Day 6: KL to Sandakan

Cafe Classico - our new favourite bar

So, we were up mega early today, 6.20am to be precise!  Ouch.  For once, both me and Matt managed to go to sleep shortly after lights out, but we both work up too early - neither of us can shake this jet lag off completely.  Tom on the other hand fell asleep and stayed asleep for the whole night and wasn't too pleased at being woken up that early!

We walked across to KLCC, got the LRT to KL Sentral and then discovered that if you are flying Malaysian Airways, you can check your baggage in at KL Sentral, fantastic.  We did so, think it took all of 2 minutes to check the luggage in.  We were worried about some cases being heavier than others, so redistributed all the weight last night, they didn't even bother weighing them properly!  Arghhhhh!  Oh hum.  We then boarded the KLIA Ekspres with no luggage to the airport, and then walked past all the queues at check in, straight to security, which took all of about 4 minutes and we were through.  Wow!  How did that happen?  Of course, with our British heads on, we had allowed loads and loads of time to get through check in and security so we were there too early!  And, of course, this being an Asian airport, all the food outlets are the other side of security so we ended up having a Krispy Kreme donut for breakfast (that was literally all there was).  I had to hunt down a vending machine for a cold drink.

Big kid

Our flight left directly on time, and was uneventful, we were served chicken curry for lunch and arrived in Sandakan early (it is a 2hr 40min flight).  We then got a teksi to a McDonalds where we arranged to meet with Jocelyn, our host.  She was quite late, but arrived and took us to the apartment block.  We are a bit of a way outside of the city centre, but we are in a decent apartment complex with a huge swimming pool - what more do you need?  She has arranged a rental car for us to get about in as well which is great as public transport here doesn't look as good as in KL for obvious reasons.

Deep blue sea

We headed straight out to find the nearest convenience store to get some provisions, oh my word, the sun was searing.  Luckily it wasn't that far a walk, but wow, it was far enough!  We got ourselves sorted with cold drinks, laundry detergent, shampoo and a loaf of bread for breakfast.  On the way we walked past a very cool bar: union jacks painted on oil drums and made into seating, guitars on the wall, etc.  It all seemed very funky, so we decided to head in on the way home.  We were right, it is a funky bar, but being in Malaysia it isn't an alcoholic bar, but it was selling some mocktails, so we indulged ourselves (they are only £1 a go so why not?!)  Tom had a mango sparkle, I had a lime mojito and Matt an Asian Passion.  They were all great!

We headed back in the scorching heat to the appartment and went straight to the pool.  We asked Jocelyn if we could take our inflatable with us, she said yes, as long as the pool wasn't too busy, fantastic, because it was empty (in KL there was a sign up saying no inflatables!) so we took him down and blew him up.  We figure that not many people do this, because suddenly Ali was having his photo taken by random people, including the guard!  In fact it got back to Jocelyn in record time that we had him in the pool as she said people had been telling her about us - with smiles!  We had a good hour's fun.  Tom is very attached to his new snorkel and refused to remove it even when on top of Ali and no need for breathing under water!

Sushi lollipops - a new experience

We went up to the apartment (we are on the 7th floor) for showers and a little down time before heading out for tea.  Now we are very much living in the suburbs here, where 'local' people live, so no tourist restaurants, few menus in English (although Malay is written in roman letters, if you don't know what a dish is, being able to read it isn't a huge amount of help unless you have access to wi-fi and can google it!).  We headed back to where the cool bar was, but unfortunately timed it exactly wrong as the heavens opened on us just as we left the apartment block.  There was no cover at all (this is a place for cars not for pedestrians) so we had to run, run, run.  We got soaked, but it is warm rain, so not as miserable as if the same were to happen in the UK.  We did a circuit of the block, but as I said, it is quite hard to fathom it all out.  We ended up in a sushi restaurant as Tom really really wanted to go there, and how can you refuse him, especially when Japanese is one of our favourites anyway!  We had a mixture of sushi, and other bits: karaage, edamame, garlic rice, some sushi lollipops?, tofu and gyoza.  It all went down really well.  We then headed to the cool bar we found earlier today for our pre-bedtime mocktails: mango sparkle for Tom, Bora Bora Brew for me (still not sure?) and a calamansi mojito for Matt - all very good again.  By the time we finished the rain had ended - yahoo.

We walked home and Tom went to bed straight away - he still has tired eyes.  Tomorrow, we will hopefully be visiting the orang-utans...

Day 5: Sunway Lagoon

Tiger Tom

Wow, what a day.  We are all exhausted and sun-weary but happy.  Today we went to Sunway Lagoon.  I had read about it in LP, and on a blog for families visiting Malaysia and it sounded right down Tom's street, he loved the water park we went to in Tenerife which Matt never got to, so I thought it would be a fun family day out.  The information on the website was very scarce, we we weren't really that sure what to expect.  I thought there would be a few water rides, a dry ride or two and a beach.  Oh was I wrong, very very wrong!

Cheeky monkeys

Just as well, we didn't balk at the price of entry - it was £70 for the 3 of us (with a big discount voucher I found on-line), which is quite an investment for a day out, but I figured it was worth a go for some fun.  In the end we came out thinking what great value the ticket was.

So, it was a beach, a lagoon, a wave pool, lots of water rides: lumpy bumpy rides, twisty rides, up and down rides, super fast rides, dark rides, boat rides and more.  That was just the watery bit.  There was also a huge suspension bridge, a huge zip wire and bungee (if you wanted to pay extra), a full on zoo including lions, tigers, panthers etc (but no orang-utans!), an amusement park with roller coaster, pirate boat swing and Ghostbusters/zombie experience and more.  We couldn't quite believe what we found, and the day 10-6 went very very quickly.

On the water slides

We did spend the most of last night trying to work out how to get there - it is quite a distance away.  The website didn't give us much information, and then when typing it into the KL travel destination website, the info it gave us wasn't that helpful (no timetables etc).  We decided that the same station and bus line kept coming up, so we would try that way, but when we got to the bus stop we were told that the bus we needed didn't exist anymore!  Oh joy!  We went back to the station and found a very helpful lady who told us to get back on the train, to much further down the line and then there is a dedicated bus to take us to the Lagoon.  She was right, the journey couldn't have been any easier.  Why the Lagoon or the KL travel website don't tell you about it is beyond me!

Anyhow, we arrived and followed the signs and headed down, down, down into the lagoon (built in an old mine).  We got changed and headed straight to the beach for a dip in the lagoon, very nice it was too.  Then off to the water rides.  Now one thing about the water rides, is that a lot of them take place on a blow up boat for 2.  This was also the case in Tenerife, not a problem for us as there were only two of us anyway, but the staff allowed people to go on by themselves, not the case here and as we already know you must obey the rules in Malaysia, or you get whistled at (there were a lot of whistles today - but no truncheons that I could see).  This meant that it was either me and Tom or Matt and Tom on the ride, with who was left over waiting.  Not ideal, but it didn't ruin the day by any means.

LONG suspension bridge

I must say I did feel very female and very exposed today.  There were huge bunches of Indian men hanging around (not sure where their partners were?) and of course, with a huge Muslim population, most of the women who were there were completely wrapped up!  In fact, we have never seen such an array of swimming costumes ever.  They went from the full floppy Muslim dress with headscarf in swimming suit material, to just doing it all fully dressed in your normal everyday clothes, to skimpy bikinis (white people only) and everything and I mean everything in-between.  I was very much the minority, being white and in a swimsuit, however, I did have a dress to cover up between rides, and to be honest I didn't notice anyone leering at me at all.  One thing we have noticed here is that everyone seems to be friendly and get on with each other despite some obvious differences.  I'm sure there must be tensions from time to time, but nothing we have seen.  In fact when I went on a very very fast ride where you are stood up in a see through capsule and at some point the floor gives way and you fall feet first down a chute before landing on your back and finishing the ride, the biggest surge of adrenaline I have experienced in a long long time (Matt and Tom decided against doing it!), two Arab blokes before me actually checked on me to make sure I was OK at the end of the ride.  We had been making faces at each other because a big bunch of Indian men caused delays before us - by having huge debates about who would go first etc etc.

Weeeeeeeeee!

After spending some time at the first splash park, we headed to another, and found a full on zoo between the tow.  None of the animals were doing anything, but then I'm not that surprised considering it was very very hot.  We saw sun bears, white lions, white tiger, black panther, lots of snakes, rabbits, a cassowary (which I got very excited about!), giant tortoises, ponies, more rabbits, meerkats and a lot more.  In fact we spent way more time there than we expected.  So much so that we were hungry so went to find something for lunch.  We ended up with okonomiyaki chicken with rice and pop, which was enough to put us on and then we explored the other splash park which was ace, with loads more rides, including the fast one I described, 4 twisty boat rides, a backwards and forwards boat slide that was ace and didn't have much of a queue so we did it twice, and a huge kids area themed around Sponge Bob Square Pants, which at first looked quite mild, but with some exploring was actually fabulous, as good for adults as for kids.  Think we spent the best part of an hour there.  They had a huge big bucket of water that filled up and then splashed upon us every 5 minutes or so which was great fun as well as loads of twisty rides.  A fab place.

Next stop was a walk along a huge long suspension bridge to an amusement park, a ride on a big wheel, Matt had a ride on a roller coaster (Tom couldn't go as he wasn't tall enough) and then we queued up for a Ghostbusters experience.  It was billed as being quite scary and they weren't wrong.  There were live actors in the experience jumping out at you as you went along.  It was very dark so you couldn't see anything, lots of big noises going off, scary movies around us etc etc.  I was worried that it was too much for Tom, but he kept at it got through without any hysterics, but I think he was puzzled as to why we took him there.  Another boy about the same age as him, cried instantly and had to leave, so well done Tom!

By now it was heading for 5pm, so we went back to the first splash area and had a go on our favourite rides,  and then Tom requested some time in the wave pool, where he spent most of his time under water.

By 5.30 we were starving and tired.  It was time to go, so we got changed into our dry clothes and headed out in search of tea, which we found at Morganfield's, a western style restaurant (so not one we would naturally search out, but it was the only one we could find that was open and not selling mega spicy food!).  The food was actually really good, Matt had some pork ribs, I had a massive piece of chicken that I couldn't finish and Tom had meatballs.  All went down very well.

We then got the bus and train back home, where Tom went straight to bed (he didn't get to sleep until around midnight last night!) and we packed ready for our flight to Sandakan tomorrow morning.  Can't wait for bed, am hoping we can get to sleep before 2am tonight - please...

Day 4: Central Market

Starting off delicately

We all had trouble getting to sleep last night.  It took Tom till 10pm and us till after about 2.30am.  Matt then fell into a deep sleep and woke up at 8.30 with a very sore neck (maybe he slept too deeply) whilst I slept in 30 minute intervals until about 7.30 when I fell into a deep sleep and then had to be woken by Matt at 10 - when I was completely disorientated!

