He created a single coin currency; a common language; a single measurement called Chi Cun (3 in 1 metre); standardised the width of the roads so all chariots could move freely around; ordered 8000kms of Great Wall of China to be built/joined up from parts built as far back as 440BC; buried scholars alive and burnt all books except on agriculture, medicine & superstition; ordered his tomb to be built at the Terracotta Warriors & a rumoured Underground Palace with a mercury river around it that apparently is built to collapse if wrongly opened. Achieved so much but died around 55. He was poisoned by immortality pills he was taking. He was the man who really set China on its course of world power & influence as China was mainly a unified country from then on.

3. Beijing is China’s capital city since 14th Century - prior to that it was Xi’an from 221BC.

4. Silk route started in 1st Century - Xi’an was start in Asia - Rome was the end in Europe.

5. There were 408 Unified Emperors and a total of 829 Kings and Emperors in Chinas history.

6. Last Emperor was Qing Pu Yi - Emperor from 3, dethroned 1911 at 8, left Forbidden city in 1925, moved back to home territory Manchuria where he helped Japanese launch attack against China. After several prison spells, he died as a gardener living in Beijing in 1969.

CHINA FACTS - a few on Modern day

1. China has worlds largest population 1.5bn people; Is worlds third biggest land mass 9.6m sqkm (at 140 people per); is currently the worlds 2nd largest economy & catching the USA fast! 

2. Main language is a common Mandarin language. 10 Yuan (RMB/Quai) = £1. The cities are huge. Beijing 13m, Shanghai 17m, Suzhou 5m & the largest city in the world Chongqing 35m+ people.

3. China a Communist country with single powerful government who control country. Westerners, until they come here, find it hard to understand how that works - but when here you quickly realise it couldn’t happen any other way & quickly conclude Democracy in China wouldn’t work & the balance with capitalism created is unique in the world. Whilst not perfect (which country is?) it works. Government seem to have 3 key objectives: A. Ensure there is enough food to feed 1.5bn; B. To ensure there are enough jobs; C. Make China self-sufficient. Anything & everything else is secondary. World currency exchange rates, climate change etc... whilst China is sensitive to that, really not having 10% unemployment (150m!) on the streets upset is the primary objective!

4. China changed in 1911, when the Emperor was thrown out. After lots of infighting, civil war & war with Japan, Chairman Mao created the Peoples Republic of China on Oct 1st 1949. He was really the 2nd great liberator of the Chinese people. Although he achieved so much, he also oversaw the “Great Leap Forward which created the Great Famine 1959-62”, “The cultural revolution in 1966-76”. Chairman Mao died in 1976 and is in a mausoleum in Tiananmen Square.

5. Deng Xiaoping opened up China to the world & all leaders since have followed, creating the unique and ever growing power that China is today..... and getting more powerful everyday...... 

6. The single child policy is probably the most impactful decision on Chinese everyday life - a brilliant invention to keep the population around a manageable level and necessary. But it does impact Grandparents and there are mainly "only children" who are very well attended to - with no brothers or sisters. Although they play with cousins and friends - will this generation of single children impact China or will it be a non-issue - no-one really knows. 

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Japan - so courteous and respectful.

Japan tour - 2 weeks end Jan/early Feb.

We arrived in Japan having really enjoyed the warmer and less developed southern Asia, somewhat nervous about hitting cold weather for the first time on our travels – the northern hemisphere winter. Having just been in 35-40 degrees it was going to be a shock. And it hit us immediately we left the airport building! We were met by a guide to help us onto the bus via the Japanese JR rail office to pick up our JR national rail pass and 14 sets of different tickets which we were taken through one by one and had a very briefing on the ins and outs of the Japanese rail system and how to get around on your own with loads of bags and young kids!! We then got on a bus having queued up in row 3 then 2 and then 1 as the buses came in. We were on the bus for nearly 2 hours from the airport to our hotel. Narita airport is 70km from Tokyo downtown!

We were staying at the Hilton Tokyo – I am not quite sure why – it was quite a way from anywhere and was not particularly nice but fine/OK. The objective of Tokyo was to find out what Tokyo was like compared to London and to see and maybe buy a robot – Toby has been saving up for 2 years to buy a robot (we think as a slave - Which we were all in favour of!). Our guide – Katsumi arrived and off we went on the Tokyo tube and train system around the city. First stop the main temple – Buddhist – down a long shopping open air arcade full of Japanese goods – all in Japanese. We tried some sweets which had sweet potato paste in – which the Japanese adore but we did not like at all! We shook our sticks in the temple to pick out our numbers and our luck charts – Toby and Megan got very good luck – the rest of us just good luck! We saw old Japanese streets, Kimonos and thick clog style flip-flops in the shops – which apparently few people wear these days! We saw a special Japanese city garden and then went on a boat trip (a bit like the Thames!) but we saw old Japanese mixed in with big city life and high-rise residential and commercial blocks. We had hot drinks from the vending machine in the street – café au lait – in a can and it wasn’t bad at all – shame I had to put coins in the machine rather than pay for it with my mobile phone (as others were including paying for their tube tickets!) It was just another day in the developed Japanese world. We walked around the Imperial Palace Park where the black Pine trees (similar to the trees in Carmel/Monterey!) get wrapped in winter and individually protected against the snow and where the duck catching by the Emperor with nets, not guns, all took place. We then went to the “Tea House” and Katsumi kindly took us through the Tea ritual kneeling on Tatami mats. The tea (Green tea) was revolting but the ritual very calming. We moved on to the National Museum where we had a Japanese picnic lunch outside (cold but sunny so it was quick) of sushi, Seaweed sandwiches and rice – all eaten with chopsticks – even Meggie). We had a history tour and lesson around the museum which had Shogun outfits, swords from 600 and each century since then and huge amounts of pottery and historic pictures.

The history lesson covered these key points:

·      Japan started 2650 yrs ago when the 1^st Emperor was named, being the son of God. We are now on Emperor 125 and Japan is the only country in the world to have an Emperor. And the only person in the world that the Queen would bow to!

·      The Indigenous Japanese were actually like the Inuit Indians – which makes sense cos when Laurasia was together (200m yrs ago) Japan and Alaska would have joined. The first Japanese were actually from Korea (and before that from ancient China) although Japanese and korean have no similarities whatsoever.

·      The original capital in 700 AD was Nara until 1603 when it moved to Kyoto during the Edo period. Until 1603 the Emperors had ruled since the first one, although the first Shogun government was in 1162 the Emperor still ruled. In 1603 the Shoguns took over and ruled the country – there was only one Shogun although there were regional shoguns who had their power bases and they were called Daimyo’s. The Emperor was kept in the Kyoto Imperial Palace and had no power other than their title – so effectively they were in exile over this period. The Shoguns ruled for 265 yrs or so until 1868. At this time America sent 4 Black ships to help persuade the then Shogun to give up power back to the Emperor and to open up the country to trade and development – as a closed country Japan had fallen very behind – hard to believe today but could explain part of its driving force! The capital was moved to Tokyo (previously called Edo) from Kyoto, in around 1868 when the Edo period ended. The Emperors have ruled ever since with a prime minister who holds all the real power – similar to the UK’s Queen and Prime Minister. But the main thing is Japan has been democratic ever since 1868.

·      The structure of society was Emperor (1), Shogun (1), Daimyo (250~ in Japan), Samurai, Ninja, Farmers and commercial workers.

·      Each Japanese person eats (?800kg) of Rice per year – and all the Rice eaten gets grown in japan – but the Rice farmers are poor and all over 65 yrs old – none of the young are interested in becoming Rice farmers as the prices are controlled to be kept low. The Prime minister harvests an acre of rice (as light as snow) each yr and it is televised!

·      The average age of a Japanese woman is 88 and men is 85 – due to the healthy food they all eat.

·      At the end of the 2^nd world war as a condition of surrender the Japanese Emperor had to go on the Radio and announce that he was not the “Son of God” and that Japan had surrendered although apparently it sounded a bit like “The war has not gone well for us” was as much admission as the Emperor could muster.

We travelled around via a very efficient and actually quite easy to follow tube and train system in Japan. Your JR pass is invaluable and gets you onto all trains as part of it – except the super fast bullet train – Nimoko – although no-one can explain why? We ended up in Electric city, which was the other end of the historical spectrum from all the J history! Ian remembered Electric city as being so much more advanced than the products in Europe – but actually apart from a few twisting DoCoMo phones there was not really anything that we have not see in Europe. We could not find any robots in the normal electronic shops. Katsumi had really looked after us incredibly well and was an incredibly nice guy – very helpful and friendly. And his English was very good that we learned a lot from him about Tokyo. We look forward to welcoming Katsumi in the UK when he takes the tours there! We ended up back at our hotel and set out insearch of a safe family Japanese meal and found it Teppanyaki – absolutely delicious but the shock of the cost in Japan suddenly hit us – we had eaten for a week in southern Asia for the price of our first meal in Japan!

