Autumn 2014

We did atmospheric candlelit yoga at Arnos Vale cemetry, we went for supper at the hidden restaurant The Ox in the city centre two weeks in a row, once on our own and once with Penny and John and had the best steak followed by choccie pudding (with salted caramel!) ever. 

We celebrated our second wedding anniversary with a day off work and a bumper champagne breakfast in bed from Waitrose, yum...

We went to the massive bonfire at Victoria park, made Christmas puddings at Hazel's house, went to Alastair's fancy dress hallowe'en party, 

In November we caught some winter sunshine on a meditarenian cruise with the whole family. We left from Milan and went to Naples, Sicilly, Tunisia, Barcelona, Marseille and finishing in Nice. All a bit too much for Pete:

Christmas festivities were clearly too much fun for some:

Summer 2014

We joined a 6 week cookery class at Little Kitchen cookery school in Bristol. We learnt how to make scotch eggs with a gooey middle and pasta from scratch. I took the day off and we went to Slimbrdge to see the birds. We had curry and drinks with Alastair and Eira at Ganesha.

We went to Outcider festival with Nev and Charl, we drank, laughed and danced so much my muscles hurt all week! We turned up in Nev's convertible and weren't sure we'd get in, the festival billed itself as being for real people with no hipsters or tossers!

I took the day off and went to see the balloons at sunrise at the balloon fiesta with Paul, Ben, Irene and Buzz. 

Kathryn and Richard came over for a BBQ with Roger and Rachel. Dad had to finish the BBQ outside in the rain with an umbrella! Good old British BBQ!

The following weekend we went to Petrus for Dad's 60th birthday.

The food was amazing. 

Charlie and I went home the following weekend. We went to birmingham fruit market and there was some confusion about who was buying what, this is what came home....

.....after Dad had given away a dozen melons and a box of peaches to a local shop and given a homeless man some bananas! We juiced it and drank it with rum! We went to a bank holiday car boot sale and bought far too much rubbish including a vacuum cleaner with no wire and a tool to cut wood at any angle for Uncle Alan!

Out and about in Bristol

I took the afternoon off work and we went for a swim in the sunshine in the outside pool at Bristol Lido in Clifton. There was a sauna and steam room too and a slightly cool jacuzzi. The restaurant was really busy, so we went for a quick cocktail in the beer garden at The Botanist and went back to the Lido for supper, my starter and pudding was delicious, but I was a bit disappointed with my main. Salty curried fish. 

Though not as disappointed as we were a few days later when the lady recommended the burgers at this funky cafe in Stokes Croft. They smelled fantastic, so imagine our disappointment when they turned out to be veggie burgers! Unbeknown to us, were in a vegetarian cafe! You can see Pete grimacing! Though the cider was tasty!

We were going to Bells Diner as we were celebrating Pete getting a job, but when we got there they were full. We went to the secret bar Milk and Thistle first where you had to ring a doorbell to get in, they were super friendly, gave us a tour of the amazing 4 floors, and I had a gin cocktail mixed with earl grey tea!!

Here are a few of my favourite things....

We've been back 6 weeks. We've settled back into our home in Bristol and I'm back at work full time. We've been to lots of our favourite places, and spent time with lots of family and friends. Highlights include, Kathryn's graduation and lunch in London...

A weekend in Birmingham with Paul and Ben, John's minty lamb chops, and a boozy supper with Mr Job!

We camped at the green scythe fair near Yeovil. I went to Ricky and Leva's wedding in Wolverhampton with Dad...

We've stayed in converted stables near Bridgwater, been for a day trip to Glastonbury, drunk fancy cocktails with Hazel and Kieran and joined a 6 week meditation evening class.

We have also enjoyed some good old Bristol classics which just don't taste the same anywhere else in the world...pie at the Windmill pub, fish and chips and Chinese take away from Totterdown, fresh pizza at Paintworks, mud dock lunch and Chinese buffet near work. 