Needless to say, we didn't get out of the flat until almost 12.  Not a problem, we didn't have much on today.  We had decided to go to Central Market, so we hopped on the LRT and followed the crowd.  We haven't seen a huge amount of touristy stuff here to date, but today changed all that, we walked past stall after stall of heavily laden stalls selling everything from T-shirts, to 'hippy' clothes, batiks, bags, lanterns, wooden goods, silver, plastic tat, and everything in-between.  It's the sort of place you can spend all day and come away with a new wardrobe full of things and gifts galore.  We, however, aren't in full power shopping mode, as we have two internal flights to do yet on budget flights which don't have a huge luggage allowance (unlike on the way home where we can have 2 check-in pieces each, totalling 46Kg per person - which is probably more than my whole wardrobe at home!  So today was about remembering what is available ready to use up any spare RM when we get back from Borneo.  However, Tom found himself a groovy pair of sunglasses for only 6RM.

Working hard...

We had lunch (chicken, mushroom and rice for me and lemon chicken and rice for Matt - with Tom eating off our plates) surprisingly it was luke warm, but tasty enough.  I ordered some green apple juice and was given a glass of green water with thick green foam on top.  Lets say it didn't look appetising, but I took a gulp and it was surprisingly refreshing and tasted exactly like green apples.

After lunch, we had a look around the shops in the upper level and found Tom a very groovy blue batik shirt.  We have been wondering what size he is as children's sizes seem too small and adults too large.  Turns out he is an XXL child!  Unfortunately there aren't a lot of XXL on offer, but the server found him a lovely shirt (just as well as the only other one in the store was bright pink!)

Tom then decided he wanted to paint a batik - we had found a little workshop where they charged RM15 to have a go.  He chose a cat, and got stuck in straight away.  It was quite an intricate job as there were so many bits to paint, so Matt decided to take a walk.  He was gone quite a long time - we were almost finished when he returned.

Finished!

He had a story to tell, he had found a fish spa - you know, those places where you dip your feet in water and fish swim up and eat all the dry skin off you.    They were only charging 10RM for 15 minutes which seemed a right bargain considering we saw them in Tenerife for 25 Euros.  Matt took over whilst I got myself to the fish spa for a go, it is a really weird sensation as a ball of fish attach themselves to your feet and start nibbling away.  It feels like they are scratching you a little, but apparently they have no teeth.  Anyway, I have two blisters on my feet from wearing my flip flops for too long the other day, they were nicely scabbed over, but the fish obviously like scabs and pulled them off, then they started to tug quite viciously at my skin, so much so that I took my foot out of the water and then watched a trickle of blood run down my foot!  Oops!

In the fish tank

At this point Tom and Matt turned up, Tom having finished his masterpiece.  He wanted a go too, and even though he saw the fish and we told him it scratched and he saw my foot he wanted a go, so we paid for him, he sat down, put his feet in and smiled.  He didn't mind at all!  Sometimes I can't fathom the boy out!  But he made us proud, especially as there was a women opposite us who could only bare to put her foot in for about 5 seconds a go!

We all left with happy feet.  We then walked down through China Town and past some stadiums to a monorail station to give the boy a ride.  Bit of a mistake, it was searingly hot and the monorail was full.  We couldn't get on the first one and then had to literally barge our way onto the second one (they ran at 15 minute intervals).  Of course it emptied out at the next station - so it would have made sense to walk the short distance to the next station to get on it easily!  Oh hum!  You live and learn.  We were then a little sneaky and stayed on the monorail to the end station and then got it back again to our nearest stop.

Boys in their holiday shirts

We got home, had a blissful dip in the pool, showers and then headed to Madame Kwan's for tea - Malaysian fare today: Chicken and Mushroom Mee for me (noodles with lumps of chicken and mushrooms) and Beef Satay for Matt whilst Tom had spag bol off the kiddies menu and ate it super quick (we think he may be over the worst).

Then, back to the apartment and attempts to go to sleep at a useful time...

Oh, the answer to Tom's joke...are you ready for it...

Koala Lumpur!!!!!!

Day 3: Batu Caves

Murugan - a big lad

Cheeky monkey

Last night was a slightly better night.  I fell asleep as soon as I turned the light off, but was woken up by an almost teary Tom who said his tummy felt bad and he was worried about waking us up through the night, and could he sleep with me.  He said it all so sincerely, that we couldn't deny it.  We re-arranged ourselves: Matt slept in Tom's bed and Tom and I slept in the big bed with the en-suite.  My tummy wasn't feeling too good at this point either!  Tom had an 'episode' and we spent until 3am trying to get him back to sleep.  He ended up getting back to sleep by putting his boney arms, legs and head on my back (oh joy!)  It worked though and I spent an agonising 30 mins wondering if he was asleep enough for me to move without waking him up, cause there was no way I was going to sleep like that!  I succeeded and think I got back to sleep around 3.30.  I woke up around 9.30 and Tom just after 10am.  We all had got enough sleep and everyone was looking much happier.

He still can't eat ice-cream properly!

Our plan today was to visit the Batu Caves which are just north of KL.  I don't think we left our apartment until almost 12, so we decided we would have lunch there.  We got the LRT to KL Sentral and then the KTM to Batu Caves.  Unfortunately the KRM line was having a bad day and we were heavily delayed on our way.  The trip should have been 30 minutes but was more like an hour.  When we got there we were hit by extreme heat - the sun had come out and it was hot hot hot.  So much so that none of us could contemplate lunch, so we had a drink with a Japanese rice cracker and called that lunch.