The next day we were on our own with Ian guiding us on the Tokyo railway system – no chance!! We set off in search of robots having done some research overnight via the hotel Concierge. We set off on a 3 connecting train and then a tram treck across the city to the Museum of Modern Science at the Tokyo educational park. This basically has all the new things that Japan is developing which are not all out there yet. The first floor was Food Science – where we learnt about Euglena, a bacteria being developed to create food pills for when food supplies run short in the world; we learnt about the eating habits of the worlds nations where the USA eats the most Kcals per person per year and the Japanese eat the least! And how 1bn of the worlds 6.8bn people are in the starvation zone; and what McDonalds process is to produce a burger in 50 secs from customer order.

The next floor was robots – finally we had hit robots. There was a great demo of how the internet worked – helped us all – we had robots that went into firezones to help people get out. Robots that picked up on peoples moods and played the right music. And then we had “Asimo” a real person Robot developed by Honda. Asimo walked, waved, talked, danced, ran and answered questions and reacted to being asked to dance etc…. All absolutely awe-inspiring. We had a 30 minute demonstration and the whole audience was blown away. I have no idea how much Asimo cost but it seems Honda are nearly there on a marketable product. We then saw a huge globe 30m in diameter – with the world moving around on the TV style surface – again an amazing site. There were some other rockets and stuff about how the human race could conquer the outer galaxies in the future but we decided Asimo had really done our heads and so we set off for the Sony building and the Apple store in downtown Tokyo Ginza shopping district (like New Bond St) . We had visited the Sony Building in New York last July and seen a wide range of amazing products and some robots – the true home of Sony in Tokyo – had one robot but some amazingly thin 3mm TV’s, cool 3D and internet TV’s already loaded with Youtube (sadly not yet 123webtv!!) There was a small dancing robot called Rolly that dances to the MP3 music it was playing and we saw a cool TV wall to put in our basement (having saved up!!) when it is finished! But sadly no other robots. Then on to Apple and we were taken around by Lev, an Estonian Japanese speaker, who helped show Sam that Japans Apple Macbook laptop was the cheapest in Japan versus China and the Uk and that he really needed to buy it now! Bearing in mind he saved nearly £200 it was a very good deal – thanks Lev (Sam is now really enjoying it and Apple have yet again showed what amazing products they make!!) (We now have 11 Apple products with us – 2xiphone, 1 broken iphone that works as an itouch, 1 itouch, 5 ipods, 1 Macbook Air & now 1 Macbook laptop! We could not have travelled around the world without them – they are all invaluable – I used to rile my friends for being Mac bores ad now I have turned into one!!). I am writing this on a bullet train from Hiroshima to Tokyo currently at 300kmph which is a good match for “fabulous product of all time award!” with Apples products.

We then went to find the robot shop we had been recommended in Electric City. Our taxi dropped us in the backroads of Electric city and we searched for the robot shop – eventually a kind Japanese lady took us all a few blocks and showed us up the 4 floors of stairs to the robot shop. How disappointing – the robots were not impressive – there was a moving seal at £3.5k and a poor cousin of Asimo at a few grand but none of them talked or moved other than walking and so our robot hunt for Toby ended – he made the brave decision not to waste his money on these robots and we left Electric city with Toby having his money left in his pocket!

We left the next day wishing we had had another day in Tokyo as we had been quite rushed doing the things we wanted to do. (Audley please note another day would have been good). We had mastered the Tokyo train system and got around quite easily and now it was time to learn about the Shinkansen Bullet train as we caught one to Kyoto.

It was an incredibly fast and smooth journey – easy. The only problem was that we got on an earlier train and were sitting in someone elses reserve seats and so were told off by the ticket collector. We got to our hotel The Granvia, right in the station, where we were due to stay for 6 nights and had to wait 3 hours before we were allowed to check-in. So we went to have lunch and check out the pool – no kids allowed in the pool!! The rooms we were given were at the other end of the hotel from each other (rather than interconnecting which all our other hotel rooms had been!) We were offered disabled rooms next to each other as an alternative which we declined - So we decided to move hotels as it clearly was not going to work being at this customer focussed family hotel for 6 nights!! The manager came out, having spoken to the travel agent and offered us one night in their executive suite – all in one room and not very executive – but a kind gesture. We stayed one night and were very glad we had made the decision to move as they were rules for everything it seemed – and that was just for Ian 7 Sheena – you can’t take your coffee their, you need to do this or that – you cannot share a table if you want the buffet meal versus a la carte!! The next day we thankfully left the “Rule, rules, rules” hotel glad we had escaped and wondered how on earth this hotel Granvia had a reputation for quality and 5-star service!

We moved to the Westin Myoko in Kyoto, where the staff were so helpful and friendly – the kids could swim in the pool and we could use the gym – and the food was pretty good too! We met our Kyoto guide – a great fun lady called Mie who taught us about Kyoto and kept the kids amused at the same time – and started off on the Kyoto tube – each station has its own dedicated colour and music clip – if you put the music clips together from each station then each tube line has its own famous tune – nice touch! We visited the Nijo castle first – having visited the Ninja and Samurai shop and bought Ninja throwing stars and nearly an ancient Japanese sword from the 900’s but we could not work out how or whether we could get it back to the UK. Nijo castle was built around 1603 by the first Shogun who ruled at that time. He built it in Kyoto because his main enemy was the Daimyo of the area and he thought this castle would help him keep control and also control of the Emperor who lived in the nearby Imperial Palace – and as the Emperor had just been thrown out of Japan the Shogun was not sure what games the Emperor might be up to – or even teaming up with his biggest adversary. The castle was beautiful classical old Japanese style – very minimalist and cool – moats, big walls and Japanese Gardens. And best of all, to support the story above about his fears locally, he had all the floors in the corridors squeak when you walked so that he could hear his enemies coming at night!! The rooms inside were simple and Tatami mats everywhere – the waiting rooms for the least respected guests had tigers on the walls (which weren’t in Japan in 1600’s) to intimidate their guests (Sounds like a Sky waiting room!). A great first castle example to see. The Shogun had many concubines – when a new one was introduced to the Shogun they had to bring him a cup of tea – if he did not like the new concubine he said – “You are not my cup of tea!” Apparently that is where the saying came from.

We then went to see an ultra expensive Kimono manufacturer where they were all made by hand and cost £20-30k each – Elton John had his kimono made there for one of his shows. Megan and Sheena both tried one on – a very interesting stop. We then went to a Shinto shrine – one with 10,000 gates – all orange and bought by local businesses to offer support for the gods. We drew on the wooden foxes and left our best wishes for the gods in the now normal way as we did at Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples. We rang the bell, clapped twice, bowed twice and said our prayer before throwing money into the collection bin; having of course washed our heads at the entrance before we came in with the holy water. Shinto is the religion of supporting your Emperor or any other god you would like to – but basically it says be good and do to others what you would have done to yourself. Buddhism is similar – it is like a mirror – so it sort of says I will help you where I can and give guidance but basically I am a real person like you, and so together we will help ensure you have as happy and as fruitful life as possible – but mainly it is up to you to do that – by being kind and helpful.

We have visited a lot of temples/Shrines in Asia – Hindu, Buddhist and Shinto – and the Japanese ones were definitely the simplest, purest form of temple. No real jewels and fancy stuff – just pure simple religion – and a few different types if you want it, when you want it. No pressure. Quite refreshing and as a result 60% are Buddhist and 40% Shintoists – so quite a few practice a couple – just to make sure the rice grows well!

We then were handed over from Mie to a guy called Duncan – who was going to show us the Geisha girl circuit and explain what it was all about. We met a true Brit who turned out to be from Hertfordshire originally, brought up in the next door village to Ian – what a small small world!! He had a Japanese mother and had studied Japanese and Chinese at Uni and had decided to try his luck in japan – had met another UK lady with a Japanese father – had got married and were a European couple living in Japan. (Japan does not have an immigration problem as to move to japan is really hard – you need to learn Japanese, eat Japanese food which is not easy but when you get through that the people are incredibly kind and friendly to live with apparently and it really is a great place to bring up kids!) Anyway Duncan was a real character and fascinated us with his stories of japan and Geisha girls. Speaking true fluent English we could ask all the difficult questions and understand his answers or dig deeper and Duncan really helped our understanding of Japan as he answered all the questions no-one else had understood! We then had a great tour of the Geisha district, seeing many Geisha girls.

About the Geisha girls - only 70 left - train apprentice at 15 for 7 yrs until 22 - then fully trained - go on until get married when they have to retire. Kyoto is only training place in japan - Geisha girls leave home to live with a new mum who invest £200k in them over the training period buying Kimonos at £20k each and they need one a month. Geisha girls are practiced in Japanese arts - caligraphy, flower arranging, poetry recital, Reading, singing and dancing. They earn money from entertaining in Tea houses – which cost £500 odd per person for a whole 7 course dinner etc... - which are private venues for members (men and women) - very discrete - the Panasonic Sanyo merger was done in Tea Houses but no-one leaked it - also invasion of Pearl Harbour was planned in Kyoto too. The Geisha girls get paid by the stick (incense burning stick at 50 minutes per stick) and at the end of the month they get a payment for the amount of sticks they have earned. Very elegant and unique skill – only 70 people in the world can do it.

The next day we saw a Kendo demo and Tai Chi competition locally - Tai chi very slow and considered - great balance. We saw Tai Chi with swords and all great balance as well - Kendo was bamboo sticks fighting with masks - like fencing but more aggressive - aim is to hit the opposition on the top of the head - then you win - young guys late teens/early twenties. They came over and showed us what it was and allowed us to have a go - very polite and friendly.

The next day we went to Nara - original capital for 1000 yrs - visited old Buddhist temple and Pagoda in Nara park grounds - very wet and cold but interesting still - huge Buddha and statues - deer wandering around - apparently are "messengers from god" and feeding them biscuits was interesting as they were quite feisty. Nara not as interesting as we thought it would be but we had no guide (other than Ian!) and we thought the town of Nara actually very boring and grey! (Sorry).

The next day we had booked to go to the Imperial Palace in Kyoto on an English speaking tour. The Palace was quite impressive and beautifully built in Japanese style - not used any more - it was used for around 1000 yrs as the Emperors home from 764 to 1868 when the Edo period finished, the emperor returned to power from the Shogun era and the capital was moved to Edo, which was immediately renamed as Tokyo (a play on Kyoto letters clearly!). We could not go in the palace but we saw the waiting rooms for the emperor and where the emperor used to live. The gardens were very beautiful and there is still one room which is used by the visiting Emperor when he comes - he comes on via one of 6 gates (only for the Emperor) and parks his car outside (no horse drawn carriages here anymore!) and the room had a mix of Japanese and western furniture. The gardens were very beautiful and serene - depicting the sea, mountains and islands as usual. The most interesting thing was the roofs of layered cypress tree bark, held together with bamboo nails - looked very good (until they became mouldy 25 yrs later). The biggest worry of the time was fire - all the buildings were of wood and joined together - so you could see why this was so. The kitchen was a completely separate building so as not to start anything.

We then went to visit something at the other end of the spectrum - Japans version of Universal studios - where Japanese action and Ninja movies had been made for 50 yrs or so. The 3D dinosaur movie was very good and the stage show of a typical Ninja/Samurai/Shogun swordfight - which Megan participated in and slayed the nasty Ninja on stage on her own with a Japanese Samurai sword!!! We saw Ninjas and were able to throw the Ninja stars at targets and hold swords and see lots of typical settings from Old Japan - all-in-all quite a fun afternoon out - and better than it's billing from reviews online!! It is also probably the place where the Power Rangers ideas were created !!

We did a day visit to Himeji castle – one of the top 3 Shogun castles and also home to the Honda clan is years gone by. It was very impressive and had an enormous 6 storey keep at the top of the castle which we climbed up. There was no furniture in the castle or the grounds just a few Shogun/Samurai outfits and swords. There was a copy of a legal contract were the Shogun had borrowed 2000 Koto which was repayable over 5 yrs at an interest rate of 1%! The castle was in great Nick but they had not made the most of the stories and the history of what actually happened which was a shame. We then went to the zoo on site which had a great array of animals like Polar Bears, Sea lions, Bears, Elephants and tigers but the animals had little space and so we left early.

It was then time to leave the Westin and Kyoto – we had done a lot of day trips from there by bullet and local JR train and seen a lot. It was time to visit Hiroshima for the day on the way to Miyajima island. Well H was very interesting. We visited the A-dome, the last remaining building within 2km of the blast. 140,000 people died from the Atomic bomb. The Japanese did the Rememberance museum and the history in the national museum of Peace with such class – as you would expect in Japan – Courteous and respectful like the people. It was all done as “We want this episode to be a lesson to all people that peace is more important than anything else and there is a flame burning which will burn until no Nuclear weapons are left in this world” – They are using the episode to tell everyone Peace is best. A great example of how it should be done. We visited the exact place where the A bomb exploded 580m above the ground causing heat of 4ooo degrees Centigrade and devastating everything above ground for a 2km radius – all a very good lesson – especially good history lesson for the boys.

We continued on South to one of Japans southern most islands - Miyajima island – a sacred island which has the oldest Shinto Shrine from 560 – 550 years before Angkor Wat. The Shrine was built on the sea when tide in – unique Shrine gate which you can just walk to at low tide and stands in the water 30m high when tide in. We walked to the highest point of the island (just smaller than Rarotonga) at Mt Misen 500m Above-sea-level – a very hard 3km walk up & 3km down! All good exercise and great views on a lovely sunny cold day. We stayed for 2 nights in a proper  Japanese hotel – full Japanese food for Breakfast and dinner – Fish entrails, Fish liver etc….. We found the dinners great but could not get to grips with dried fish and fish entrails for breakfast!! The boys bought Samurai swords and we walked around the lovely old really Japanese old town. A lovely place to visit – we even had a couple of Japanese baths! It was a really nice end to our Japanese trip to stay in true Japanese normality – Japanese Tatami mats to sleep on, eat on with the low table and chairs with no legs at the Ryokan – and a maid to serve you your food.

We left Miyajima for a long days travel back to Tokyo to catch our plane to Beijing the following day – our travel day back to Tokyo consisted of  1 ferry – 4 trains plus interconnections between local and national bullet trains – all quite hard work but the Japanese yet again incredibly helpful.

It is difficult to summarise Japan Sand our 2-week trip here. We have really enjoyed it – we thought the history would be a lot more interesting than it was 8/10 instead of 10/10 (China is the most historical country in Asia so hopefully we will get it there!). Old Japan and Japanese buildings were incredibly cool and awe-inspiring – new Japan appeared grey and dark – with not very much interesting architecture outside of Temples and shrines. Tokyo and the rest of Japan felt to us like London and the UK – very similar but with Japanese people and language – so we did immediately feel at home. We felt safer here than in London and yet again our trip has been made enjoyable by the guides and other people we have met who have been so incredibly helpful and friendly – and courteous and respectful. It seems a great place to live if you can master the language and can live in smaller spaces than most places in the world. It was nice for Sheena to feel tall for a change as well. So again we move on sad to be leaving – but now getting a bit travel weary and a bit homesick. But our last part of the trip is almost the most interesting China for 2 weeks travelling around and then 6 weeks living in Suzhou near Shanghai – where the kids go to school. We are looking forward to our last country – it is the big one – the one which could become the dominant player in the world that we need to help our kids learn about and help them understand for the future to be a brighter place…….but at the moment it is bloody freezing there and we have no clothes for the really cold so we will be shopping as soon as we land in Beijing tomorrow……!!

Our week in Thailand - hot or what!

We flew to Bangkok and then rushed and nearly missed our connecting flight to Phuket despite it being the same seats on the same plane – but we had to clear customs, recheck in and run 2km back to our seat – why we had to do all this to get back in the same seat we are not sure??

We were taken straight to the boat and met the owner Sean, captain Jod and Tom, who had helped arrange the boat charter. We agreed the route around the Gulf of Thailand and the islands off Phuket for the week we had, and where to moor each night etc…. We had booked a Catamaran called Escape Artist, which was around 55ft, had 4 small cabins and had lots of deck space. We met Bi, the boatman/mechanic and Toon, the cook, and off we went. We were sailing around the huge limestone mountains (created through plates forcing the limestone from the bottom of the sea into these amazing shapes) that rise out of the water near Phuket Island and 50km around. There are literally hundreds of islands and very like Halong bay, which we had visited in Vietnam. The difference is that some of these islands are a little bigger and seem to have been more weathered and eroded into a whole range of different shapes.