And this weekend, we've been to the Foodies festival on the harbour side and tonight we're camping at a lovely spot near Newport in Wales. 

Home sweet home

And so we are home again, back to reality. What a super, fun packed year we've had. We've managed to cover a fair amount of ground: Bulgaria, Chicago, Honduras, Australia, India, Nepal and China. 

We've seen some amazing buildings:

Some awesome landscapes...

And sights:

Learnt some new skills:

And met some great people:

Wow, what fun and so lucky!

Now, I wonder, where shall we go next....

Long journey home

After the excitement of pandas we feel we are truly at the end of our year off. We headed back to Chengdu for a couple of nights back in Hello Chengdu YHA with its great travellery feel.

We treated ourselves to a starbucks brekkie, coffee with pouring cream, mmmmmmm. It was free museum day so we joined the incredible number of local people and went to Jinsha Site Museum. They have found relics from the Shu Kingdom that lived here 3000 years ago, uncovering some impressive artefacts and technologies. However, I think we enjoyed the sight of so many locals more than the museum. Everyone was taking a lot of photos!

I don't know why, but this diorama tickled us. The elephants at the back are 2D and 3D at the front.

We also went to a big shopping centre called Raffles for our favourite, Din Tau Fung. Please open one in UK, so we can have more Shaulongbao....

After Chengdu, we caught a flight to Kathmandu, then flew on again to Delhi for one night of curry and beer before the flight home. Delhi is absolutely roasting, 40 degrees and very humid, ouch! It also doesn't seem quite as hectic as in January, must be the effect of four months round Asia!

Now we just have the big flight home tomorrow. Boo.....

Panda poo

We couldn't resist volunteering to look after pandas in Bifengxia Panda Base. With these overalls, can you blame us?

What a cracking day and a great way to end our year off before we start travelling home. We helped look after one section of pandas away from the public eye, where three pregnant pandas lived. Yup, that will be buckets full of panda poo next to me!

As well as cleaning out the areas the pandas live in and replenishing their bamboo, we also got to feed them some treats including freshly baked panda cakes and bamboo shoots.

The cute photos tell you everything else you need to know!

We want to come back in September and see the baby pandas once they are born....

Foggy summit

We stayed in Emei Shan for two nights in one of our favourite accommodations, Teddy Bear Hostel in Baoguo Village. We toyed with the idea of going for a trek up the Emei Buddhist mountain given our EBC experience, but decided to get the bus to Leidongping and cable car up instead!! It was soooo foggy, we literally couldn't see a thing by Jinding Temple and the Golden Summit.

We did walk back down to the bus stop rather than cable car, which took an hour or two and knackered the back of my legs! That pain still hasn't gone days later! I should have warmed up first!!

We enjoyed the hubbub of the town area in the evenings. Although I think we will both remember the sight of one restaurant guy killing a rabbit by swinging it over his head onto the pavement in front of everyone for a long time. We've seen plenty of live animals waiting for the chop over the last year, but it didn't prepare us for that.

Big Buddha

On the way to Emei Shan, we stopped for a night in Leshan. We were pleased we stopped, the 1200 year old Grand Buddha was very impressive at 71 metres tall, the world's tallest.

Two big Buddhas:

We were also impressed by the surrounding sight which felt like something out of Jurassic Park. There were Mahaoya Tombs, Wuyou Temple and a Pagoda to investigate as well.

We didn't sleep great as our room had a little cockroach infestation in the night. We only "removed" four in the night, but they were literally 10cm long. It could of been worse, we saw this ugly bugly the next day!

More tea vicar...

Seriously, how much tea can one drink, and I'm British so I know about tea drinking. Suffice to say we are drinking a lot here! Well it is the done thing in these parts.

We've made a plan to do a round trip South of Chengdu. First stop lovely riverside city Zigong, famous for its salt mines and one of the largest concentrations of dinosaur bones. There were a lot of dinosaurs!

The salt museum was in a stunning building, like something out of a horror film.

Even the tea houses were impressive: