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Slides and rides: Lost World of Tambun

Tue, 07 May 2013 18:53:00 +1000

It takes a pretty spectacular second destination to top an orangutan encounter at the start of a road trip. Staying overnight at a theme park and spending the day riding, sliding and getting up close to animals certainly delivered.

After leaving Orangutan Island we continued driving south to Ipoh, a town roughly halfway between Penang and Kuala Lumpur. Our plan was to stay the night in Ipoh and spend the next day at the Lost World of Tambun, a theme park just outside of town.

Unfortunately our plan to find somewhere in Ipoh itself for the night fell apart when we hit the city centre right on peak hour in the middle of a tropical downpour. After 45 minutes of heavy traffic, squinting through windows trying to spot hotels and street signs in heavy rain and getting hopelessly lost to we gave up and decided to stay at the theme park itself.

Turns out staying at the theme park had been Hayley's dream all along. Hayley had been googling the Lost World of Tambun all week and watching their videos which showed the hotel. She had the whole visit planned out, right down to what rides we'd go on, important facts and yes ... the hotel!

For $100 we had a 3 star hotel room with a double bed, two extra mattresses for the kids, more free mocktails vouchers than we could drink in a single night, breakfast for four and 10% of entry to the theme park.

And the best part - entry to the hot springs at the theme park at night was included in the price!

Yes not the usual backpack $20-40 a night accommodation we aim for but part of the idea of this road trip was having a grand adventure in Malaysia doing things that we can't do back in a developed country like New Zealand. And you definitely can't stay at a theme park hotel as a family with breakfast, mocktails and a hot springs included for $100 a night ... so oh well splurge it is!!

We've been to a few hot springs in Asia. Most you look at with a dubious air, spying the strange brown-green scum on every surface wondering if it's really wise to get in. Then there's the ones that you travel for three hours to reach only to find they are just a few rocks in the middle of a stream blocking two inches of geothermal water so hot you can't even put your toe in.

So when we walked into the hot springs at Tambun and discovered they were clean, huge and almost indistinguishable from ones that you'd find in New Zealand or Germany we were happy. We spent 90 minutes roaming from pool to pool soaking and exploring. There are 36C degree swimming pools with waterfalls, secluded 37-40C degree tubs for soaking and a positively scalding steam cave with 43C degree water that you can walk through as your lungs work overtime trying to breathe in the heavy hot air.

Time to ride!!!

After a sleep-in and breakfast it was time for the theme park adventure.

First stop: the rides!

Noah and Hayley had never been on a pirate ship, a roller coaster or one of those chair rides like the one in the photo above. They were keen to try them all. First stop, the pirate ship followed by several spinning chair-thingys in a row and the roller-coaster.

As luck would have it we went on the opening day of the new roller-coaster and had the very first ride. No loops or corkscrews, just some fast turns, bumps and the small thrill of going through a dark cave. Basically, the perfect introductory roller-coaster for two kids that had never been on one.

We discovered that Dad is your man if you want to go on the water-slides all day long. But pirate ships and things that whirl and spin are best left for Mum.

Check out the view ...

The karst mountains around Ipoh are stunning. It's one of my favourite places in Malaysia just for the mountains. This theme park is set in a valley that is so lovely its criminal that it's here. Half the enjoyment of the theme park is walking around the valley enjoying the views. This is the needle.

After watching the videos, Hayley tells me the needle 10 stories high and you can go rock climbing and zip lining off it for an extra fee.

We chose to just walk around it, enjoy the views and doing silly poses! Not because of the extra fee (ziplining is only 10MYR extra per person) but because Hayley was too short.

Animal encounters

Lost World of Tambun has several tigers, an animal hospital and a petting zoo.

The petting zoo was one of the highlights of our visit. We held macaws and pigeons, and fed birds. The kids fed raccoons and tried to catch gold fish. There were rabbits, tortoises, ponies, marmosets, cobras, lizards, deers, foxes, squirrels and more. Noah was our animal star. Hayley took a long time to work up the courage to get closer to any of the animals but Noah was straight in there feeding raccoons and standing with birds on his head.

Waterpark fun

After lunch it was time for the water-slides. The park has four slides, a lazy river, a wave pool and beach, the hot springs and a kiddie area with slides and pirate ship.

There are also two 'cliff racers' that you shoot down on tubes and shoot back up the other side until theoretically gravity takes hold and you slide backwards back down to a stop. That's the theory anyway.

It worked for everyone we watched. It worked for Hayley and Colin when they slid together. Noah and I ... we managed to get stuck halfway up the overshoot upside down rather ungracefully shouting in mindless panic "Help, %#$% what do I do?". I had visions of rescue teams and guys with large hooks comically trying to fish us out.

After what seemed like 10 minutes (probably only 30 seconds) Colin shouted that we should wiggle ... oh of course, why hadn't I thought of that ... oh yes mindless panic ... and we eventually wiggled out way back down to the bottom!

The other four slides were tricky with Hayley. They also had two person tubes and had a height requirement of 110cm. Hayley is 114cm so she was technically tall enough but she was just too small to fit comfortably into the tube and not quite strong enough to hold on. She kept slipping and needed dad to hold onto her. Noah on the other hand is over 130cm and had no issues.

The lazy river turned out to be not so lazy! The current was so weak you had to swim or paddle your way around. You can pay extra to hire tubes to float around the river but we opted not too because it looked like we'd have to push the tubes most of the way anyway. We did have a lot of fun swimming around it though taking in the scenery and being silly.

The kiddie water-play area was a huge hit with the kids. With a shade sail to provide shade they could have stayed there for hours.

So what's the verdict?

Here's the thing with Lost World of Tambun - if you are going there hoping for just a great water park or all day rides you will be disappointed. If you are an adrenalin junkie, Tambun is probably going to bore you. But if you want to visit a good all-round family theme park where there's a little bit of something for everyone then you'll have an amazing day.

We had a great day . The park was large enough to keep us entertained for a whole day. We saw everything and went on all the rides/slides a couple of times. We were there on a Saturday but we never had to line up. The park is clean, well maintained and well organised. There were systems in place and they actually worked!

Entrance to Tambun is relatively inexpensive. For a family of four it came to $55USD (or $50UDS if you buy online through the website in advance). Considering what you pay for a theme park outing in most countries I find it hard to complain about anything really! Food and drinks are reasonably priced, although there's not a huge selection. A budget of $70 would easily cover entrance, drinks, lunch and locker rental.

I also loved the fact that we could stay right at the theme park and the cost was less than you'd pay for most hotels in western countries, and the price included entrance to the hot springs at night. Of course we could have stayed in Ipoh for less but the kids enjoyed the thrill of sleeping at a theme park.

If you are planning to go, keep an eye out on groupon.com.my and mydeals.com.my as both websites often have discounts for park entry and hotel/park packages.

Operating Hours:
11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday to Friday
10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Weekends, Public Holidays and Malaysia School Holidays
6 p.m. to 10 p.m. Hots Springs and Spa by Night with separate admission price
Closed on Tuesdays except for Public Holidays and Malaysia School Holidays

www.sunwaylostworldoftambun.com

This post is part of Photo Friday at Delicious Baby

Orangutan Island Daytrip

Sun, 05 May 2013 17:18:00 +1000

Two weeks until we leave Malaysia and a month until we'll be in New Zealand. This weekend we've taken a break from the packing and organising to enjoy a family road trip. Our first stop was Orangutan Island at Bukit Merah, 90 minutes from Penang.

OK, I lie. We had four stops before Bukit Merah and it took us longer than 90 minutes. One stop for breakfast at the corner. A second stop to go home for a new pair of shoes for Noah when his shoes broke during breakfast. Getting lost was our third stop. The fourth stop was turning around as we'd driven past the entrance for the attraction.

Ahh family road trips!

How we missed the entrance to Bukit Merah Laketown, where Orangutan Island is located, I still don't know. We turned off the freeway and followed the signs and kept driving ... and driving ... and driving ... until we ended up in tiny villages. Hmm this can't be right. It was right near the freeway on the map. We turned around and drove back. Still no Laketown.

We were almost back on the freeway when we saw it.

Oh you mean the giant fancy gate structure with huge letters 'Bukit Merah Laketown' next to the first road sign that we'd somehow driven right past? You mean that Laketown?

The only way it could have been more obvious was if the entrance was lit up in pink neon.

Orangutan Island

The orang-utans at Bukit Merah are part of a rehabilitation and conservation program. They live on an island in the lake. To get to the island you need to catch a ferry. Ferries leave every 45 minutes and the crossing takes less than ten minutes.

Mum, we're in the cage

My favourite thing about Orangutan island is that the orang-utans are free to roam the island and it's the visitors who are restricted to a caged walkway.

Even the handlers and staff stay within restricted areas. There are large tubes where food can be passed into the free range area. There are corridors where staff can walk to check the grounds and keep an eye on the animals, without actually entering the free range space. The island has roughly 35 acres, although currently the primates are only able to access 5 acres. The ultimate aim of the program is to eventually have them so self-reliant that they are able to roam the entire island freely.

We were met by a staff member who provided a guided tour. As we walked along she helped up spot the animals and told us all about the program. She told us their names, whether they had been born here, their age, how strong each one was in comparison to humans. We learned about their diets, their group structure and play. We heard about the second nearby island they've had to create due to the success of the program.

Without her help we would have never spotted the sleeping nests. I've always know orang-utans build nests but it's quite amazing to see a full grown male and then see such a precariously balanced structure perched at the top of a tall tree. It doesn't quite seem logical!

Eeewwwww ....

We also saw a lot more than we expecting - like Adam, a large male vomiting into a plastic bottle and then proceeding to drink it. Repeatedly!

Noah felt the need to tell him just how revolting that was via one of the food delivery tubes.

We visited in the afternoon while it was very hot. Too hot for the orang-utans to be active. The staff tried to encourage them to come closer to us by calling their names. A few did come down from the trees eventually to check us out, like Adam the vomit drinker and BJ, the dominant male. The younger ones stayed in the treetops swinging around playing but even they came a little closer.

Monkey preschool

On the island, females occasionally give birth and the infants stay with their mothers unless there are complications, at which time the babies have to be taken away to the nursery. After treatment most of the time they can't be returned to the mothers as the mothers will reject them. They will be raised in the island's preschool for the first four years of their life until they are released onto the island.

The preschool space is small. I can't quite understand why on a large island the infants didn't have a larger space. It's an island with a lot of unused acres so it seems unneccessary that the infants spend a lot of time in a glass enclosure on show for the tourists. We weren't sure if they spent all their time in there or if that was just when they were 'on show' for the tourists, but either way the space was quite small and we weren't shown a bigger infants area. But the infants did appeared to be happy and well loved. They had fun playing with Noah and Hayley. One spent 10 minutes interacting through the glass swinging at them, kissing them and trying to grab their hats. Another saw our water bottle and started making hand signals that she wanted wanted a drink.

The third infant woke up for three seconds to the sounds of Hayley's giggling, looked around and went back to sleep.

Overall we were really impressed with how the island was run, how caring the staff were and how informative they were. It was really nice to show the children a different type of 'zoo' and discuss what is better; small cages that animals are stuck inside all the time while we wander around the zoo or allowing animals to roam relatively freely leading a life that is a lot closer to normal than in a zoo while we are the ones stuck in a cage during our really short visit ... even if the price to us is we might not get such a great close up view of the animal.

Of course, we did walk away with some concerns. The small preschool space seemed unnecessarily small and you have to question how effective an environment that humans intervene in by offering food can be at preparing orangutans for eventual release. One of the biggest criticisms that you hear about the centre are allegations that they may take infants away from the mothers unnecessarily so that the mothers are more likely to fall pregnant again, thus boosting their breeding program. While we were there they did go to great lengths to point out they only take the babies away when it's medically necessary. I felt that I believed them but if you look through Malaysian newspapers it's an ongoing concern for conservation groups with over 500 complaints being investigated by Malaysia's Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment. I also wondered what facilities the young orang-utans that we saw living here might end up in, as I assume the centre partners with other zoos and conservation parks around the world. Hopefully there are checks in place to ensure these other centres offer a similar caring environment.

Still its hard to be too suspicious of a place that felt like it really did have the best interest in heart of the animals. The centre has come a long way from it's early days where they let tourists pose for photos touching the primates to the current situation now where there is no contact. For every area the centre can improve in I felt like there were other areas they were doing a great job at. I've been to zoos where orangutans sat in square concrete cages no bigger than a small bedroom with no shade and nothing to play with but a rubber band stolen off a tourist. When you visit here and see the large enclosures completely separated from tourist contact and enthusiastic staff ... it's hard to be too critical.

We had a great afternoon at Orangutan island. I'd definitely recommend visiting here if you aren't visiting Borneo and as I said, it's a really great chance to show your children a different type of 'zoo' and discuss what might offer a better life for it's animals.

Getting there and away

Bukit Merah Laketown is roughy a 45 minute drive from Georgetown or 90 minutes from Batu Ferringhi. It's on the mainland close to Taiping between Butterworth and Ipoh just off the highway. The exit is signed 'Bukit Merah Laketown'.

Once you are off the freeway just follow the signs. Laketown is only a short drive off the freeway. If you have gone more than 1km you've gone too far!

Bukit Merah Laketown has a small water park, an eco park, a number of attractions, hotels and restaurants but it was empty the day we were there and was starting to look run down. Orang-utan Island definitely seemed to be the most popular attraction.

Tickets for Orangutan Island are available from the central desk near the fountain. I forgot to take note of the exact ticket price but it was around 38MYR per person. Boats leave every 45 minutes. Apart from a gift store selling drinks, there is no food or drinks available on the island so eat before you go.

The visit took around 1.5hrs including roughly 45 minutes on the island, the boat ride and some waiting time buying tickets etc. You are apparently welcome to stay longer and catch the next boat back if you want. There is a small donation box at the centre and you can purchase a few souvenirs opposite the nursery where proceeds go to the centre. We got a DVD for 12MYR that explains more about the centre.

It's best to visit in the morning as this is when the orang-utan are the most active. We went around 1pm and apart from one couple we had the entire island and guide to ourselves. I'm guessing afternoons are quieter and being lunchtime, everyone was eating as the next boat that arrived had a lot more people on it.

Onto the next part of our road trip - an overnight stay at a theme park followed by a whole day of riding, sliding and fun.

Finally, a plan

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 20:02:52 +1000

Our original plan for 2013 was to spend a year in Penang. But a few days after arriving back we struck a problem - all of the schools that we could afford and the kids could attend (we don't have the right visa for state schools) were completely full.

We probably should have contacted the schools earlier, right? That would have bee sensible, but when we left Penang last year space wasn't an issue so I assumed it would be fine. Whoops. We could have continued homeschooling or looked for other schooling options but after two weeks of being back we realised that it was time for us to move on.

Eventually we settled on two plans. Move back to Queenstown in New Zealand where we spent 6 months last year and loved, or spend one year trying out 2-3 locations that we had never been too but always wanted to live in. Guatemala and Spain were high on our list. We would spend a few months in each and at the end of that time, if we hadn't found anywhere that felt just right we would go back to New Zealand.

Colin and I thought option 2 sounded fantastic but the kids really had their hearts set on New Zealand.

Three and a half years of being nomads is a long time, particularly when you are seven and five. Noah wants the same friends to play with all day every day and the same great school he went to last year. He didn't want to leave friends and another school behind again, not so soon anyway. Our other plan could involve him doing that two or three times, and that worried him. Hayley wants to live in a place she identifies as home. Brisbane is still home to her but she left there at 2.5 years old and on our last visit she suddenly realised she can't remember it. For the rest of us Penang was never really home but for Hayley it's the place she remembers best so our decision to leave here is hitting her the hardest. As much as travel has taught her that home is more than a house, it's where ever we are, she wants an actual place to call home with memories attached to it.

So it's decided. We'll go to New Zealand.

We're not unhappy about that decision in the least. Colin and I loved Queenstown too and we're happy to go back. We have five weeks left in Asia. Two weeks in Penang to pack up and finalise the sale of our car followed by three weeks of travel. We're hoping to fit in a theme park or two, a snorkelling trip to the Perhentians, a few days in Kuala Lumpur and a ten day visit to Laos.

Then it's onto New Zealand. We've committed to the kids that we'll be there for 12-18 months and after that we'll all decide together.

Colin and I want to keep travelling and being location independent but perhaps that will mean we promise to come back to New Zealand after our next adventure or we pick another 2+ year home to move to. Or maybe we'll need to rethink things totally.

In the meantime there's so much of New Zealand and a lot of school holidays to explore it in. Last time we were in New Zealand we only explored a tiny portion. We didn't even see 1/4 of the places within a two hour drive of where we were living. With Australia and all the Pacific Islands close at hand I'm hoping to use the time to explore those too.

So there you have it, finally a decision made!

Perhaps it was pure luck, or perhaps it was the universe telling us we made the right choice, but the house we rented last time became available for rent the same week we made the decision to move back to Queenstown. The children are excited to be going back to not only the same school and friends, but the same house.

Colin is not the least bit unhappy about having to suffer this view from his desk every day again ...

How ever will he make it through the day?

I'm more worried about his facebook friends who will receive daily updates of the view. Sorry in advance everyone!

School of Hard Knocks

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 00:36:49 +1000

This week in Penang we went to the Royal Selangor Visitor Centre at Straits Quay. The Visitor Centre conducts tours on the history of pewter production in Malaysia, and if you book in advance you can make your own pewter bowl at their School of Hard Knocks.

An educational outing where you get to see molten pewter, spend 45 minutes bashing away with hammers and walk away with your very own hand made pewter ice cream bowl ... I was tempted to leave the kids home and go by myself!!!

Alas, I needed a group of at least four to book. Friends of ours with children were also keen to go try it out so we made a booking and got ourselves ready to hammer.

Touring the visitor centre

Unlike the more popular Royal Selangor Visitor Centre in Kuala Lumpur, the one in Penang is really quiet. We went on a weekday and had the entire place to ourselves.

The tour duration varies depending on your group. Our tour was only 10-15 minutes since we had young children, which was perfect. Just enough information for the adults in the group and for the kids to learn something, without it being too long. The tour includes a history of tin mining in Malaysia and early pewter production. There are 100 year old ceremonial pewter candle holders on display, along with cups, mugs and other pieces, all made by the company's founder.

Ever wonder what 4150kg of pewter scraps looks like and how many tea pots you can melt it down into? I can't say that I ever have but the answers are really interesting!

The highlight for the kids was seeing molten pewter being tipped into molds and the giant texture wall made up of hundreds of embossed plates of pewter. Next to the wall are giant tubular made from different materials that can be rung to hear the different sounds they make.

The tour could have continued to learn more about pewter production and it's chemical composition but our guide gave the children the choice after the main part of the tour was done as to whether they wanted to "keep listening to information or get working on their bowls?"

Not surprisingly they chose the bowls!

It's hammer time ...

The workshop was really well organised and they have a great set up. Our tour guide was a great teacher and she was always there to help out the kids. The kids started out with a flat round sheet of pewter and after embossing their name with a hammer onto the metal, they swapped to a wooden mallet and started gradually rounding it out until finally they had a bowl.

Making the bowl was a lot of fun but it took more hammering than the kids thought it would. It's also an activity that you really want a low adult to child ratio, particularly if you have children under 8. Our friend's oldest daughter, who is 9 was able to make her bowl with only a few verbal directions from the teacher whereas Hayley at almost 6 didn't have the strength to hammer or fine motor control to be able to be able to complete the task without an adult helping her roughly half the time. Hayley had a lot of fun doing it and there were times that she was doing it solo, but a lot of time the she needed an adults guidance or help.

It's was no problem to take a child that young, in fact our friends had a two year old there and she had a fabulous time. You just need to make sure you have one adult per two children if you have very young kids. We were constantly helping out the kids, as was the teacher. Which was actually great as it meant I got to have a go myself. I'd contemplated doing the class myself but in the end I'm glad I didn't - I helped out the kids enough that I felt like I'd learned the process and had a go anyway. If you have older children a bigger group will be fine.

It was a great activity and the children were really excited to walk away with not only a bowl but their very own apron and graduate certificate.

Noah later wrote in his journal that any pewter bowl you make yourself makes ice cream taste even more delicious.

The School of Hard Knocks costs 60RM (roughly $20USD) per student and you need a minimum of four people in your group. I made our booking one day in advance through their website and called later to confirm. If you want to attend on the weekends or go to the one in Kuala Lumpur I suggest you book several days in advance.

This post is part of Photo Friday at Delicious Baby

Penang National Park: Monkeys and turtle adventure

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 22:48:53 +1000

Last Saturday we went on a day trip to the Penang National Park with three other travelling families, Bohemian Travelers, The Journey is the Reward and 1 Dad 1 Kid, that were all staying in Penang.

Situated on the far north-western tip of Penang, the Penang National Park has some of the nicest beaches in Penang, as well as a wide diversity of wildlife and habitats; jungle, a meromictic lake, mangroves, wetlands, mudflats and turtle nesting beaches. It's a great place to go with kids. You can hike throughout the park but as March-April are the ludicriously hot months where even locals complain about the heat, we opted to take a boat from the Penang National Park headquarters to Pantai Kerachut (known by most as Turtle Beach) to see baby turtles at the Turtle Rehabilitation Centre, followed by a picnic lunch and swim at Monkey Beach, hopefully with some actual monkey sightings.

Here are the highlights from our Turtle Monkey outing ...

The boat ride!

4 adults, 4 teens/pree-teens and 3 children supplied with snacks on a 15 minute boat ride past fish farms, jungles, headlands and beaches ... what a perfect start!

Although Hayley thought it could have been improved by a headband, which Mum forgot to pack.

The coastline between Monkey Beach and Pantai Kerachut is quite inaccessible by foot, making it the perfect wildlife refuge. We saw more types of animals in this small stretch than any other section of the national park. Lizards, birds, eagles and even an otter. We also saw a snake, although by that point he was not so much a snake ... more 'lunch' according to an eagle ...

The young guys driving our boat slowed down here to point out all the rocks that looked like different animals. This one is crocodile rock:

Pantai Kerachut and the Turtle Sanctuary

Pantai Kerachut is a picturesque beach on the west of Penang. It's quite isolated. No roads come here. The only way to get here is by boat or to hike for 1.5-2hrs each way from the edge of the national park. Given how steamy Penang is, most people opt for the shorter monkey beach walk so Pantai Kerachut is a quiet place.

The turtle sanctuary was a little underwhelming. No one else was there, not even staff. Friends who have visited before said it was better on their previous visit when there were staff there to explain the sanctuary and their role in turtle conservation in Penang. Still, we enjoyed the visit and the children had fun being our tour guides. We found several protected nesting sites as well as a couple of tanks with baby turtles of various ages.

Next stop, the Meromictic Lake, a lake where the surface and bottom layers of the lake never mix leaving a distinct layer of salt water and fresh water. There are only 20 true merimictic lakes in the world apparently as most lakes have a seasonal mixing of their waters.

Seeing the merimictic lake at Pantai Kerachut was at the top of my 'must do before we leave Penang' list so I was pretty excited to see it.

What I failed to do in my research was uncover that the merimictic lake in Penang is seasonal!

October to April is NOT the time to visit if you want to see the lake.

It wasn't a complete fail - there was a suspension bridge to bounce across.

And a nice view of the waters starting to fill the lake.

Onwards to Monkey Beach

This is our fourth visit to Monkey Beach. On our last visits, the beach hasn't really lived up to it's name. We've seen one or two long-tailed macaques and they've been quite game at trying to steal food but nothing to warrant the name 'monkey beach'.

On this visit we hit the monkey jackpot.

They lurked around the table while we ate our picnic lunch. They sat above our heads, scamping over the tin roof of our shed and peering over the edges eyeing off our snacks. At one point they looked like they were about to chase us.

They stole shoes from other beach goers and ran to the highest branches in what I suspect is an elaborate learned game of 'If we steal shoes and climb high enough the silly people will keep throwing their food at us until we give them their shoes back in exchange. Then we eat!'

Basically, they were adorable but a bit of a menance. Although they were entertaining and the kids learned a lot about monkeys ... and the constant threat of a monkey stealing your lunch is a great way to convince kids to eat their sandwich crusts.

After lunch, the kids found a shady spot to swim and happily spent the next 1.5hrs alternating between the sand and water until it was time to go.

What to know before you go

Turtles, monkeys, a boat ride and a day at the beach ... all for $5 a person ... it was a fantastic day out!

The Penang National Park is in Teluk Bahang, 3km past Batu Ferringhi. The 101 bus terminates at the national park.

Organising a boat at the National Park is easy. There are several stands outside the small store near the park entrance. A boat to Monkey Beach is 90RM. A boat to Pantai Kerchut is 160RM, with no additional fee for stopping at Monkey Beach along the way. Boats can carry 10 people, although we had 11 - 4 adults, 3 teens and 4 children. Provided you can fill a boat the fee is quite reasonable and a lot cheaper than if you organise it from anywhere else on the island. As I said, with 10-11 people it works out to be $USD5 per person.

