Excuses excuses...

So I've been neglecting my blog of late but in my defence I did nip off to China and Malaysia for half of October!!! I hadn't seen my Dad for about 4 years and I decided it was time for a visit and an introduction to my boyfriend. Dad moved out to Chengdu (where pandas come from) in 2006, which makes family visits a tad tricky and costly but so worth it...

So boyfriend and I spent a week hanging out with my Dad and Stepmum Xiuling, who is charmingly nutty. We ate food which was way too spicy and took hundreds of photos. I'll more when I'm on my laptop (using boyfriend's MacBook right now cos its hard disk isn't as clogged as mine so it goes significantly faster).

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After China we hopped across to beautiful Langkawi Island off the north west coast of Malaysia for a bit of R & R. Didn't get much of that though - we got a bit carried away with all the wacky activities on the island. Day 1: Aquarium and shopping in the backpacker beach town Pantai Cenang. Here we saw the biggest fish in the world (not the one in the picture though that one was mahoosive!) and found the Yellow Cafe. The staff there were a breath of fresh air after the stuffy uptight guys in our resort on the posh side of the island. And the beer was significantly cheaper!

We discovered a wonderful Malaysian dish called Rendang. Warmly spiced with chilli and ginger, we've tried twice at home to recreate it!

This chap we found in the aquarium. He was about five feet long and looked really grumpy!!

A beautiful sunset on our resort's private beach on our first night. Holiday's are lush!