http://5nz.com/blog The King Family Blog Thu, 16 Apr 2009 23:21:13 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Hi We're back from Jeremy’s TV commercial shoot at Mt Cook and it was quite an experience. Jeremy was the "spare child" and didn't get used as #1 boy, Tom, did really well. Thanks to Red 11 and the Film Business We left Auckland on Friday and left straight from Christchurch to drive ... http://5nz.com/blog/mt-cook-adventure/43 Life has been frantic since we left Tioman - we took a bus to Singapore and are living in a shoebox hotel, but atleast it's modern, clean and not tatty. It's across the road from Little India and quite the place to be with the Deepavali celebrations. So far we've been ... http://5nz.com/blog/crazy-singapore/42 I had a fantastic birthday. Opened pressies - a beautiful silver & shell bracelet from Andy and the kids, and a lovely beaded bracelet from Claire and Peter. Pressies not expected while backpacking but very appreciated. We had breakfast and then attempted to snorkel out to the small island off the ... http://5nz.com/blog/happy-birthday-to-me/39 What a dreadful night. As we settled down for bed the maintenance guys turned up erecting scaffolding at one end of the building, belt sanding the floor at the other end and taking building materials into the building opposite. Complaints ensued and after a very long negotiation we were moved ... http://5nz.com/blog/tioman-day-1/38 We had the delight of a 7am taxi ride to Kuantan with a great local taxi driver. Another font of knowledge and a hoot as well. Dropped at the bus station with time to spare we then walked past abandoned food halls and outdoor markets (because of Ramadan) in search ... http://5nz.com/blog/mersing-and-pulau-tioman/37 Having promised the kids that we wouldn't make them travel for two consecutive days, and knowing that the beach held no special delights we headed off to one of the batik schools. Found one closed but the other, Matahari, was open. The guy in charge, only 16 years old, was ... http://5nz.com/blog/cherating-batik/36 We had an early start and then up and out to catch the fast boat to Kuala Besut - smooth seas but zero visibility - and then a bus down to Cherating. All went smoothly enough but when Lonely Planet describes the place as melancholy they're not joking. You see ... http://5nz.com/blog/to-cherating/35 We got up early and headed over to the big island (where we'd started out) to a new place called Abduls - relative luxury compared with d'lagoon. On the way the boatman stopped twice to let us see big turtles swimming in the harbour. We then had lunch and headed up the ... http://5nz.com/blog/turtle-watching/34 Andy and I started the day by leaving the kids home alone and headed out to see if we could see those pesky sharks. Were standing on the edge of the beach debating our strategy when two teeny sharks zoomed past our feet! Further in we either saw three sharks ... http://5nz.com/blog/banana-boating/33 Well, not really, but a big bush walk that all ended in tears. However once refilled with food both were happy and when they looked at the map and saw how far they'd walked they were really proud. We'd started the day with a snorkel to see the sharks, nothing doing, ... http://5nz.com/blog/jungle-trekking/32