A big lad!

 We had basically been transported to Little India - all the vendors were Indian, there were lots of Indian statues about, cheeky monkeys ready to snatch any food from you, and even a slight whiff of India (if you get my drift).  We ran the gauntlet of vendors directly outside the train station and headed to a glint of gold we could see round the corner.  Wow!   We were confronted with an enormous golden statue of Murugan (I looked him up - he's a Hindu God of War, celebrated mainly by the Tamil people and is 42.7m high!)  He was quite impressive, almost as impressive as the huge long flights of stairs (272 steps) by the side of him leading to one of the caves.  We took a deep breath and made our way up them, and were nicely surprised that really it wasn't that hard at all. We were treated to a good view of KL and a huge, HUGE cave within which were various statues and shrines.  We were treated to a whiff of India again - although this time mainly incense!

Lord Rama

Lord Hamuman

We had a good look round and then descended back down.  We were going to go for a look around the Dark Cave which is full of limestone formations etc, but it was over an hour's wait and as we are going to a cave in Borneo, we decided to carry on heading down the stairs and look for a cafe doing  refreshments.  We found one which was selling good authentic looking Southern Indian food, but it was too hot to eat, so we settled on some ice-creams and cold drinks.  Matt got what he thought was an alcohol-free beer, but was actually a fruity soft drink in a typical 'beer' bottle that was produced in Dubai - was actually quite nice.  We then looked around the shops, I found a Malaysian patch and Matt bought a rather nice shirt.

We then went to the last cave: the Ramayana Cave, we were charged RM5 each and were rather pleased with what we got.  The cave was nicely lit up and full of statues telling the story of Lord Rama's life (basically he wanted to marry a girl, Sita, but everyone advised against it for various reasons, he was banished to a forest for 14 years, had to fight a war etc etc, but all came good in the end and they both lived happily ever after).   The statues were great, full of imagination and plenty of elephants which we all love.  And, of course it was lovely and cool in the caves.

Time lapse clip from an LRT train

Once done there, we decided to head back home so we could have a dip in the pool - Tom is desperate to use his snorkel and mask.  However, the train system once again conspired against us.  We arrived at the train station at 3.20, the next train was 3.45, it didn't go until 4.30, then it went slowly and then got stuck at one of the stations for 30 mins, so it took even longer to get back than it did to get there!  Very frustrating!  Oh hum, the pre-tea swim didn't happen, and we went all crumpled and smelly to the dim sum restaurant in Suria for a very lovely meal: 2 types of dim sum - lamb and prawn & chicken, some ebi fried rice and some sweet and sour chicken.  All very lovely.  We then headed back to the apartment, had a quick post-tea swim / snorkel and then to bed.

It's been a good day.

Tom invented a new joke today:

"Where can you find Koalas?" - we will leave you in suspense(?!) till tomorrow....

Day 2: Kuala Lumpur

Shark petting

So we didn't have the best night's sleep.  We all fell asleep fine, then Tom came in at 2.30 to say he couldn't find his nee naw - it wasn't even under the covers, it was on his bed as plain as anything!  This made us cross, and neither me nor Matt could get back off again.  Then Tom got us up again crying: he had turned his air conditioning off and was too hot!  He knows how to turn it back on, but he wasn't thinking.  I ended up getting in bed with him as I had a feeling he was going to keep on disturbing us.  He was asleep in 15 minutes, it took me until 7.30 though.  I woke with a start at 9.30: both Matt and Tom were still fast asleep.  I tried to wake Matt but couldn't.  I waited until 10am and tried again - harder.   I then went to get Tom up - it took quite a bit of patting and chatting to get him to come too, he wasn't happy to be woken,

Short-clawed otter

First thing he wanted to do was have a shower - very strange for him.  Then when we sat down for breakfast he said he thought he was going to be sick and ran to the loo and was.  Nothing much, but concerning all the same.  We were all a little grumpy through weird jet lag sleep which is never that refreshing.  We decided to have an easy day in the hope it would sort all of us out.  We didn't leave the apartment until just before 12.  First stop was a sports shop within which Tom had seen a snorkel and mask set which he wanted to buy with his holiday money.  We made him wait a bit just to see if we could find any others and to check that he still wanted it.  He kept going on and on about it so we figured it was a good idea.  When we got there we could only find pink sets.  Arghhhhhh!  I went to the desk to ask if they had any other colours, took a while to get understood, but finally the guy went to the store room to see if he had any other colours and came out with blue sets and yellow sets - bingo.  Tom was very happy and chose yellow.

Making friends

We then went for lunch.  We went to the food court where of course there was a huge variety of food - most of which I didn't recognise or know - makes it more interesting!  There was a western section though so we took Tom there and he ordered spaghetti bolognese - he always reverts to pasta if he can.  They don't seem to do children's portions of anything here, so he had an adults portion and ate what he could, which wasn't all that much (for him anyway!).  Matt had fried rice and I ordered a Rava Masala Dosa.  I didn't mean to order the Rava bit, but I said 'a' Masala Dosa and the guy misheard 'a' as Rava and then I misheard him repeating it to me.  Doesn't matter - it was basically what I expected.  Have just looked up Rava - means semolina, to be honest I didn't notice it - just cost more (of course!) - was nice an spicy without being too spicy.  I was the only non-Indian in the queue though!

Turtle

After lunch we headed to the Aquarium which was just across the park.  It was pretty run of the mill, very clean and not very busy meaning that it was quite relaxing, although our feet did get quite sore and achy with all the slow walking.  The highlight of the area was the tunnel through shark infested waters - which was to be fair very very long.  There were some very cute otters, good looking turtles and fierce moray eels.  Quite a few of the poisonous fish and eels, are native to Malaysia - hummm....

Once finished we found a restaurant in the food court directly outside that served freshly made muffins - they were served warm and were really rather good.  Both Tom and I had the banana and raisin one and Tom even managed half a second one.

Holiday purchase

We were then going to walk back to the apartment.  One problem:  the storm clouds had arrived and it was beginning to rain, and then it rained some more and some more and then it absolutely hammered it down.  We were treated to an amazing tropical storm.  Lightning flashed all around and the thunder hammered and banged amongst all the high rise buildings.  Tom thought at one point that a building had fallen down it was so loud.  It was certainly a sight to behold, I do enjoy a good tropical storm!  It did lessen at one point so we decided go for it and head back to the apartment.  Good job we did, because about 5 mins later, the storm intensified again for another 40 minutes.  It was great viewing, and as Matt said: free!  I stood under the rain at one point, Tom followed suit, but managed to slip over and hurt himself on the tiles - oops - my fault!  Tom really wanted to try out his snorkel and mask in the pool, but no one is allowed in the pool during thunderstorms so he had to settle to just trying it on instead.

Manly drink?

We came back to the apartment, had some down time, a shower each and then headed out for tea.  We decided on Japanese for tea with both me and Matt ordering something and Tom eating from our plates.  He didn't eat much at all.  He did order a smoothie, thinking that it would be healthy for him and tasty for him - but the meaning was lost in translation as when it came it was basically a strawberry milkshake with squirty cream on top - not great when you are recovering from a funny tummy - he did manage some of it though, just as well as neither me nor Matt would go near it!

Nabeyakiudon - yumsk!

As Tom was flagging, Matt brought him back to the apartment whilst I went shopping for breakfast and snacks and beer (found a Japanese supermarket today so quite excited!).  I diligently gave them the one lift card we have so they could get back.  None of us considered at the time, that that might make it difficult for me to get back?!  As I got into the apartment block, I realised I might be in trouble, so I sneaked into a lift with someone else, and ended up going to the 26th floor (we are on the 3rd floor!). Oooops.  I was then stuck on the 26th floor wondering how I would get down again as the lift would not take me to the 3rd floor.  Luckily the lift took me back to the Ground floor where I then had to speak to the security guard to ask him to help me.  First question he asked: what number apartment do you live in - of course I had no idea, so I described where it is and he understood immediately: oh the one with the digital lock?  Yes!  He radioed to someone who then accompanied me in the lift to the 3rd floor.  Matt and Tom were surprised to see me, they were expecting a call!  Oh hum, the life of an apartment dweller...

The Storm

Tom was waiting hopefully as I had promised him a yoghurt and I delivered.  He then did his teeth and went to bed, he was very tired.

Day 1: Kuala Lumpur

Where's Daddy?

So we all had a terrible night's sleep - the jet lag got us all!  Went to bed at 11pm as we couldn't keep our eyes open, but we were wide awake again at 1.30am and although we tried every trick in the book to get back off it didn't happen.  Still we didn't get up till 8am, as we knew nothing would be open.

We did finally get up and ate our buns we purchased yesterday.  Matt was needing a coffee, there is a convenience store in the residences which is supposed to open at 8.30, he waited and waited but at 9am he gave up (not even sure they sell coffee) and we walked to KLCC where a nice lady directed us to a Malaysian coffee shop instead of the usual Western rubbish.  Matt ordered what he thought was black coffee, only to find that the default coffee setting here is iced, not hot, so he was somewhat disappointed (again - but it wasn't as bad as his 3 layer tea he ordered out of curiosity yesterday: bottom layer thick brown sugary gunk, next layer: condensed milk, top layer tea.  He said it was truly ghastly - I would agree, but I think that of all tea products!)

Happy Boy

We then went to explore the KLCC Park.  I had read that it had a splash park for children, so had Tom's trunks with me just in case.  Good job I did, the splash park was actually a large waterfall which you can walk behind, with a paddling pool in front and stepping stones.  Really lovely.  There were many many rules though, and dragons with whistles to shame you if you did anything wrong.  We, luckily took time to read the rules so were faultless but countless people were told off, main reason was for walking behind the waterfall in your shoes.  Another adult got told off for lying on a bench!  On closer inspection, the dragons also had truncheons, so you wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of them.  Tom was a little nervous to start with playing in the water, but as he didn't get whistled at, he slowly got braver and braver until he finally went under the waterfall and got completely soaked.  I think he played in there for a good hour or so, he certainly was having fun, if only by himself.

By now, we were all getting a bit peckish.  Tom had his eye on a sushi restaurant he saw yesterday, so we headed in to go there.  On the way, Matt decided to look in the Sony shop for a camera lens.  He found it, he liked it, he loved the price, he bought it!  So much for travelling light with photography equipment - he now has the biggest lens ever to lug around with him.  Anyway, he was happy and he deserved to treat himself.

Upside down?!

We did finally get to the sushi place, it was a sushi go round and we had a very excited boy who just could not sit down.  The sushi wasn't the best quality (it never is in these places) but it was fun and only cost £20 for 15 plates plus a portion of ebi tempura and takoyaki.

Matt then went back to the apartment to off load his camera, we met up and walked to the Menara Tower not far from the apartment but in the opposite direction to the twin towers.  It was hot hot hot this afternoon, sunshine broke through the clouds, raising the temperature considerably.  Funny, when we looked at the weather forecast in the UK - it said rain for KL everyday this week - we are yet to experience any!  We got the lift to the observation deck and slowly walked around it to try to get our bearings.  We found our apartment block, the twin towers (of course) and a number of old colonial buildings which looked interesting (and dirty!)

After taking it all in, we got the lift back down and headed to a silly little attraction called the upside down house, where everything is upside down and you can take photos to make it look like you are doing silly things.  It was fun, as you can see from the pics.

Menara KL Tower

By now we were all wilting, so we walked back down from the hill to a coffee shop we saw on the way (after a long wait for the shuttle bus which never turned up!).  We restored ourselves with cold drinks and a chocolate muffin and then headed back to the apartment for a very lovely refreshing dip in the pool, which instantly restored us all back to 'normal' again.

We had showers, a little bit of down time and then we headed off to find a different shopping mall which has a Daiso in it (our favourite Japanese shop).  It wasn't that big though and didn't have a food section which was disappointing.  Believe it or not we didn't buy anything!  However, we were all very hungry again, so maybe that was the problem.  We decided we couldn't walk any further and had to have dinner there, we settled on 'Go Noodle House' and each had a huge bowl of noodles: Tom with ebi, Matt spicy (too spicy?) with belly pork and me with bursting meatballs (well it sounded interesting!)

Hanging around

Swinging

We then walked back to KLCC, did some shopping in the supermarket (beer, snacks and bready things for breakfast) before getting home.  Tom went straight to bed, good on him though he survived the day in relatively good humour on very little sleep.  Hopefully he will catch up tonight...

HOLIDAYS

Posh nosh

At last, the day we have been waiting for for ages arrived, Tuesday 15th August - holiday day!  Hurray!  Of course it went past fast, but not as fast as Wednesday which didn't really happen at all for us.

So, it started off slow, with some chores to do around the village, then we locked our suitcases, packed the car and headed towards Manchester Airport, keeping in mind the horrific security Tom and I experienced last year on our way to Amsterdam, so we made sure we had time in hand.  We were the first to check in and then we got to go through the priority lanes because we were business class - oh we could get used to this!

Security wasn't as manic as last year, although Matt got pulled up for a Wallet Ninja in his wallet - he completely forgot he had it, well he doesn't now!  Tom and I got through with no bother (last year, I got pulled up for having a pack of cards and Tom got pulled up for having a toy tractor?!)

We then headed to the lounge (another privilege of travelling business class).  It was a bit busy, but we got great seats from which a small boy could watch planes take off and leave, he was so enthralled that time went very quickly.  We enjoyed the 'free' hospitality.  Our flight took off more or less on time, and was quite uneventful.  We had nice big comfortable seats, and a really good meal of meze and lamb chops with polenta - complete with a very cute salt and pepper set.

Business class lounge at Istanbul

We arrived on time, with no terminal to change, we went straight to the lounge (not easy to find as we didn't know what it was called).  Oh my word, the Business Class Lounge at Istanbul airport was AMAZING, first of all it was absolutely enormous - on 3 levels, think it can take over 1,000 passengers with ease.  It was peppered with food stations and drink stations - you could help yourself to anything you wished, including the alcohol - in Manchester you were only allowed 1 or 2 alcoholic drinks, which you had to queue up for and were served according to the discretion of the staff - says a lot about the drinking habits of the Brits vs the drinking habits of the Turks!


I went for a look around, I found a cake station, a baclava station, a nut station, coffee station, a tea station (where you could blend your own tea!), chefs ready to cook you dishes to order, plenty of salad stations.  There was a Scalextric with Istanbul buildings around it, a football game, a golf game and get this: bedrooms and showers - all free to Turkish Airlines Business Class passengers.  Such a shame it was midnight and we were well fed on the flight over.  Matt helped himself to single malt whisky and we both had some apple strudel - well we had to have something!  We have 7.5 hours here on the way back, so will use the showers and enjoy relaxing in the area - what a place!  We were sad to leave.

All tucked in

However, not for long, as we boarded the business class section of the plane to Kuala Lumpur.  Huge big seats which looked like they would go flat, loads of space for storage, in fact this is the first time I have flown ever where I didn't have to store anything overhead.  We were greeted with welcome drinks, and told to let them know if we needed anything.  We were given very posh headphones, a wash kit, slippers etc etc.  All very lovely.  A chef then came to take our order for dinner and we pre-ordered for breakfast.  We were asked of course if we wanted to be woken for breakfast.  All very good.  Although we didn't need feeding we had dinner - we had paid for it after all.  So another plate of meze for me followed by a chicken and rice dish whilst the boys had ebi tagliatelle.

We then got ready for bed, yes bed, on a plane!  We would have been very excited if it wasn't for the fact we were so tired.  The seats did convert into flat beds and we were given thin quilts to snuggle down with.  Tom was asleep in minutes.  I managed an hour or so as did Matt.  The ambient noise reminded me of being in hospital which was slightly freaky, also it got really hot at one point, however, I was lying flat on a plane, it was delicious and quite easily the best ever long haul flight I have ever been on, not once did I look at the clock and be frustrated at how slowly the time was going, I was almost sad it was over.

Matt and I got our bags really quickly, we had to wait ages for Tom's, until he discovered that it had been taken off the conveyor belt by some staff and put in a pile!  I had looked earlier just in case it was there and missed it - oops, poor Tom was beginning to fret about it.

The view from one of our pools.

We got the KLIA Ekspres train into KL Sentral and then the LTR to KLCC where we came up into a huge shopping mall, we then wheeled our suitcases through the crowds and found our apartment block - literally 5 minutes walk away from the Petronas twin towers - couldn't ask for a more central position,  We are on the same floor as the swimming pools - yes pools: there are 3 of them and a play area for children.  We got straight into our swimming costumes and into the pool - it was glorious.  Get this, one of the pools looks straight at one of the twin towers which was all lit up.

We had showers and then headed back to the mall to find the food area.  We found ourselves a table in Little Penang and had Malay food.  Matt's was a spicy chicken curry thing, Tom had fried rice and I had a bowl of noodles in soup.  All very good, we were all hungry.  We then looked around some of the shops - Matt and Tom both bought themselves a top from Muji.  Soon it reached 10pm and all the shops were closing, we quickly found a supermarket and got ourselves some pastries for breakfast and then headed outside.  We were just in time for a wonderful fountain and light show.  We then headed home and collapsed into bed.

Weekend: Blackpool and The Peacheys

We didn't have any plans for the weekend, but that wasn't a problem as there is always plenty going on around here.  I had found out that it was the Blackpool Airshow and as the weather forecast said it was going to get sunny there, we thought we would head out for it.

Eurofighter Typhoon

We did our usual and parked up at Bispham, then had fish and chips for lunch and got the crowded tram down to the North Pier.  We had to pay to go on the pier today (it is normally free - which always surprises me), we queued up and were surprised to find it was pretty empty, the £2 entry fee putting lots of people off.

We found ourselves a seat and waited for the show to begin.  It started with a Typhoon which was absolutely amazing - the sound that thing makes is phenomenal and the agility of it astounding.  I thought it brilliant and would have happily gone home happy having seen only it.  However, there were plenty more to see - the airshow went from 1.30 to 4.30 - each aircraft getting about 10 minutes.  It was very good, and fabulous as it was free!

Lancaster bomber

My favourite still remains the Typhoon, but also notable were the Lancaster Bomber and the Red Arrows of course.  Matt was on photography duty - the pics speak for themselves.

Wing walkers

Red Arrows

Sunday dawned clear, with bright blue sky and sunshine.  Hurray, Tom and I went to the swimming pool for the morning session where he bumped into plenty of friends, so he played with them whilst I sunbathed on the side.

Liam and Tom

Jake, Tom, Liam and Jack

Matt went for a bike ride and then we met up at Bernies for lunch.

Now, some old friends of ours from Telford were coming to Ingleton today to do the waterfalls trail, and we were trying to find them, but their phone was dead and we didn't know exactly where they were - we were trying to have lunch with them, but couldn't find them.

Ruby

After lunch Matt went for a look in all the cafes and found them in Curlew (shame as the service and food there isn't great!)  Anyway we brought them home, then 2 of the children went to do the waterfalls trail with Wayne (their Dad) and Matt whilst Lucy (their Mum) stayed with me with Ruby (only just 1) and their middle son Liam (10).  The children played lego and baby toys for a while and then we headed to the park for a play and then a paddle in the stream.  We met up with the others by the stream (they did the waterfalls trail super fast) where they all had a play before heading back.

We should have been more organised and had BBQ food in - would have been perfect for tonight, but as we are running down food stocks, we didn't have nearly enough in.  Oh hum, we said our goodbyes.  Lovely family, hope they come by to see us again sometime.

Holidays - Week 3: Liverpool and Cricket

Liverpool waterfront

So on Monday, Grannie and Grandpa came to pick Tom up.  They were having him for 2 days.  Matt and I were taking advantage and having a night away.  Trying not to predictable, we had booked ourselves a night in a hotel in Liverpool.  This is a city that has been growing on both of us, we were keen to explore it further.  We booked ourselves a night at the Pullman hotel, just south of Albert Dock.

We decided to go by car as you can't easily get to Liverpool by train and our hotel was some way from a station.  Not sure if it was the best decision as we got caught in traffic on the motorway and then somehow took a wrong turning into Liverpool, meaning we went through loads of dreary neighbourhoods and got stuck by red light after red light after red light.  After what seemed forever, we finally got to the riverside and found our hotel.

Beautiful ice cream van

We headed straight out for lunch, we were starving so headed to the Albert Dock and sat in the first restaurant where they had room for us.  We shared a chilli platter which went down really well as we were both starving.  We then went for a wonder along the waterfront.  There was a summer market at Pier Head - lots of wooden cabins selling treats of all kinds, we went for a look around the Beatles Shop and got Tom a dangly thing for his school bag and just generally took in the atmosphere in the sunshine - yes sunshine, it wasn't raining - hurray!!!!!!  Of course we had jumpers and raincoats with us so ended up carrying all our spare clothes with us everywhere.

Manly drink

We strolled back to the hotel, freshened up and then headed out for tea.  We had decided on a tapas bar which had come recommended by the owner of The Old Post Office, we weren't disappointed.  We then found a secret bar which Matt had also told us about, which was directly opposite the restaurant.  It was painted black with no signage what so ever, with the blinds pulled down.  We went in, through a heavy velvet curtain and found a really lovely jazz bar.  A waitress came to us with some old style books - within which were stapled a menu, a cocktail menu.  She came over in hushed tones and talked us through it all.  It was great, a nice atmosphere and interesting and tasty cocktails.  So nice that we had two each.  We could have stayed there all night, however, we decided to call it a day and walked back to the hotel, where we had a quick night cap before rolling into bed.

Tuesday, another warm and sunny day - hurray!  We went to Reubens in the Albert Dock for breakfast - it looked interesting and reasonably priced.  Unfortunately they were either overwhelmed or understaffed as it took what seemed like forever before our order arrived.  I had a bagel with cream cheese on it and I kid you not, I think there was the equivalent of 2 family packs of cream cheese on the bagel.  So much that I actually ended up taking most of it off and even then it was too much.  Oh hum, guess I'm not such a diary guzzler as I used to be.  Matt and I then split up - he went to do a walk along the River Mersey whilst I went to Bravissimo to get myself a swimsuit (although I have lost a lot of weight I still don't fit in high street cossies.)

Boats on the Mersey

We then went to find a Whisky Shop we had been told about last night at the Jazz bar (Whisky Business), but were met with a snooty staff member who wasn't too keen on serving us - so much so she wouldn't allow us in the Whisky room and told us to wait whilst they found someone to accompany us (she then hollered for someone who didn't come).  We decided we didn't want to stay somewhere we obviously weren't welcome but then found we were locked in, and had to ask to be let out!  Not a great experience and we won't be back, physically or on-line.   To cheer ourselves up we went to Etsu for lunch.  We were welcomed and had a lovely lunch full of our favourite Japanese tit bits.  Thank you Etsu.

We then walked slowly back to the hotel and headed home.  It had been a lovely city break, felt so much longer than 24 hours, I really do like Liverpool.

Enjoying the water 

Hanging around

Wednesday, I went in the morning to Settle to pick up Tom.  He had had a great time with Grannie and Grandpa and didn't want to come home!  On arrival we headed to the Folly coffee shop which they were keen to show to me, then after some DIY shopping we headed off to Oxenber Woods for a picnic and walk.

Cows on an afternoon stroll!

It was a nice day, and we met some nice ladies with some lovely dogs on the way which made the walk much more fun.  We sat and ate our picnic on the top of the hill and then headed down to the river where Tom had a paddle before heading back.  Matt then climbed Ingleborough with John Manning whilst Tom and I headed over to Lynne's for a pizza tea.

William, Emma and Tom playing cricket

What a day Thursday was!  The cricket club was going to organise a coach to Cockermouth to take all the All Stars Cricketers for a special PCA Masters match.  However, hardly anyone was interested, so we made our own way there.  We took Tom's little friend William with us, what a ball of energy and fun he is!  He was very excited and chatted the whole way from Ingleton to Cockermouth (over an hour and a half) plus a lunch stop at Tebay (where he 'accidentally' threw his baseball cap on top of some rafters! I had to get a cleaner to bring out a broom to knock it down again - was one of those things that if you tried to do, you would never succeed!)

Ben Stokes signed our bats!

All Stars children

We arrived in Cockermouth around 1.30 and found our way to the cricket ground, where we met up with Emma Hughes and her family who were the only other people to go.

So today was all about Ben Stokes who is basically the world number one cricketer at the moment.  He is from Cockermouth and wanted to do something to give back to his home club.  He was going to donate, but then someone suggested a PCA Masters match and they went from there. We weren't that sure what to expect.  We brought mats to sit on with us, so laid them out and made a base.  The cricket pitch was open to anyone who wanted to play cricket, all the Hughes were there so it wasn't long before Tom and Will were playing cricket too.  They spent a good couple of hours playing cricket.  We also did some celebrity spotting.

With Ben Stokes - a nice guy

On my travels around the ground I found some miniature cricket bats for sale.  We got one each for the children and then they went hunting autographs.  Tom and Will both managed to get an autograph from Ben Stokes, which was fab.   The game then started, it was Cockermouth vs the PCA Masters which includes lots of ex England players including: Mark Ramprakash, Graham Onions, Steve Harmison, Mal Loye, Alex Tudor, Mark Alleyne, Owais Shah.  The masters batted first and looked good, however Cockermouth fielded well and didn't look at all outclassed.

At half time, all children who are in All Stars were invited on the pitch to show off their skills.  Tom, Will and Emma got stuck in, with their bare feet (they kicked their trainers off very early on!).  They did well.  Ben Stokes came over to have a look.  Tom got to bowl to him and he got a high five from him as well as a photo.  He came across as a really lovely guy, even though he had herds of children and TV cameras following him all day, must have been really annoying!  We also managed to get a photo of him and Will and I think Emma got a photo with him too.

The next half had the Masters fielding and the children were able to distract those near the boundary to autograph their bats.  They didn't show any lack in confidence going up to them and we think some fielding may have gone astray because of them.  Certainly the Masters ended up loosing, but it was tight: Cockermouth won by 5 wickets with 2 balls to spare.  Tom ended up with 7 autographs including Ben Stokes, not a bad haul.

Getting autographs (Mal Loye)

The match didn't end until 7.30 so we headed straight back.  Will fell asleep almost immediately but Tom stayed awake, he fell into bed though when we got back.  It had been a long and exciting day!

Friday was a bit of a nothing day.  I slept like a log, meaning I was really drowsy when I woke up and never really got going.  Tom was pretty zonked too.  In the morning we did some chores in the rain, threw stones in the river, went to Ireby for lunch (mainly to get Matt out of the house) then did some more chores and then watched the Lego movie.  The evening saw us round the Mannings for yet another pizza tea - was a good night though spent with them and the Durkins.  We all stumbled into bed pretty late - again!!!!!