And they include some famous islands where movies have been made. James Bond island with its huge slab of rock leaning against another mountain and its unique V-shaped island jutting out of the bay – all as per “the man with the Golden gun”. We also visited Phi-Phi islands. Phi Phi Don had been badly hit by the tsunami 6 years ago and had now been completely rebuilt – and overbuilt and now it is completely ruined, very touristy and busy. Ian had visited 20 years ago and stayed in one of a few huts on the beach with a few stalls – this quaintness had all gone – it was vey soul destroying that us humans now really do get everywhere – and in huge numbers!! We had the weirdest experience of our trip to date when we had "doctor fish" eat our feet of dead skin - the tickliest experience and very wierd - but they certainly did a good job for us all!

We then visited Phi Phi Le – where we saw a place on the rocks where they collect spit from the birds and their nests – for birds nest soup! We visited on the tender an amazing huge lagoon with vertical mountains on each side and only waist deep most of the time. And finally we moored up near Maya Bay which had an amazing beach – and this was where the movie “The Beach” was shot. We landed on all the islands with the tender boat and swam from the shore and wandered the islands where we could. Each night we moored at a different bay or island, swam and snorkeled from the boat. The boys learnt to fish with lines and catch a few fish. We saw turtles and razor fish, poisonous to touch. We wakeboarded with Sean, the owner of the boat, the night before we left and both the boys did well and avoided the Jellyfish. And on the last night saw the truly incredible sunset off the south side of Phuket island whilst having a glass or two!

The crew were really good as a team. The captain Jod was very friendly, ran the boat calmly and was co-operative on the options. Bi was so helpful on getting us to shore and helping with the kayak and fishing etc…. And Toon, the lady cook, served us excellent food – always Thai with a little western food for the kids. The crew really made the trip relaxing and enjoyable. The boat was perfect for the job. As it was hot we had plenty of deck space to sleep at night – as the cabins were not sleepable in due to the heat and were relatively cramped!! There was shade on top for sitting on during the heat of the day. And luckily, plenty of places to dive and jump off into the warm water.

So we really did live outside on the boat during the day, in the water every half an hour to cool off and slept outside on the netting or deck areas between the 2 hulls. No mosquitoes – lovely. We visited the beaches and islands that we were moored near. Most if not all were very busy during the day. We went to visit them before or after the visitors were there and tried to steer clear of the crowds, which we mostly succeeded in. We were glad we were not on land as it seemed incredibly busy whenever we landed on an island – thousands of people everywhere.  The islands and the beaches were very beautiful and with the lovely warm weather and the outdoor life we all had a great time. Sheena was the only one who wanted to leave the boat early to get away from the heat but otherwise it was a really good and enjoyable break for us all – a break from the weeks of travelling around that we had all done and from the next stage of the travelling around in Japan and China.

We were sad to leave the boat – the crew had made our stay great and the thought of hitting the cold weather soon was worrying all of us after nearly 7 months in the sun or at least relatively warm weather!

We flew off to Bangkok early in the morning and arrived at the fabulous Four Seasons Hotel where my great friends David and Nuala had been married 20 years ago. A great hotel for anyone staying in Bangkok. We had a guide – Dang – for the day and travelled by train/boat/Tuctuc around Bangkok to see the Grand palace and main temples nearby. Despite having seen many, many temples these were quite interesting mainly because they were Buddhist and had much decoration in the form of Gold and jewels. Travelling around Bangkok versus Sheena and Ians trips 20 years ago, showed that Thailand had really developed and was a much more modern and clean city than we remembered. Because we had our guide we were able to see the old Bangkok as well and see the exciting parts, which are how we remember Bangkok.

Thailand is clearly a leading country of the southern Asia area. More developed than the rest and having never been taken over and controlled by anyone else – it feels assured of its position and the people are friendly and helpful – and we again felt very safe. With 66m people – 10m of which are in Bangkok - there are lots of Thais we did not meet and areas such as Chiang Mai and Koh Samui that we would like to do again one day. But Bangkok was a nice stopover and we flew on to Tokyo Japan after a long weekend to find out how northern Asia compared to the South – sending all our summer clothes and goods home to the UK and getting prepared for some colder weather – 5-10 degrees C versus 35-40 C that we have had in Thailand………..