The Bangkok Grand Palace

Today was our last day in Bangkok and Miss K was very brave because she went out without a helper to find her way around this city of 11 million people who speak very little English. She was armed with her two most important Thai words- hello and thank you- the rest was done with good intentions and a big smile!The Grand Palace of Bangkok is a place of wonder and beauty. Mini-Dylan had never seen anything so intricate and ancient in all his travels.
The palace had heaps of stunning statues and symbols to celebrate and remember the life of the Buddha. Each statue was covered in mosaics of ceramic or gold.
Thailand is close to China and some of the statues came from there.
Although it was busy the place wasn't too crowded with too many other tourists.
Mini-Dylan made friends with one of the palace guards.
Miss K thought this tree was stunning- look how carefully it had been trimmed.
Mini-Dylan was more interested in playing.
The whole day was an excellent way to end our stay in Thailand. Time to go home to New Zealand and get ready for a new school year. See you there!

We are in Bangkok

Mini-Dylan and I are enjoying looking around Bangkok which is the capital city of Thailand.
We had tea at a river tree restaurant just as the sun was setting. It was very beautiful.
Yesterday we went to the Siam Oceanworld Aquarium which was really great. Mini-Dylan thought the shrimp was the one from Finding Nemo.
They had a really huge aquarium that was 5m deep and full of beautiful fish.
These creatures are water rats. They were about the size of a very big cat.
You can see the look on Mini-Dylan's face- he was a bit worried that the shark might have him for breakfast!
Tomorrow we are going to have a look around some Bangkok temples. More photos to come.

Mini-Dylan's Last Day in England

As the title of this blog post suggests this was our last day in England and thought we had better go and see a museum- but which one?? The Natural Science Museum was my best pick because of the really big dinosaur bones they have there.
And they even had a nest of dinosaur eggs for us to look at.
Some of the skeletons were huge. This one is a herbivore- eating only leaves and veggies.

Miss K thought you would enjoy this video of one of the dinosaur models- fiercesome stuff.

This one had Mini-Dylan worried and he was grateful that it was only a model- not the real thing. Look at all those huge teeth!Quite safe with this display though as it was as dead as a dodo! LOL.
After the museum Miss K took the underground train to Westminister Abbey and the Big Ben clock to catch a ride on a river boat down the Thames to Greenwich where time and latitude begins.



You might recognise the bridge over the Thames- isn't it very cool.
This is the top of St Paul's Cathedral which is very beautiful and really old. You can also see the sides of the Millenium walking bridge which was built in 2000.We got off the boat at Greenwich and Miss K was keen to stop off at this pub. I wonder why??
Here is Mini-Dylan at Greenwich. Greenwich is the place with the interenational date line is excatly 12 hours apart from New Zealand time.
And here is the exact place where the lines of latitude start. You can actually see the red line exactly O° O° O° .
By the time we got back it was getting dark and time for one last photo of this huge ferris wheel type thing called the London Eye where you can go up high and get a great view of the city.
Farewell everyone- thanks for your friendship- next stop Bangkok on the way home.

Miss K visits Londonderry, County Derry, Ireland

Miss K's Dad was born in Derry so thought it would be a good idea to visit seeing Ireland is so close to England and Wales. Here is Miss K walking the walls of the city. The walls of Derry have lots of Cannons on them to fight off invaders.
In the past Northern Ireland has had fighting between the different people living there but nowadays things are much smoother but you still see some huge murals telling people what they thought of it all.
Derry is very pretty too with old church steeples rising high over the city.
Further out we visited the Giant's Causeway. You might have seen it on Matt's Dancing Video- it was a bit rough to dance to but we took photos all the same.
The thing looked like it might fall over so I tried to hold it up!
Northern Ireland has lots of beautiful villages.
This lighthouse was perched high on a rocky shoreline to tell ships not too get too close to the rocks.

We visit Cefn Fforest School

Today Mini-Dylan and Miss K were warmly welcomed to Cefn Fforest School. Moturoa and Mr H's class in Wales had been working together for a few years and it was great to meet some of the kids in the school that we had only spoken to via Skype or through our blogs- just like Dino had done in May 2007.
Here we had a line up of everyone- if you look carefully you can just see us in the middle of then photo. It was lovely to meet Bethan who had been the star of our article in the Times Educational Supplement in January 2007 about using Skype in the classroom. Thank you Cefn Fforest School for a fabulous welcome.
After that great visit Mr H took us to visit Caerphilly Castle. The castle was huge and very, very old. I could just imagine how it must have been long ago.
It was really grand- I wasn't game to stand underneath this part of the castle in case it fell down completely.
Mini-Dylan loved being home in Wales for a few days.
And then- guess what? It snowed on me- you might have to click on the photo to see the snow flakes but they were definitely there.
Mr H and I stopped for a photo shoot by the castle moat which had frozen solid in places. I am holding a bit of frozen moat.

Mini-Dylan Comes Home

After a couple of years touring the world Mini-Dylan came back to the land of his ancestors for a visit. To show you just how cold it is Miss K took this photo of a roadside waterfall!
Miss K and Mini-Dylan were visiting with Mr H from Cefn Fforest School.
Miss K saw this robin red breast while she was there- we only have black robins in NZ.
On our travels we saw Roald Dahl's church- I didn't know that Roald Dahl had anything to do with Wales- when I got home that day I Googled Roald Dahl and found out that was born in Wales- see Miss K is learning things all the time!

After