Open daily, entry to the national park is free but you do need to register at the office before entering the park and sign out again when you leave. Make sure you take a look at the information signs near the registration point showing the walking trails and photographs of all the animals that are commonly seen in the park.

No food/drink is available inside the park except for a small drink stand at Monkey Beach, that isn't always open. It's better to take your own food and drinks. Outside the park entrance is a convenience store and a number of food vendors. On Fridays many of them will be closed, including the convience store.

The boats have a canopy but you will spend a lot of the day in the sun so bring hats and sunscreen. You may need to exit the boat in the water so bring shoes that can get wet. Getting to the Turtle Sanctury involves walking across very hot sand - I hate wearing shoes on the beach but this time even I ended up putting my shoes back on. Flipflops/thongs or crocs are a good choice for this day trip!

This post is part of Photo Friday at Delicious Baby and Travel Photo Thursday at Budget Travelers Sandbox.

But we had a PLAN!!!

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 16:06:43 +1000

If you've been reading our blog, or you know us, you've probably noticed a theme - we are abysmal at making plans and even worse at sticking to them for longer than ... oh say 24 hours. Actually it's not unknown for us to have a plan for the next six months by breakfast and by lunch time have a new plan.

Six months ago we realised that while we couldn't see us stopping forever in the one place any time soon, we really wanted to be stopped somewhere for a year or more. We never really stopped in Penang. We parked our gear here but we never sat still long enough to really enjoy being stopped. No sooner did we arrive then we'd be planning our next trip. When you are two hours drive from Thailand and Air Asia keeps putting on ludicrously seductive sales you can't help but be tempted. I swear that website is our kryptonite! But after three years we've realised it's time to actually settle somewhere and enjoy being stopped.

Stopped for twelve months at least. Maybe with just a few camping trips ... and weekend daytrips ... but no flights. Definitely no flights ... well unless there's a really good sale ...

The question was where to stop.

What? You mean we actually have to make a plan?

The thing is we did make a plan. It took us months but we made one.

When you start looking at an atlas of the world there are a lot of options so deciding on a plan takes time.

Yes I know, we're lucky to have that dilemma so I'm not going to complain. At least not too loudly. Because honestly complaining 'oh woe is us, we have to choose where in the whole world we want to live' isn't really something to complain about is it. Five years ago when we were debating whether to move to a nicer suburb or interstate I never once imagined our breakfast would be whether we should move to Guatemala, Laos, Bali, Spain or Slovenia.

Just in case you are thinking that discussion sounds like the most romantic, exciting, amazing thing ever ... it is! Seriously, for the first two weeks it's this giddy whirlwind of fun possibilities.

"Let's move to Prague. We've always wanted to live in Prague. I could take art classes. You could be a short train ride to go snow boarding half the winter"

"How about Chile? We can learn Spanish, we can hike in the summer and ski in the winter."

"Let's find an island somewhere and live in a tree house. Or we can be pirates. Pirates would be fun"

For the first two weeks it's so much fun. Then you realise at some point you actually need to choose. One place in the entire world that fits everyone's requirements for cost of living, visas, school, potential work prospects, climate and everyone's personal tastes/needs/likes, at least for the next year or so before you move on to the next place.

That's when it stops being fun!

Eventually, after so many circular debates that we lost track of our options, we came to the conclusion that since we already had a house in Penang and commitments to be back in Asia for the next four months to catch up with friends and family it made sense to go back to Penang. The kids were in agreement - we'd try Penang and they would go to school there. If after a year we weren't happy there then we'd move on.

Last week we arrived back in Penang and started visiting schools.

All full!

At least, all the international schools in our price range within a 45 minute drive were full. The most expensive school at roughly 13,000USD per year per child, double the cost of the schools we were originally looking at, of course had space. Umm ... no thanks!

What? Hello, Universe did you not get the memo? We actually made a plan. Not only that, we all agreed to the plan and we stuck to a single plan for several months. For us, that's a huge achievement. The least you could do is support the plan.

So what now?

We could keep investigating options in Penang. We don't have the right type of visa for a local school but there are two private schools that are possibilities.

The thing is, maybe things didn't fall into place for a reason. We feel like we've done our time in Penang. We were only staying because we had a house here, we needed to be in Asia anyway and we had good friends here, but there's no real reason we have to stay for more than a few months.

For a few days we sulked. Now we've realised it's an opportunity to move on somewhere else and have a new adventure. Although it's not without challenges. Leaving Penang means selling off a lot, if not all of our stuff that we moved over from Australia. I may have finally reached the point where I might consider parting with my books. Colin might have to drag me kicking and screaming away from them shouting "Ebooks are NOT THE SAME!!!" but I think I might be able to do it!

So we're back to spinning the globe.

We've come up with at least 5 alternative ideas that we've been certain have been 'THE ONE' for at least a day before changing our minds. We're getting closer to a decision but who knows, maybe we'll end up on that island as pirates after all!

Wandering around Tokyo

Sun, 17 Mar 2013 10:51:47 +1000

Our 9 days in Japan without the children (they stayed behind with their grandparents to enjoy a lot of sleepovers with cousins!) finished with a three days in Tokyo. Sightseeing, shopping, food and a heck of a lot of walking. So much walking even adults started complaining. "My feet are tired. Are we there yet? How much further"

So what were the highlights if it wasn't the walking?

Shibuya

When we landed in Japan we stayed one night in Tokyo in Kanda. Kanda was quiet, lovely and convenient to both Tokyo Station and the airport. But on our second stop in Tokyo after skiing in Nozawa Onsen we wanted to be more "in the heart of things".

So this time around we booked a hotel in Shibuya. Shibuya definitely fits the "in the heart of things" bill. By day it's busy. By night it's downright bustling.

In Shibuya all the lights at the intersections change to red at once allowing people to cross in every direction. This happens in lots of cities but I've never seen so many people crossing at once. Crossing with a sea of people wasn't as crowded if first looked - it's when you get to the other side and everyone merges again trying to go in different directions that the fun begins.

Packed streets, neon lights, giant signs and unique fashions. Very unique fashions! I've never seen so many grown adults wearing what can only be called "Little Bo Peep" style out on a Saturday night.

Trendy spacious restaurants near hole in the wall restaurants with almost standing room only. Funky fashion, frilly fashion, sporty fashion. If shoe shopping is your thing, Shibuya is the place to come. Although finding anything larger than a women's US size 8 is tricky. Pet stores selling tiny dogs around the corner from the largest Disney store I've ever seen ... completely filled with adults. On the back streets you'll find theatres and concert halls, fancy hotels nearby capsule hotels and even more hotels selling rooms for "short stays" and "slightly longer short stays" ... ahem!

Shibuya is Tokyo how I've always pictured Tokyo. Well maybe not the hotel rooms by the hour part. Although Korea had a wonderful name for these - 'love-tels'. I never did find out what the Japanese word was.

But the ludicrously busy streets, neon lights and signs covering every inch of every building and funky fashions that occasionally border on the over the top ... that's how I've always pictured inner Tokyo. It was a fun place to stay.

Harajuku

Next door to Shibuya is Harajuku, a slightly quieter shopping area. We walked over searching for a large toy shop (I'd promised the kids we'd bring them something back from Japan. Bad mistake, that store was overwhelming!) and ended up on Cat Street, a kilometer long shopping street filled with high end fashion, including second hand outlets selling high end fashion. Handbags and shoes, surf gear and snowboards. Anything from Prada and Jimmy Choo to Northface and Burton. The prices were great compared to Australia, comparable to North America and more expensive than South East Asia.

Next stop, Yoyogi Park and Meiji Shrine. Built in 1920, the shrine was austere and beautiful, with lovely woodwork and the size of the Cyprus trees used to construct the shrine are simply huge. It was a peaceful and lovely shrine to visit and the walk through the woodland park was nice but compared to some of the other places we've visited, for instance the almost 1000 year old Temple of Literature in Hanoi, Vietnam, the Meiji Shrine lacked impact.

Shinjuku

If Shibuya was the shopping heart, Shinjuku felt like downtown. Shopping and business thrown into one with office buildings, busy motorways and overpasses.

First stop - the top of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building (TMGO).

Getting to the observation deck on the 45th floor to enjoy a view of the Tokyo skyline is free.

Although if you are visiting with kids it may not be free - the observation deck is filled with souvenir shops!!! The prices are actually pretty good and they stock a better selection of stationary and souvenirs than I saw anywhere else.

I'm glad I didn't have the kids with me and could just enjoy the view! On a clear day you are supposed to be able to see Mt Fuji. We had clear skies but too much haze. No Mt Fuji in sight!

Next stop - Shinjuku Gyoen Park.

With spring just starting Shinjuku Park wasn't at it's prettiest. Brown, dead grass and many trees were still bare, especially near the entrance. The traditional gardens around the lakes were still lovely though.

Cherry blossoms were just starting to come out. I've seen cherry blossoms before. Last spring in New Zealand they were spectacular but I've always wanted to see cherry blossoms in Japan. Dream come true!

Some of us wandered the gardens soaking in the atmosphere with a camera. Some of us napped ... clearly too much excitement for some!

All the better for me to walk and explore! While Colin slept I saw couples in traditional dress taking wedding photos taken in front of lakes and pavilions. It was win-win!

On our way back to the train station we stumbled across a small electronics and camera market area. That was more to Colin's liking!

Akihabara

Akihabara is the electronics and anime shopping area of Tokyo. After dragging Colin around shoe stores and gardens I owed him a night out in Akihabara.

Perhaps we weren't looking in the right places but the IT stores here definitely weren't as impressive as the IT markets in Seoul. Still it was a fun place to wander and gaze at the neon glow.

Tokyo, that's a wrap

Overall Tokyo wasn't quite what we were expecting. I'd always pictured Tokyo as frantically busy with neon and tall buildings every where, a real mix of ultra modern and very old. It's really not. There are pockets like this, like Shibuyu and Akihabara but Tokyo for the most part is a very low rise city with a lot of quiet neighbourhoods and on Sunday's the city is almost a ghost town. As for the old and ultra modern it's really somewhere in the middle of the two. Seoul felt more more neon and high rise crazy ... or at least it was ten years ago when we were there. We kept comparing the two cities and thinking Seoul felt a lot more like we'd always imagined Tokyo would always be.

Still we had a great time in Tokyo. There was so much to see and do and it was a really vibrant, spotlessly clean, friendly, cosmopolitan city. The food was amazing and it was easy to find western food, although illogically we actually found it easier to find English menus and English speaking staff in Japanese restaurants than English menus and staff that spoke in English in western restaurants. More incentive to eat Japanese and avoid pizza!!!

Getting around was simple. It was possibly one of the easiest cities to get around in I've ever visited. Even easier than Paris and London since most of the touristy things are on one central loop line. Train stations are everywhere, the trains run all the time and most trips within inner Tokyo cost 130-150 yen each way. You just need to know the name of the train station that you want and the exit that you want - you can find subway and train maps that have station names in English and exit signs in English. If you can recognise the first few characters of the station name even better. Finding amazingly helpful people at the train station with enough English is easy. Actually you'll probably find someone so helpful they will insist on walking you the entire way out of the station so that you don't miss your exit, if not all the way to your hotel.

Accommodation was the biggest expense. After that everything was quite reasonable. Entry to parks and shrines was either free or only a few hundred yen. Public transport was cheap. Eating out was quite reasonable.

If you want to visit the Imperial Palace you need to make a reservation several days ahead of time. We missed out on tickets as we didn't book far enough in advance (the following day was booked out and we just happened to be in Tokyo on one of the rare weekends when it is closed).

Where we stayed:

Being away without the kids we upgraded from hostels to stay in hotels, although we tried find nice but reasonably cheap hotels. Reasonably cheap by Tokyo standards! We did see a few in the $80-100 per night range but they had fairly mixed reviews and since it's not often that we're away without the kids we decided to go for the $100-130 per night range.

APA Hotel Shibuya Dogenzaka, Shibuya. Like most hotel rooms in Tokyo, our double room was tiny, with an even smaller bathroom. But it was new, spotless and had one of the best mattresses we've ever stayed on. We were on the 12th floor so we had a view and we were only a short walk to shopping and restaurants. 10 minutes walk from the train station - a bit of a mission with bags as it was uphill and with all the people it's a bit crazy so check in before 5pm or cut through the Mark City Shopping Centre building to avoid the pedestrian craziness. $120 per night for a double non-smoking room, no breakfast. Yes Tokyo isn't cheap!

Villa Fontaine Otemachi, Kanda. Again the rooms were small although larger than the APA Hotel with a much larger bathroom. The negative was the bed was really hard. A quiet neighbourhood close to restaurants only one stop to Tokyo Station and half an hour to both airports. 5 minutes walk from Kanda Station. $130 per night for a double room including breakfast.

This post is part of Photo Friday at Delicious Baby

Snow, hot springs and food ... hanging out in Japan

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 17:52:30 +1000

Late last year Colin came up with a plan. "Friends are going skiing in Japan in March. We could leave the kids with their grandparents and join them ??? ... ???"

It took him a few weeks (OK so make that months!) to talk me around to the idea of jetting off to a completely different country to our children for nine days. Eventually the lure of skiing, Tokyo and time with my husband, not to mention eating whatever Japanese food I fancy without having to look for kid friendly restaurants, won out.

We've just gotten back, although not without a lot of misgivings, tears and imagined worst case scenarios along the way. Saying goodbye to the kids and jumping on a plane without them was awful. Spending so long away from them was really hard ... but it wasn't until we were back with them just how much I enjoyed our time away solo.

We had two stops in Japan - Tokyo and Nozawa Onsen.

Nozawa Onsen is a hot spring village of 5000 people one hour from Nagano and four hours from Tokyo. Nozawa felt like a place that ten years ago was probably quiet and sleepy until the Nagano 1998 Olympics promoted skiing internationally in Japan. Even now it's still feels sleepy. We came there for the skiing but ended up leaving feeling like the highlight was the village not the skiing ... and that's not because the skiing was bad. It was just a lovely place.

Steep winding maze-like streets only wide enough for one car dominate the town. Hiking up these roads with your bags or your skis every morning is a workout! Dotted along the streets are small guest houses, onsens (public hot spring bath houses) and the occasional tiny restaurant. Along the two main streets there is a small tourist strip with one ATM, ample restaurants (no western chains thankfully although there was an Italian restaurant or two), a handful of bars and several hotels mostly geared towards Japanese tourists. Just enough infrastructure that you can find most things you need but you need to search for them.

Except a bakery selling birthday cakes. Colin celebrated his birthday while we were there. I swear I walked every street in Nazowa looking for a bakery selling cakes and found none. I did however find markets, shrines, a graveyard, waterfalls and a local only hot springs. A win for me ... not for cake!

We stayed at Maruken Onsen in a traditional style room sleeping on tatami mats and futons with rice filled pillows. Instead of a shower the guesthouse had separate male and female public washrooms. A bathing area with stools to sit at and shower heads to wash with, and a large gloriously hot hot tub to soak in. All done completely stark naked in a large open area.

Even after six months in Korea years ago where we came across these bathhouses quite often, that first moment when you strip in front of a friend who you've known for years but never seen naked and has never seen you naked ... awkward.

It quickly became the norm and you figure out the bathroom etiquette rules - eyes up! But that didn't stop us from trying to time our bath for different times. Not because of public nudity but just so we could enjoy the hot tub solo. A thing we failed miserably at each time. The first day I went down at 4pm thinking she would wait until 4.30pm ... she thought the same. The next day I waited till 4.30pm under the assumption she would go at 4pm ... in she walked at 4.30 thinking I had gone down at 4.

The town itself is dotted bath houses making the most of the hot spring water. Some of the more touristy spa towns in Japan have mixed-sex onsens. Not here. We asked some of the other ladies while soaking in scalding water (oh so there's a cold tap you can use to stop yourself feeling like a lobster being boiled alive ... took us a few days to figure out that one) whether there were any onsens that allowed husbands and wives to bathe together. Our queries were only ever met with bemused giggles and looks that I suspect translated to 'why would anyone want that?'

Our initial reason for coming here was to ski and snowboard. We lucked out a little on this front. The week before they had a lot of snow. The week after they had snow. We struck sunny hot spring days.

Thankfully it had snowed the day before we arrived so our first day was fantastic. We skied for over six hours in fresh snow, deep powder and soft groomed runs with blue skies and trees delicately coated in powdery snow. Hayley calls telecommunication towers on ski mountains 'alien towers'. With the snow clinging to them and the trees painted in them it completely felt like an alien world.

The second day was good but the boys had to search harder for fresh snow as the weather got warmer. The main runs got tracked out but there were always quieter runs to explore. The next day was downright hot. The powder was gone and by 11 the snow on the lower mountain was slush. Skiing those final 3km home through soft, sticky slush was not the brightest experience of the trip!

Still, it's hard to really complain when the snow base you are skiing on is this:

And that was at the bottom of the mountain! At the top of the mountain the base was over 3.5m. We sent this photo to the kids. They were not impressed.

Basic Costs

Accommodation was the major expense in Nozawa Onsen ... but then that seems to the biggest cost in Japan no matter where you are. We saw accommodation ranging from $50 to $400 a night with most options above $140 per night including breakfast.

Eating out was not as cheap as South East Asia but it was reasonable and the food was simply amazing. I was happy to discover most of my favourite dishes from Korea are also popular in Japan. Meals ranged in price from $4-$15, with $8-11 being the norm. There were several small bakeries selling bread products (just not cakes!) and a number of convenience stores so you could easily cater breakfast and lunch for yourself.

Once you are in Nozawa there are no transport costs. Everything is walking distance. The public Onsens were free to use although you needed to bring your own towels and soap.

Getting there and away

From Tokyo, there are direct buses from Narita and Toyko Station to Nozawa Onsen. From what I could see this was the cheapest option but the bullet train is faster. We opted for the bullet train as it's quicker and we'd never been on one.

We caught a train to Tokyo Station (5-30 mins depending on where you are staying in Tokyo, 130-150 yen per person) and then boarded the Shinkasen for Nagano. Trains leave every half hour and the trip takes 1hr 20 to 1hr 45 depending on how many stops the service makes. Tickets cost roughly 7500 yen one way for reserved seats or 7000 yen for unreserved, although if you show your train ticket that you purchased to get to Tokyo Station they will deduct that from your ticket price.

From Nagano train station you can take an express bus to Nozawa Onsen (1 hour) or a local train to Togari Nozawa Station (1 hour) followed by a local shuttle bus to Nozawa Onsen (15 minutes). We did the second option as we were travelling on a Sunday and the train timetable just worked better. The local train cost 550 yen but on the way back they deducted this cost from our bullet train ticket so I think we could have done that on the way there if we had of known. The local bus costs 300 yen.

Not the cheapest transport but it is fast, runs on time and the timetable actually works. If you are quick with your transfers you can go from one transport to the other with no delay in between. The trip there, including transfer times and lining up for tickets, took us 4 hours as it was a Sunday so there were less connection. On the way back we travelled on a weekday so the connections were better and the trip took three hours.

For those that care about skiing/snowboarding, ...

Lift passes were relatively cheap - roughly $40 per day with 1, 2, 3 and half day options. We purchased our tickets through our guesthouse and saved $8 on a three day pass.

The facilities were decent - the runs were well groomed, you really couldn't fault them. Several of the lifts were older, one was officially scary but the vast majority were modern and fast, although ridiculously slow to get on and off of.

Overall it was a fun mountain. There weren't a lot of easy red/blue or challenging green runs. It went from straight a beginners mountain to an intermediate/advanced mountain. Some of the best absolute beginner green runs I've seen anyway - wide, long and flat with a fast, modern chairlift that's easy to get on and off. Gondola's also make it a good beginner mountain - it's always nice to have a way down off the mountain other than skiing down when you are just learning. For intermediate-advanced skiers it was a great mountain. The mountain is filled with European Red/North American Blue runs, anything from a cruisy 1km red/blue to a steep narrow 5km ridge run. There's also a handful of great groomed black runs and lots of ludicrously steep black mogul runs. Although thankfully they keep the moguls small and I can see how after a week of snow they'd be a lot of fun.

From what we could see, while there were some tree areas that were in bounds, unless there has been a lot of new snow, most of the tree areas you would want to ride in are out of bounds. Unlike most mountains in Japan they don't seem to particularly diligent on stopping people going out of bounds here ... just expect to pay the price of any search and rescue if you get in trouble. There was a small park and one of the tree runs at the top had a gully that formed a long natural half-pipe.

January and February are the best months to go. Nozawa is a relatively low mountain - the top of the mountain is above 1600m and most of the best runs are well above 1000m but the base of the mountain is below 600m leaving it prone to 'spring conditions' in March and April. We were aware of that before going in March, we were just hoping to have better weather. But we didn't. That's OK. The groomed runs were fantastic, it just meant by the end of the week there was no powder for the boys to play in and by the end of the day you were skiing home in slush, with some ice first thing in the morning until it softened up.

3 Nights in Seattle: Museums, museums and sights

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 15:33:11 +1000

Three nights isn’t long to spend in a city as large as Seattle but after so long on a mountain top we were determined to cram in as many attractions, museums and sights as we could in that time. Here are the things we enjoyed most during our stay.

Pacific Science Centre

With two inquisitive children, Science Museums are almost always the first place we visit in any new city and the Pacific Science Centre didn’t disappoint.

Most science museums today are either wall to wall high-tech computer displays or filled with labyrinth of informative signs that are perfect for older teens who like to read in-depth information on how the human genome was decoded but are completely lost on the under 10s. The Pacific Science Centre was an old-school science centre, but in a good way. Hands on, old fashioned, well-designed, quality science experiments with just enough technology thrown in to compliment and modernize the exhibits rather than take them over.

For every animatronic dinosaur there was also a hands on dinosaur artifact, like the mechanical levers that could be turned to see how the animatronic dinosaurs actually worked and the giant footprint on the floor that children to lay in to see just how huge dinosaurs were. The kids also touched casts of fossilised dinosaur poo - an important lesson in actually reading the labels before touching stuff!!!

In the Astronomy and Earth room right next to the high-tech computerized globe of the world showing climate and tsunami data from NOAA (I could have watched that all day!) there were giant puzzles, a space shuttle with 3001 switches to press and a scale model of the solar system. The solar system model was fantastic. If you grew up in the era of a 9 planet solar system and always thought Pluto got a rough deal, seeing Pluto as a tiny spec smaller than a infants tooth against the almost ping-pong ball sized Mercury might finally convinced you the demotion to dwarf planet was justified. It finally convinced me.

Balancing out the low tech was a scale you could stand on to find out how much you weigh on each planet of the solar system. Did you know a child that weighs 50 pounds on Earth will weigh 1315 pounds on the Sun but only 3 pounds on Pluto? Noah and Hayley had a lot of fun discovering how much they weighed on each planet.

And no, despite feeling rather fit after skiing, no amount of begging from the kids could convince me to step on the scales and find out what my weight on the sun might be! There are some numbers a mum just never wants to imagine!

We had a game of giant checkers, built marble runs, gazed into funny mirrors, identified butterflies in the butterfly room, held a giant cockroach, changing the length of a lever so that even a 5 year old could lift a 250kg weight and learned about the human body. There wasn't a room that we didn't enjoy. We spent four hours at the Science Centre and only left because Noah was feeling sick. We could have easily stayed longer.

Thanks to a discount entry coupon we received entry to an IMAX movie for $1. The 40 minute science based movie on the life of Monarch Butterflies was mindblowing. No seriously, if your kids are ever bored and want a great research project get them to look into monarch butterfly migration. It's a lot more interesting than it sounds.

EMP Museum

If music or science fiction are your passion, the EMP museum should be on your sightseeing list for your time in Seattle. Even with two young children who weren’t interested in learning the history of the guitar nor the story of Hendrix and Nirvana, we still had a very enjoyable 2.5 hours there. We played musical instruments and experienced what it was like to be on stage. We learned about green rooms and made our own movie magic. Mum also got her fill of Sci-Fi nerdiness when she saw artifacts from her favourite TV and movie shows. I've written more about our time at the EMP Museum in this post. Buy your tickets online before going for a discount on entry.

Seattle Aquarium

The Seattle Aquarium is one of the smaller aquariums that we have visited but it had a lot to recommend it. Seals, otters and sea birds; an underwater area with fish feeding; a wide range of fish from around the world and my personal favourite - an octopus with his own 'hamster run'.

Most aquarium's today have a touch pool where children can touch star fish, sea cucumbers and anemones, along with other small sea creatures. In every aquarium that we've visited the touch pools were relatively small - roughly the size of several bath tubs. Not at the Seattle Aquarium. What you can see in the photo below is less than 1/3th of the touch pool area at the Seattle Aquarium.

We've visited bigger, better aquariums but we had an enjoyable visit. The rock-pools were definitely the highlight and they got bonus points for helpful, enthusiastic staff that were always on hand to chat to.

Space Needle

I've always wanted to go up the Space Needle in Seattle. We chose a ridiculously windy night but braving the wind for a few minutes to experience the view outside was well worth it. I could go on and on about the view from the very top but this photo says it better ...

Inside was much warmer even if the view wasn't quite as spectacular, but on a night like we chose it was definitely more enjoyable to be indoors. Noah and Hayley really enjoyed all the interactive computer screens that allowed them to change the viewpoint and time.

Eating out

Staying near the Space Needle we weren’t in the heart of Seattle’s finest dining but we still managed to find two of the best dining experiences of our entire 2 months in North America

Zeeks

The pizza restaurant and bar Zeeks won us over the instant we walked into the door when they handed Noah and Hayley pencils, puzzles and a sticky ball of pizza dough each to play with. Pizza dough! How fun is that! They also got bonus points for having the largest list of vegetarian pizzas I’ve ever seen.

Snacking our way around Pike Place Markets

A market place filled with reasonably priced food from all around the world … what’s not to like! Our favourites were the bagels and samosas just around the corner from Rachel the Pig.

The Seattle CityPASS provides entry to 6 of the top attractions, including the Space Needle and all of the museums we wanted to see. We considered purchasing the pass but when we did the maths it was actually cheaper for us not to. We were only there for three nights so we could really only fit in three of the inner city museums and the Space Needle. When we added up the cost of the museums that we decided we had time to visit, that we'd managed to find discount entry coupons for anyway thanks to voucher booklets from our hotel lobby, it was actually cheaper to not purchase the pass.

Depending on how many museums you are visiting though and the cost of the actual museums, it may be worth the pass.

Visiting Seattle and the EMP Musuem

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 20:32:03 +1000

Once we looked at a map and realised how close Vancouver is to the USA border and Seattle, it seemed wrong to drive down for a few days. We looked online for the cheapest rental car deal, found a reasonably priced hotel room in Seattle and set out. OK so it didn't happen quite that quickly - there was a lot of research and a lot of delaying in making a decision ... but it all resulted in the same thing: a 5 day visit to the USA!

The kids and I were excited. We'd never been to the US. As we neared the border and crossed into that fuzzy no-mans-land between the checkpoints where we were technically on American soil but not officially in America yet the kids started rolling down the windows to see if American air smelled any different to Canadian air. It didn't ... that didn't stop them checking three or four more times!

Being Australian we couldn't just drive across the border. Australian's are eligible for a free visa on arrival at the border but it's not an automatic process. When you are driving across you need to fill out a form and pay a $6 fee to check that you really are eligible for the "free" visa. It provided the perfect chance for the kids to get bored and try to knock over those rope dividers, complain loudly about why it was taking so long and fight with each other. Just the type of behaviour you really want at immigration!

Finally we had our stamps and made it to Seattle 3 hours after leaving Vancouver, with just a few "When are we getting to Seattle?" and "How much longer?" along the way. Like every five minutes!

This was the view from our hotel, the Travelodge by the Space Needle. Not the flashest hotel we've ever stayed in - it was older and needs renovating but we found a great special on Priceline for $85 a night for a room with two queen beds including WIFI and breakfast.

Even better the hotel was only two blocks walk to the Space Needle, a number of museums and the monorail to downtown. After 6 weeks on a mountain top enjoying snowy nature the kids and I were on a mission to spend two days visiting as many museums as we could and go sightseeing!

And that's exactly what we did.

Exploring the EMP Museum

One of the biggest highlights of our Seattle stay was the Sci-Fi section of the Experience Music Project (EMP) museum.

OK I lie ... it was the highlight for ME!

I could fill this post with photos of geeky sci-fi memorabilia from almost every major movie and TV series from the last 40 years. Star Wars, Doctor Who, Stargate, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica and more. Even obscure ones, like the film Enemy Mine. I have photos of them all. No seriously, I took photos of everything I recognised. Sad but completely true.

I ... ahem ... also have the Doctor Who t-shirt from the museum to celebrate the day too.

As well as shiny cases housing sci-fi memorabilia, the Sci-Fi section of the EMP museum also had a green room exhibit for the kids to play with. There were two cameras and two green rooms both feeding into the one video. One allowed you to use action figures to created a monster scene against one of four typical science fiction backdrops. The other allowed you to put a person into the same scene. With dress-up sci-fi clothing of course.

When you put it altogether you could use tiny action figures to make it look like there were monsters attacking people in city or on Mars. Or you were all flying through the sky with monsters before getting sucked into a space vortex ... well kind of. The technology wasn't perfect but it gave the kids the idea. Here's Hayley in a sparkly cloak about to get attacked by an alien space craft.

It was educational and fun ... and perfect for the Mum who wanted to look at all the 'boring movie stuff' locked inside shiny cases preventing it from being touched and read all the information in detail while the kids were occupied. We only spent half an hour in the Sci-Fi section but a good twenty minutes of it I'm sure was spent like this:

Me: "Look!!! There's a Dalek!"

Kids: "Wow, cool. Is it real? Is the Doctor here?"

Me: "There's a light saber and Yoda's cane!"

Kids: "What's that from?"

Me: "Ohh look look there's Captain Kirks chair. And an outfit from Battlestar Galactica and a weapon from Stargate ... and ... no... oh my, wow it's Christopher Reeves Superman outfit. That's awesome ... wait ... what? Hold on? Did you say you don't know what a light saber is from? Haven't I shown you Star Wars yet?"

Kids: "Mum, we're bored. Can we go play the guitars again?"

Me: "But this is soo cool"

Kids: "No. It's not."

Me: "Oh. Umm ... 5 more minutes? Yes I know I said 5 more minutes 5 minutes ago but please ... go play with the green room again OK?"

Onto the Music Experience

For Noah and Hayley the highlight of the EMP museum was the hands on music area that allowed them to try playing the drums, keyboard and electric guitar. You can learn how to play, learn a new technique if you already know the basics or just go solo (or bash away in the case of kids!). There are also vocal booths if you fancy yourself as a singer.

We arrived right on opening on a weekday so we had the place to ourselves. That meant the On Stage Experience had no line-up. The On Stage Experience offers a simulated concert experience where 3-4 people can see what it feels like to be in a rock band performing live on a stage.

Of course it's not really live - you are singing karaoke with instruments in a sound room with great acoustics filled with speakers and lights in front of a projector screen with an image of a crowded audience. The instruments and music plays itself unless you request otherwise, although you can still bash away and hear yourself. Noah and Hayley got a big thrill out of the experience. We did two songs with the kids taking turns on drums and guitar singing away and doing solos. Afterwards we watched a recording of our experience and walked away with mock concert tickets to commorate our "first gig"!

Most of rest of the museum's music memorabilia was a lost on a 5 and 7 year old. With another adult or older teens who appreciate music it would have been interesting but the kids were more interested in the hands on, climb on, make noise sections of the museum so we skipped several areas that I would have really liked to see such as the Nirvana and Hendrix exhibits in favour of the hands on activities.

The EMP Museum is located at the base of the Space Needle. It's not hard to find - the architecture is rather unique.

We bought our tickets online before going. If you do this you can save $5 per adult and $2 per child. There's no need to print your tickets off - just record the receipt number that they provide. If you don't want to buy online, keep an eye out for discount pamphlets in hotel lobbies and at tourist information centres. I saw a number of $1-3 off entry vouchers for the EMP.

Lynn Canyon Vancouver

Sat, 09 Feb 2013 06:31:54 +1000

After Big White we caught a greyhound bus back to Vancouver to spend two nights with friends before hiring a rental car to drive down to Seattle for a week. We decided to hire the car a day early to allow us to explore a little more of Vancouver with our friends. Our destination of choice - Lynn Canyon.

Lynn Canyon Park is a 20 minute drive north of downtown Vancouver, or rather east of North Vancouver. Established in 1912, the second growth forest is filled with hiking trails, swimming holes and waterfalls. There is also a suspension bridge and unlike the more famous Capilano Suspension Bridge in Vancouver, entry to Lynn Canyon and the suspension bridge is free. The Capilano bridge is more dramatic but it's also quite expensive.

Arriving on a wet Sunday afternoon, Lynn Canyon was quiet. We had the suspension bridge and walking trails mostly to ourselves.

The suspension bridge is at the start of the walking trails just a short distance from the car park - perfect with young kids so we didn't have to endure any 'when will we get to the bridge' questions as we hiked.

The kids spied the bridge and raced across bouncing up and down the whole way oblivious to the gorgeous waterfalls on either side and the nearly 20m drop below to the blue and white churning waters. The adults of course took it a bit slower. It was pretty bouncing and thanks to the rain a bit slippery. And the view was spectacular.

Past the bridge the trail splits. You can walk left towards the river and blue-green waters of the 30ft pool before going onto longer trails or right to the twin falls. Our friend's children had been before and remembered some giant boulders near the 30ft pool that were fun to climb so we set off in that direction.

The trees near the river were covered in iridescent green moss.

After six weeks surrounded by snow on snow where an entire week could go by where you felt like you saw nothing but white, the brilliant green and bright red-brown soil seemed almost impossible. Such a contrast from the landscape we were enjoying two days previously.

Suddenly out of the green trees appear the blue-green waters of the 30ft pool, a popular swimming hole in summer.

Even in winter on a wet, cold day the waters looked appealing. The kids all stuck their hands in. The verdict was mixed but no one deliberately fell in so it can't have been that warm!

Our walk continued along the path. After the pool the trail heads up a hill and back towards the road where you can continue hiking or loop back along another path and finish a loop trail that gets you back to the suspension bridge. We opted for the loop path.

Without stops the loop path would take 30-40 minutes. Of course with all our stops, including a snack break, and little legs the walk took twice that long. It was mostly flat except for one set of stairs and easy apart from a couple of slippery sections.

Then it was back across the suspenion bridge and time to dry out.

Tips for visiting:

While there is an on-site cafe, once you are on the hiking trails there are no water fountains. Take your own drinking water and snacks. There are toilets just before the suspension bridge.

The trails at Lynn Canyon can get slippery and icy, particularly the Twin Falls walk. Wear good shoes. We also had waterproof gloves on the kids - which they of course still managed to get rather muddy and soggy.

Lynn Canyon Park is open from 7am-7pm during summer and from 7am-dusk during winter. The education centre has variable hours depending on whether it's a weekend or weekday, winter or summer so it's well worth checking the hours as you walk past. We didn't and the kids were rather upset when we returned from our walk to find the centre had just closed. If we had of realised we would have gone there before our walk.

You can reach Lynn Canyon by public transport. Visit their website for details. Car really is the quickest and easiest way though. The car park is free.

This post is part of Photo Friday at Delicious Baby

Leaving Big White

Sat, 02 Feb 2013 03:04:22 +1000

After a week of constant snow the sun finally came out for our final day in Big White in Canada. It's was such an amazing experience to live in a place with this much snow on the ground. Growing up where winter rarely drops under 20 degrees Celsius during the day, I never imagined living for over a month in a ski resort town with 2m of snow on the ground. I definitely didn't imagine us all loving it and spending half our time pondering how we could move there for longer!

The snow was amazing. Colin and I both achieved the snowboarding and skiing goals we set ourselves at the start of the season. The kids came along with their skiing and each found something they loved. Hayley overcame her fears from last year in New Zealand and discovered a love of speed, bumps and gullies. Noah started out the season afraid of speed and blue runs but towards the end thanks to meeting an instructor that he really clicked with he not only tackled some of the steepest runs on the mountain and got his parallel turns working, he found his true home on the slopes - trees and deep powder.

Six weeks was long enough to make friends and we found one of those rare places that quickly made you feel part of a community, which made the last few weeks a lot more enjoyable but just made leaving that much harder. Travelling around you tend to make a lot of friends. You meet a lot of people and make so many connections. Friendships are easy but feeling like you are part of a community is harder. We hadn't really realised that we were missing this until we went to New Zealand and spent six months stopped there connected with a wonderful community of people. So it was lovely to be somewhere again that we felt connected to part of a community.

It didn't matter that we'd been there for 6 weeks - we still wanted to fit in some more ski time. And we now had friends to leave behind and a place we felt quite at home. Of course it didn't help that leaving a ski resort is always expensive! They have a monopoly I guess on getting you down off the mountain. Getting from Big White to Kelowna by a shuttle bus cost us almost as much for the 1hour drive as the 6 hour bus ride from Kelowna to Vancouver.

Between the snow and the friends we made it was a beautiful place to spend time. A sunny day after a week of fresh snow every day was a fabulous way to finish our time there before heading down to Vancouver and Seattle to enjoy our final week in North America.

What to do in a ski resort (apart from ski!)

Sat, 26 Jan 2013 03:32:18 +1000

So you're headed to a ski resort for a family holiday but some of your party doesn't ski or snowboard. Perhaps several of you are planning to learn for the first time but you're worried that if you don't like it you'll be stuck inside for a week with nothing to do while the established skiers and boarders have fun.

We've just completed our fifth week at Big White Ski Resort in Canada. As much as it would be tempting to go out all day every day, the kid's get tired and cold too quickly. We find they only last half a day on the mountain before we need to come inside and they need every third day as a rest day, sometimes more. And quite frankly, I'm not sure either Col's or my body would survive that many days of back-to-back skiing and snowboarding! After 5 weeks up here hitting the slopes at least 4 days out of 7 the niggling tired muscles are starting to show. I'm sure this wouldn't have happened 15 years ago! S

In the past few weeks we've discovered a lot of fun things to do when you don't feel like skiing, both indoors and outdoors. Here's our list of favourite things to do at a ski resort when your aren't out on the slopes:

Play, play, play

You don't need fancy sleds and toys to have fun in the snow. Just put on those waterproof layers and get outside.

Find a nearby hill and go sliding. Even without a sled you can have a lot of fun. If the snow is powdery, your butt makes a better slide anyway!

Make a snowman, dig a fort or make a tunnel to crawl through. Have a good old snowball fight, preferably with Dad, not Mum! Find some ridiculously soft, deep snow and have an adventure trying to walk through it. A woods or a hill is perfect for this. It's amazing how much energy the kids (and you) will expend just trying to get 500m through waist deep snow. Find some shallower fresh snow and have fun making funny tracks in it.

If you can get access to a shovel or a sled you can entertain the kids for hours. Build a slide or a bigger fort with stairs, a quincy or just pile up some snow at the bottom of your sledding hill for your sled to crash into.

Go for a walk through the village and try to spot the building with the biggest icicles ... from a distance of course! If you have a nearby woods, go for a walk looking for any animals that might still be living in the area. We've seen ravens, squirrels and small birds. We've spotted the foot prints of rabbits, deer and wolves (OK they are dog foot prints but we're pretending they are wolves!) and practised tracking them. We investigated the way fresh snow sticks to trees and watched it fall from branches on a windy day.

Dress-ups

All those cool winter clothes like tights, gloves, balaclavas, ski pants and goggles aren't just great for keeping you warm and dry in the snow; they're also perfect for dress-ups on an inside day. We just spent a glorious afternoon dressed as ninja spies doing secret missions around our apartment complex.

Hot chocolates

There's nothing quite like drinking hot chocolate by a toasty fireplace as it snows outside. Except for perhaps standing outside in the snow next to a roaring bonfire sipping hot chocolate! We've done plenty of both.

Noah's favourite hot chocolate comes from a nearby coffee shop that serves a kids-sized hot chocolate with cream, sprinkles and at least 12 mini-marshmallows (yes he counts every time!) for $2.50.

Ride the gondolas or lifts

Most resorts have at least one gondola or chairlift that non-skiers can ride. All you usually need to do is ask around - either at the chairlift or at the main information desk. It's a great way to get out and see more of the mountain. One thing I love about resorts in Europe is that many have restaurants right at the top that are accessible to non-skiers via a chairlift - you can sit at the summit enjoying lunch to amazing views right in the middle of the fun that the rest of the family is having rather than feeling isolated just waiting for the family to come home at the end of the day.

Kids and family activities

Most ski resorts run activities for children. Here at Big White they run a free craft afternoon once a week. On the other days they offer paid activities such as ice skating or indoor rock-climbing. At $15-25 per child, including dinner and supervision for 2-3 hours, we've only done this a couple of times but it's been a great chance for Mum and Dad to go out. Each time the children have had a fabulous time and don't want to leave at the end of the night.

Ski resorts often run free family activity nights. In the past few weeks we've played bingo and taken part in a fun challenge night with contests like moving a cookie from your forehead to your mouth without using your hands. We've also enjoyed free fireworks, parades, drank free hot chocolate by a bonfire and eaten more free popcorn than I can count.

There's always something going on for families in the evenings so even if you have spent the day inside while the others have been out skiing, you can always find some way to get out of the apartment and enjoy yourself as a family without spending a lot of money.

Time for experiments

If the weather isn't ideal for playing outside in the snow you can still have some snowy fun indoors provided you have access to a window ledge, balcony or yard. My children are always coming up with crazy notions like filling plastic bags with snow to bring inside to play with in the sink, preferably a sink filled with hot water so they can watch it melt or turn straight to ice before melting.

We have plastic cups filled with water and snow freezing on the balcony just to see what happens. Some are buried in snow to see if they freeze faster, some sitting near the window to see if the heat of indoors keeps them from freezing. Some have things in them like salt or popcorn. We have a freezer filled with icicles that have been collected out on walks that are being observed for changes.

Over the past few weeks we've put black paper outside and caught snowflakes to observe through a magnifying glass. We've filled balloons with water and food dye before burying them in the snow to freeze. Once they've frozen you can peel off the balloon (a little hot water helps) and you have these amazing giant ice marbles to play with. The trick we've learned is to not make them any bigger than 15cm in diameter otherwise they take too long to freeze.

There are endless ideas. The only real limit is how much mess they will make inside!!!

Bring board games

A few board games or packs of cards never go astray. This holiday the kids have learned how to play scrabble, boggle, marbles and triominoes. We've honed our Uno and Crazy Eight skills and they've even become pretty good Uka players.

Non-skiing snow sports

Most ski resorts offer a range of snow based sports. Ice skating, snow shoeing, sleigh rides, dog sledding, ski-doo rides, ice climbing, cross-country skiing, snow biking, canyon walking, hiking, and more. The sports on offer will vary depending on the actual resort but there's always something for the non-skier.

Make sure you research the options before you go and if there's nothing on offer that takes your fancy start thinking about what equipment you could take with you that could make your time there perfect.

Enjoying the 'finer things of life'

If there's one thing ski resorts do well it's the finer things of life. Like hot tubs on balcony's overlooking the snow, massages and facials or wine and tapas by a roaring fire. Most of them don't come cheaply ... but then neither do lift passes and gear rental so if you're the only non-participant in the group maybe it's worth at least one self-indulgent splurge!

Solstice fun at the Chinese Gardens in Vancouver

Fri, 18 Jan 2013 02:45:28 +1000

When we first got our tickets to fly into Vancouver I started picturing all the things we would be doing there. Riding trains and buses, exploring museums and the aquarium, wandering Stanley Park (hopefully not in the rain), eating delicious snacks at Granville Island Markets and a lot of time spent warming up in funky coffee shops. What didn't even enter my mind was discovering the most beautiful Chinese garden I've ever seen.

Friends that we met last year in Penang recently moved to Vancouver and we caught up one night in Chinatown for dinner. It was actually the night of the solstice (yes that's how out of date I am with the blog!). The night of the solstice is a night when the Secret Lantern Society of Vancouver hold several lantern parades around the city. One of the parades takes place in Chinatown and culminates at the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden for a lantern festival.

A secret society and a lantern festival in a Chinese garden. How mysterious and cool!

(OK so the society isn't really that secret. It has a website but they get bonus points from me for calling themselves a secret society!)

The aim was to meet for an early dinner than walk in the parade before exploring the lantern lit gardens at night. Of course it didn't quite go to plan. We got the restaurant address slightly wrong, walked too far and turned up 20 minutes late to dinner resulting in us missing the parade. But we did have a lovely dinner and explored the Chinese Gardens as the festival was in full swing.

Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden and Park

The first of it's kind outside of China, the Ming Dynasty style garden sits in the heart of Chinatown. Within the walls you would swear you were no longer in Vancouver, except for the occasional glimpse of a gleaming high-rises in the background. Since we were only there at night, these photos are from Flickr Creative Commons (links to the artists can be found by clicking on the photos) to give you an idea of what they look like by day.

Pavilions dot the edges of lakes and ponds filled with koi that are connected by bridges and asymmetrical paths lined by stones. Some of the stones even have fossils - if we weren't busy gazing at lanterns I bet trying to find the fossils would have kept my kids occupied for a good hour.

Around the edges of each area are covered walkways so even in Vancouver's drearier months you can still enjoy the gardens.

52 master craftsmen from China worked with local craftsman on the project. The trees featured within the garden are species native to the area of China that the craftsmen came from, which has similar seasons to Vancouver, so along with the traditional architecture you really do feel like you've been transported somewhere else.

OK so back to my photos ... (of course the one right at the top of the post is mine as well)

At night with thousands of lanterns, music and throngs of people ... the whole experience was rather breathtaking. Noisy and filled with people but breathtaking. There was a percussion band handing out instruments to children in the audience. The kids waited but didn't get a turn as it was really popular.

There were guided tours, music and light displays over the lake, food for sale and more. But it was mainly the atmosphere of the gardens filled with light and people against the backdrop of the intricate architecture that made the night.

Entry during the festival was free, although a $5 donation was encouraged.

Visiting the Chinese Gardens

The gardens are located in Chinatown just a short walk from Stadium Chinatown Skytrain station along Keefer St. Alternatively you can walk from downtown Vancouver - the walk takes around 20 minutes with kids.

Opposite the gardens is the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Public Park. Entry to the park is free and by all accounts it's a lovely place to hang out with children on a sunny day.

Entry to the Chinese Gardens is $12 for adults and $9 for students/children or $25 for a family or four and includes a tour. During festivals, such as this lantern night or Chinese New Years, entry is often free, although they request a $5 donation.

Opening hours depend on the time of year so check the website for further details. With children the perfect time to visit is between 11-1 when you can catch the 11.30am koi feeding and 12.30pm "touchy-feely" activity program designed for families.

This post is part of Photo Friday over at Delicious Baby and Friday DayDreamin at R We There Yet Mom, both great places to discover new family friendly locations around the world to explore.

Snowy fun at Big White, Canada

Wed, 09 Jan 2013 02:29:43 +1000

This has been our home for the past three weeks. We'll be here for another three. Well not quite this 'exact' spot ... somewhere down in the middle right of the photo in that cluster of buildings.

But this view is what our 5 year has taken to calling our "patio".

Our first week at Big White Ski Resort in Canada was in an apartment that opened right onto this section of the mountain. Hayley decided that since our backdoor opened on to it the whole thing must be "our patio". And so it has remained, even after we've moved into the older style apartment that we're renting for the month closer to the main ski village.

Living in a ski resort with this much snow is phenomenal. Outside are snowbanks easily as high as three adults. Those are the small ones. Many are 5 times that high.

Walking 500m down to the village takes 30 minutes. Not because it's difficult. We could get there in three minutes but the children have made it their mission to slide on every single snow hill they can find ...

... fall into every pile of powder, eat snow, dance in snow, kick snow and of course take any available shortcut through the trees.

Shortcut is a misleading word. By distance it may be shorter but when you suddenly find yourself up to your waist in snow ... repeatedly ... shortcuts takes time!

And that's just getting there. Getting home again is another adventure ... why take the road!

But oh what fun we're having.

Up higher on the mountain the trees have been turned into snow ghosts. This strange army of monsters with the appearance of something built out of playdough by toddlers silently waits across the hills, row after row, hill after hill. On a foggy day riding the chairlift through them is eerie and beautiful.

Of course living somewhere this cold isn't without challenges. Getting out the front door is a mission of putting on layers (actually the mission starts with finding all the layers. There is always a missing glove or sock!). It takes forever, particularly given a certain 7 year old who needs to be reminded again and again to stay on task when it comes to getting ready. The number of times we've gotten outside and discovered he still doesn't have his gloves despite being reminded four times.

And since getting out the door is such a mission we're spending a lot of time inside. That leads to a lot of sibling fighting, which in turn leads to cranky parents.

But apart from that ... good times!

The big family Christmas

At first we had the whole family here. Dinners together and catching up. Christmas lunch that turned into Christmas dinner ... as Christmas lunch has a tendency to do.

We had the complete "White Christmas" experience. New snow, bonfires standing out in the snow and fireworks on Christmas Eve. Santa even skied into the resort to check that all the children were on their way to bed through a archway of staff on skis holding flares.

Most of the family spent time skiing together. One of the highlights for us was skiing with Noah and Hayley's cousins. Lovely quality time, especially when we don't get to see them all that often. The boys went out on a skidoo ride.

And of course there was plenty of sledding, snow fights and hot chocolates.

We took a sleigh ride together through the lower part of the mountain. As our niece remarked, it was like riding in the White Witch's sleigh from Narnia through the silent snow covered woods.

The kids all got a turn at driving. They felt so important (and of course no one pointed out the horses walk this path every day so they weren't really in control! Shhhh)

Just after New Years our family left and we moved into our monthly apartment. Our mornings are spent on school work. In the afternoons we ski, either in lessons or just together. Although after three days of ski lessons, we opted for a day of sledding, snow play and movies today. Mum's legs are too sore to ski today!

So why spend 6 weeks in a ski resort?

Colin's family decided that this Christmas would be a once in a lifetime overseas holiday altogether; flying over from Australia to spend a week in Vancouver and then a White Christmas at Big White ski resort.

When we started looking at a budget for Big White including the cost of lift passes for 7-10 days and all the other associated expenses with coming skiing/snowboarding we realised that it's only slightly more expensive to stay for 6 weeks (or even a whole season) provided you can find reasonably priced accommodation. Coming skiing for a short period of time as a family is usually not a cheap holiday but if you can stay for a longer period it actually works out to be a lot more affordable.

If you buy season lift passes several months in advance you can get large discounts. An early bird season pass works out to be only slightly more expensive than a lift pass for a single week. We had most of our own equipment and clothing from Bulgaria and New Zealand, and knew we'd be able to pick up a lot of quality equipment second hand in Vancouver thanks to some tips on where to shop from friends. Even if you don't have your own gear, season rates for rental equipment are often quite reasonable when compared with daily hire rates.

Colin found an apartment for $2000/month that was ski-in/ski-out. It's an older two bedroom apartment, nothing fancy but it is fully furnished, warm and has everything we need so that we can cook at home (definitely the way to save money, eating out here is not cheap!). $2000/month is more than we'd pay on monthly accommodation in Asia but it's less than we'd pay on accommodation travelling around Canada for a month, which was our other alternative plan.

Plus we all really love snow and skiing/snowboarding so it just seemed to make sense to stay here for longer.

Europe, New Zealand and Canada - three winters in a row. Insane? Maybe. But we're having a great time.

Although yes we're starting to dream about sand instead of snow!

What are you dreaming of this week? This post is part of Friday Daydreaming at R We There Yet Mom where other families are sharing their favourite adventures and dreams from the past week.

Welcome to Canada! Vancouver in December

Fri, 04 Jan 2013 02:38:00 +1000

Happy New Years from Canada! We've finally made it to our fourth continent ... only three years later than planned.

The past five weeks have been a whirlwind of catching up with family. We spent just over two weeks driving from Brisbane to Sydney in Australia visiting my family. It was so lovely to see everyone and be together again so close to Christmas. Our last visit to Australia was 18 months ago so it was nice to spent quality time with them rather than just Skype calls.

In Sydney we met up with Colin's family to fly to Canada for Christmas. Sixteen people in total; Noah and Hayley's grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins. A 10 hour flight to Beijing with a 12 hour layover followed by another 10 hour flight to Vancouver. A long journey but with that many people to talk to and cousins to play with it actually went by surprisingly fast.

Travel fun times 16

Once in Vancouver we hit a unusual travel challenge for us. When we arrive somewhere we usually grab the cheapest public transport into town or if we're too tired to deal with that we take a taxi. But what's the easiest and cheapest way transport 16 tired people with all their luggage from an airport into town?

Public transport works out to be expensive when you have that many people. And after that long on planes and in airports, no one was really keen to take a bus/train into town followed by a subway and a 1km walk uphill wheeling all the bags to reach where we were staying.

A taxi isn't a great option either. With that many people and bags you actually need 5 taxis.

So what was the answer?

Two limousines!

No, we're not just being posh and ridiculous. As ludicrous as it sounds, two limousines when you have 16 people with all their bags is cheaper than 5 taxis. The kids (and lets be honest, adults) were very impressed!

Vancouver in winter ... or "I wish I had duck feet"

Vancouver in December certainly lived up to its reputation as a rainy city. We spent a week in Vancouver and saw the sun for two hours. Apparently we were lucky!

That's OK - we were well warned that winter in Vancouver would be like this. We had most of our wet weather winter gear, except for shoes. We though out shoes were waterproof but there's nothing like walking for several days in constant rain in sub-zero temperatures to test that theory! I recommend duck feet. If you don't have duck feet, gumboots with lining seem to be the best option! Actually they're all the fashion in Vancouver at the moment with some stores selling rain-boots for several hundred dollars. We mostly opted for the consignment stores selling second hand quality snow and rain boots. My second hand but almost new looking Northface $40 snowboots might make me look like I have clown feet unless I wear long pants but I certainly have warm dry toes!!!

We also had a long list of indoors things to do. As you'd expect, in a city as large as Vancouver that frequently has a long, wet winter, there's a lot to do indoors. And in December there's also winter and Christmas activities.

The kids spent a morning at the Museum of Anthropology with their grandparents. They were really impressed by the totem pole display and the displays on cultures from around the world.

We also visited the Vancouver Aquarium. With the inclusion of the outdoor section housing beluga whales, porpoises, dolphins, seals, penguins, with underwater observation areas, educational talks and feeding times and the indoor Amazon exhibit with monkeys, snakes, a sloth, birds, bats and a caiman, our trip to the aquarium felt almost like a visit to the zoo ... with just a lot more fish! It was an amazing day out.

We hit the malls and downtown for some Christmas shopping and sight seeing. We stocked up on cheese, dips and winter berries for Christmas lunch at the indoor Granville Island markets while the younger children played at the indoor playground at the nearby Children's Market. With four stories of slides, climbing equipment and ball pits we could have left them there all day!

We spent a lot of time walking around Vancouver in the rain. Despite the cold and rain it was still very beautiful. With the snowy mountains in the background during the day and at night the Christmas decorations lighting up the towers, streets and waterfront, you couldn't help but enjoy Vancouver even if it was really wet.

Another highlight of our time in Vancouver was a visit to Bright Nights in Stanley Park. Bright Nights is a giant Christmas lights display in Stanley Park with millions of lights and hundreds of intricate displays as well as Santa's village, carolers, entertainment, food and drink. It was a lovely but chilly way to celebrate Christmas. Entry to the Christmas lights display is free, although a small donation is requested.

Bright Nights is famous for it's Christmas train. The train ride goes for 15 minutes through a woods filled with amazing light displays. The scenes from movies like Shrek and fairy-tales were great but the biggest hit with the kids (and adults) was the dancing 70's disco moose on stilts in a white suit.

I still have no clue why there was a disco moose on stilts doing the YMCA but you couldn't help but laugh. Entry to the Christmas train does cost money but it was amazing and part of the proceeds go to charity.

We were also treated with a snow day. I love seeing cities transformed by snow and watching how the public infrastructure deals with the snow, particularly in cities where snowfall isn't a regular winter occurrence.

The kids were just happy to spent time throwing snowballs with their cousins.

So many great memories from Vancouver and it's been a great experience to be able to share travel memories with such a large family group. After Vancouver it was onto Big White Ski Resort near Kelowna in BC, Canada for Christmas where we spent another week and a half together. But more about that in another post!

Sydney and Newcastle, last stops!

Sun, 30 Dec 2012 04:44:23 +1000

Our final two stops in Australia before flying out for our big family white Christmas in Canada (just in case your are confused no we're not Canadian, my husband's family decided to do a once in a lifetime family Christmas holiday) were Newcastle and Sydney.

This time we just spent a single day in Newcastle. We've spent more time here on previous holidays and I really like Newcastle. It's not as happening as Sydney or Melbourne but for a quieter family getaway it's a nice spot and it has the most amazing beaches (although the picture above is Coogee beach in Sydney).

Sadly during this visit we didn't make it to any of Newcastle's beaches. But we did have a fun day out at the Hunter Wetlands Centre followed by lunch on Beaumont St, one of the best 'eating out' streets in Newcastle.

Bird spotting at the Hunter Wetlands Centre

The Hunter Wetlands Centre was good but not great. Considering less than 30 years ago this giant bird-filled wetlands was actually a waste dump and the entire project is run by a community run volunteer organisation, the wetlands is nothing short of remarkable. There are excellent walking trails that take you through a number of different wetland climates filled with a huge number of species of plants, animals and birds. You can walk or cycle through them or hire canoes and paddle your way through the waterways and birds.

We were a little disappointed by the Bush Tucker walk and Sensory walk. The 'Bush Tucker' walk is filled with native plants that are edible but there weren't enough signs to actually tell you the names of the plants or anything else about them, like where they grew, what parts are edible and how they were prepared. You couldn't even tell which were the edible plants. We were quite lucky to be there with Uncle Craig who as a local science teacher has actually been learning about most of these plants to teach his students so he could be our guide and pick out all the leaves and berries that were edible. The kids didn't enjoy the taste of most!

Similarly there's a sensory walk with plants you can touch. Soft plants, spikey plants, smelly plants. It was better as there were some signs with information but just not quite enough to make it great.

On the plus side though, they did have free nets that you could use to catch and release small fish/insects and a small but fantastic information centre with reptiles and frogs. The staff let us borrow a laminated card of all the birds we might see on our walk. The kids found it much more engaging once they had a pictorial guide to the birds that they were in charge of looking out for! The kids were also really impressed with the playground.

I've read really good reviews about their guided tours of the wetlands and their canoe tours. Both run regularly, it's just a matter of calling ahead and booking. Fees for tours are quite reasonable. Overall it was a really good day out, just not great. If I was going again I'd book a tour or visit a library beforehand to get books on bush tucker plants and Australian wetland birds.

Next stop ... Sydney

After a week with Uncle Craig and Aunty Sam it was time to move onto Sydney to catch up with more friends and fly out for Canada.

We spent a few days looking for a 'budget' hotel in Sydney but we gave up on finding anything under $100/night. On our last visit to Sydney we camped but this time that wasn't an option so we started looking at the $100-150 hotel range on Wotif.com and checking with hotel's directly.

We chose the Aspire Hotel in Ultimo as it was central and they had a family room for $125 a night. The hotel is old, as was the room and furnishings but everything worked and it was clean. We had a double and two singles, with Internet for an extra $10 a day per device. It's really hard to compare compare value for money with Asia ... for $30-50 a night in Asia we'd have a nicer room with free WIFI, breakfast and a pool. But then this is Sydney!

Ultimo was a great location. We were within a ten minute walk to Darling Harbour, Chinatown, Paddys Market and Central Station. And by a funny twist of fate, the hotel shared a wall with the building my cousin lived in. What a small world! I knew my cousin lived in Ultimo but it's a large suburb and Sydney is a big city so to end up right next door ... what a funny co-incidence!

We had a fun dinner out in Chinatown and had the best egg-custard filled treats from Emperor's Cream Puffs thanks to a tip from Uncle Craig. We ate far, far too many. When you enter the main Chinatown street from Paddys Market end, look for the bakery 20m down the mall on the left. There is a small window next to it that sells only these puffs. If it's after 6pm just look for the long line of people waiting!

One block from our hotel was the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney's Science Museum. Noah, Hayley and I spent 4 hours there one morning. The kids loved the experiment room filled with electricity and magnet displays and the space room. We played with magnets, powered a fire engines siren using bike pedals, experienced a zero gravity simulation (really just a clever perception trick), saw a recreated surface of Mars and learned about the planets. The playground was also a big highlight! The rest of the museum though really didn't interest them. It was more 'look and read' than 'hands on'.

The Powerhouse is not as hands on as some science museums but considering we spent 4 hours there it was certainly a fun day out! Personally unless there is a particular temporary exhibit at the Powerhouse that really interests you, I think Melbourne, Canberra and Brisbane's science museums are better. If you are visiting any of those other cities and are pressed for time, I would go to one of their science museums instead and in Sydney spend your time at either the Australian Museum or the Australian Maritime Museum. Of course if you have time go to all of them! We had a great time at the Australian Museum on our last visit the Sydney - the dinosaur exhibit was fantastic! The Maritime museum itself wasn't that fascinating with kids but it is free and for a similar cost as entry to the Powerhouse museum you can go onto a naval ship and submarine!

The highlight of our time in Sydney though was catching up with one of my oldest friends and the children's godmother and her husband. We spent two lovely afternoons catching up, including one on Coogee beach.

And then finally it was time to wrap up our time in Australia and head to Sydney airport to meet up with Colin's family to fly to Canada.

Enjoying the Hunter Valley Christmas Lights

Fri, 21 Dec 2012 16:09:00 +1000

On our recent trip to the Hunter Valley we went to see the biggest display of Christmas lights in Australia. Some claim the southern hemisphere.

One of the biggest attractions in the Hunter Valley is the Hunter Valley Gardens, a giant botanical style gardens set over 25 acres with ten different themed gardens. There are formal gardens, rose gardens, lake gardens, oriental gardens, a storybook land, and more. Visiting the gardens by day is usually It's a huge day out and they often have other things on like concerts, New Years fireworks, and snow and ice skating in winter. But perhaps the most famous yearly event at the the Hunter Valley Gardens is the Christmas lights display.

The lights display was amazing. It was like stumbling across that one magical street where every house had spectacular christmas lights trying to out-do the next, times one thousand. I would love to see the electricity bill! Not to mention the tangle of lights when they opened the boxes at the start of the year to set all these millions of lights up!

There were lakes decorated with Australian icons, musical trees, tunnels of light, dinosaur gardens with neon glowing T-Rex and rose gardens with twinkling lights. There were nativity scenes and glittery pumpkin carriages, dripping icicles and hedges covered with such expert precision not a light was out of place.

There was a musical 12 days of Christmas display where lights came on in time to the Christmas carol and a fantastical storybook land with twinkling fairies and fairytale characters. With 1.25 million twinkling lights over 5 gardens, it took us a good 90 minutes to walk around, and that was at a reasonably fast pace.

Even for cynical adults there were quite a few 'oooh ahh pretty' moments! And if lights aren't your thing, well there is the beer and food garden. You are also welcome to take your beer on a walk around the lights with you ... certain to make any light viewing experience more enjoyable. An opportunity Colin and Uncle Craig didn't pass up on.

The photos really do the night justice - when you are chasing kids around trying to take a couple of photos without a tripod in low-light, photos never work! For every photo here I have four others that are blurry dizzy trails of lights that look like a kid was spinning around with my camera while pressing the down the shutter.

Hayley at 5 years old was the most excited by the lights. At the entrance we were met by a Christmas fairy (aka a rather pretty lady dressed in period costume with wings singing carols) handing out fairy dust (glitter!). Hayley carried that fairy dust around the whole lights display for a good hour until she found exactly the right place to sprinkle the fairy dust - Storybook Land.

Noah (7) was more impressed with the free glow stick that all children receive upon entry. Until he got bored carrying it halfway through the night and handed it over to me.

Both kids were rather impressed with the children's stage with a band playing Christmas carols, the giant Christmas tree and Santa's stage. And of course the stalls selling popcorn and hot sugar coated churros.

If you are in the Hunter Valley region between November - January (dates vary so check the Hunter Valley Gardens website - this year the lights display ran from November 9 - January 26) with young children or just love Christmas light displays, it's definitely worth checking out. Check the schedule before going - on certain nights they have fireworks, jumping castles, children's bands and other cool activities.

Unfortunately it's not a cheap night out. For a family of four, visiting the Christmas lights costs $60AUD. Then of course there is beer and snacks! But we did really enjoy our night out.

MUM! The emu bit me at the Hunter Valley Zoo

Thu, 20 Dec 2012 18:15:27 +1000

After Ballina we drove eight hours south to the Hunter Valley, approximately two hours north of Sydney, to catch up with my brother and his wife. We spent a lovely week with them wishing that we could live closer. That's the catch 22 of this lifestyle. See amazing things, have this amazing life, but miss your awesome uncles and aunties like crazy. At least we got to to spent a great week together.

Hunter Valley, not just wines

The Hunter Valley is a famous wine growing region of Australia, filled with vineyards, microbreweries, cheese factories and chocolate stores. Simply put, it's a fabulous place without kids! With kids it can still be fun. Many of the vineyards run family friendly tours and there are a lot of fun places to visit. The Hunter Valley gardens are great, particularly at Christmas when they have the largest Christmas Lights display in the southern hemisphere. We went - it was amazing! Photos to come!

There's aqua-golf where you can shoot floating golf balls into a lake! Fun right! There are national parks to walk in with creeks and waterfalls, wetlands and animal reserves. Not far away is where the Wollemi pine was discovered - if you've never heard of it but have a dinosaur mad 7 year old ask them. They'll tell you straight away it's an ancient pine tree that's been around since the time of the dinosaurs. There are convict built roads and historic towns. There are playgrounds, chocolate stores and lolly-shops. And nearby Newcastle and Lakes Entrance has great beaches.

We're going to the Zoo, zoo, zoo

One of the highlights of our visit was the Hunter Valley Zoo on the outskirts of Cessnock. It's not a large zoo but they have a lot of animals and you can get up close to most of them. Being small we found it was also the perfect size for a half day out - just enough to see and do without it being too tiring.

It was a cold, weekday afternoon so we had the place almost to ourselves, but from what we've heard it's generally a fairly quiet zoo anyway particularly on weekdays. Most of the animals were out and active.

Overall I was really impressed with what a great zoo it was, particularly for families. Being an Australian zoo, the focus is on Australian animals, with a few monkeys and ostriches thrown in. For getting up close to Australian animals I would definitely rate it up there as one of the best zoos I've visited. It's not as large as Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary or Australia Zoo but for seeing wombats, koalas, kangaroos, echidnas, wallabies, Tasmanian devils, quolls and other Australian birds and reptiles it was on par, if not better because the zoo was so quiet.

When we first arrived the kids discovered two very different feathers and they set off on a search to find the birds that they came from. We roamed all over checking out every bird, even Hayley's least favourite - the kookaburra. On our last trip to Australia we were camping in Sydney and a kookaburra stole her sausage. Kookaburra's are still not forgiven for that transgression and generally mistrusted.

We thought Noah's stripey brown feather might belong to a kookaburra but it didn't. And then we saw the peacock and realised both feathers came from the one bird even though they looked nothing alike, nor anything like the typical blue/green peacock feathers.

Then it was time to feed the kangaroos. At the entrance you could buy 50c ice cream cones filled with kangaroo feed. There was one wallaby roaming free and several kangaroos in an enclosure with two juvenile emus. Noah and Hayley wandered over to see the ones in the enclosure.

Suddenly Hayley ran back screaming. One of the emus had mistaken her finger poked through the fence to pat a kangaroo for a tasty snack. With a small cut, a bruise and a big fright, emus have now joined kookaburras as Hayley's least favourite birds!

After that we stayed clear of the emus! The one lone wallaby wandering free got a lot of attention!

The Hunter Valley is a farming area so there's also a petting zoo, which was a huge hit with the kids.

For 50c you can buy a second ice cream cone filled with food to feed the goats and sheep with. They're not shy so with young kids it's not a bad idea for grownups to hold onto the food and hand it out as needed.

Aunty Sam is an agriculture teacher at a nearby high school so she soon had Hayley learning all about cows, including how a cow's tongue and teeth where different to ours ... by sticking her hand in the mouth of a calf.

"Icky, wet and bitey" was the verdict! Probably not exactly what Aunty Sam was aiming to teach her!

When the food runs out the only option is to climb a fence and wait for mum to rescue you apparently!

With no more food it was time to check out some more Australian animals. Wombats, Tasmanian devils, koalas, kangaroos, blue tongue lizards, snakes (the kids made me touch one ... ugh the things we do to try not to pass along our fears to our children!!!), rock wallabies, emus (from a distance!), bats, birds, quolls and my favourites of the day - echidnas.

We listened to an educational talk on echidnas and saw them being fed a rather appealing meat milkshake made from mince, mealworms, oil, eggs and various components that sounds absolutely revolting but is just what echidnas need. Its completely hilarious to watch them eat it as they lap it up with their giant tongue and almost tip it all over themselves. And totally fascinating and educational.

Time to use up the last of our kangaroo food - that meant the emu enclosure! They'd just been fed and were resting so Hayley decided to be brave. Noah decidede this one was his friend after it held his hand while eating.

We discovered a tawny frogmouth off for a walk near the playground and learnt a little about them.

And then the highlight - getting up close to a koala, who I have to say was the most tolerant koala in the world after Noah went hyperactive at being so close to a koala.

Some facts before you go:

Hunter Valley Zoo is located just outside Cessnock. We had our own car and from what I can see a car is really the best way to get there unless you are going on a tour. There is a public bus from Cessnock that takes you close to the zoo (131500.com.au) but the zoo is 3km down a side road off the main highway. The bus drops you off on the main highway and you then need to walk 3km. A bit of a pain, although it's a country road so there are worse walks!

Take your own drinking water - most of the taps use recycled water. There is a small store selling ice cream, snacks and drinks, including water. There are picnic and BBQ facilities so you are welcome to bring your own food and have a picnic inside the zoo. There are toilets and a playground.

Entry for a family of 4 costs $55. We also purchased four cones of animal feed, costing $2 in total. I looked online for discount entry tickets and didn't have any luck but it's worth looking.

The zoo has a website but their facebook page is the best place to look for up to date information on what's going on at the zoo, as well as specials. There are regular shows throughout the day - ask for a schedule when you arrive. The koalas and echidnas were definitely worth it. If it's cold they may not feed the crocodiles. If the zoo is quiet like when we were there they may also not hold shows and instead choose an animal and walk around the zoo with it. For instance, rather than having a reptile show, they took a python around the zoo and allowed us to touch it and ask questions. Just as good as a show really!

Allow several hours. You could see everything in an hour but at the same time you could easily spend four hours there. There is some shade but most of the zoo is out in the sun so take hats.

This post is part of Budget Travelers Sandbox Travel Photo Thursday weekly roundup. It's the last one for the year so be sure to check out some of the other blogs!

Rock pools and shells in Ballina

Tue, 11 Dec 2012 08:00:34 +1000

We've just spent a week in Ballina and Alstonville in northern New South Wales, Australia. Just south of Byron Bay, this is the region I grew up in. The blog has been quiet because apart from being rather busy catching up with friends and family, functioning WIFI has been harder to come across than in Laos and Cambodia! It's not a remote region of Australia but for some reason WIFI and mobile phone networks are very unreliable. Oh well!

One of the nicest afternoons was spent on the beach with Nanna. We've seen some beautiful beaches in our travels but in my mind at least, there are no beaches quite as wonderful as the ones I grew up on in Ballina, near Byron Bay in Australia. We've seen more beautiful beaches. There are even more beautiful beaches in the region. But I have so many memories attached with these beaches it's hard not to enjoy a visit here more than a visit to any other beaches, particularly now that I have children of my own that I can take here and re-experience those memories.

Shelly Beach has always been my favourite. The northern two-thirds is white sand while the southern portion has rock pools and lots of shells. As a child that's where the real attraction lay. Rock pools filled with crabs, anemones, small fish and starfish. Shells to collect of all sizes, particularly if you got there early in the morning after a storm. Today there are a lot less shells but there are still enough to happily entertain children for an hour or two!

As teens we outgrew the rock-pools and shells in favour of the actual beach but now that I have kids it's the rock-pools and shells that we always end up back at.

During this visit we jumped the smaller waves in the sandy patches between rock pools.

Hayley made sand castles while Noah opted for climbing the rocks on a nearby headland.

And of course, we collected shells. A lot of shells! A motley collection that was considered too priceless by the kids to be left behind. It was lovingly carried back to Nanna's ... where it was quickly forgotten and left all over Nanna's backyard. Sorry Nanna!

Shelly Beach is a fantastic beach to visit with kids for the rock pools and shells. If you go in the afternoon the southern end will be in shade. There are toilets and showers - always a bonus with children!

However it's not always the safest swimming beach in the area - there can be rips and strong currents. It's not a dangerous beach, but it is certainly a beach where conditions can be rough in bad weather and it can be tricky to read the conditions if you are not familiar surf. Over summer surf-lifesavers will be present on the weekends and on weekdays during school holidays.

Just south of Shelly Beach is Main Beach, another great beach and depending on the wind and conditions it can often offer better swimming conditions. Main Beach is also patrolled over summer. There are no shells but at low tide you can walk around the headland to Shelly Beach and you'll often find shade here in the mornings.

Shelly Beach and Main Beach are the first two beaches you'll come across in Ballina as you cross the river and drive towards the coast. Main Beach is right next to the river on the northern side. Shelley Beach is the next beach to the north.