Rotorua, New Zealand

As soon as we got to Rotorua we headed for the Energy Events Centre to pick up our race numbers and chips for the marathon and 5k events, for the next morning. It was all very organised and people could still register for the marathon up to 9pm that night and up to 9am the next day for the other races. There was the marathon itself plus a marathon walk, a speed walk and 5 and 10k runs and walks. The start and finish was in Government Gardens right next to the old Rotorua spa building, which is now the city's museum.

We'd decided to book a hotel for a couple of nights pre and post marathon so we could be assured of a good night's sleep. We found a place on 'motel mile' - Fenton Street. Our room actually turned out to be a little house - kitchen, lounge (with sofa bed for Liam) , bathroom and private courtyard with hot tub downstairs (you'd be hard pushed to find a place without a hot tub in Rotorua) and a bedroom upstairs for us. Free wifi (yes!) and laundry room a couple of doors down. The other good thing was that it was only a 20 minute walk to where the marathon was starting.

We went and got some food from Pak n Save and had a relaxing evening, watching Dr Who dvds at our own private pasta party.

Auckland, New Zealand

We arrived in Auckland on 28th April, after a quick stopover in Sydney. Our hotel is right on the corner of Customs and Queen Streets, so is really central. After some food and showers we were ready for bed. These are the softest beds we've had since December. We overslept our 7am alarms in the morning, luckily we weren't picking up the van until 11am which was co-incidently our checking out time. We found the Escape Rentals depot after a quick detour, it turns out it was very close to where we'd stayed, but we did scope out a place to come back and have brunch.

We were taken care of by Zoe who threw in a bunch of tshirts, a picnic table and a DVD player as well as making sure all the equipment being put into the van was the new stuff from the supply cupboard. We weren't able to choose the van design as they only had a couple available for hire and by taking the Mazda van, we got a couple of extra feet of space for sleeping. Ideal. All of the van designs have been done by NZ artists and are unique (you can see some of the designs here). Ours is called Tui after the native bird on the passenger side.

Our plan is to stay at some of the really good campgrounds here in NZ that have excellent facilities; kitchens, laundries, hot showers. And supplement those with some of the free DOC sites and some hotels along the way when we're fed up of the van. We went to have some food whilst we were waiting to get our van ready, they needed to fit a new tap to the sink in our 'kitchen'. All fed (excellent paninis, coffee and hot chocolate at a place on the harbour front) and it was time for the off. We were heading directly to Rotorua, about a four hour drive away as on Saturday, Cliff will be running his first marathon.

We stopped for dinner (and for Cliff to do his final 20 minute training run) in Hamilton; about halfway. We ate some really good pizza and minestrone in the Piccolla's Italian restaurant. At the end of the meal the lady owner gave Liam a book about NZ's 'off the beaten track' destinations. A really lovely thought which will give us all some ideas about where we'd like to spend the next 97 days.

It was late and rather than head straight onto Rotorua, we found the nearest campground and settled down for the inaugural night in the van. Comfy.

Sad to be leaving Tokyo

We will be sad to leave the girls who think it perfectly acceptable to dress like this in public.

Liam had fun in the Yamaha music store, trying out their electronic drum set. He's had his eye on one of these for a few years now, so we might have to consider saving for one when we get back.

We saw these tv interviews a lot in Ginza, not sure what everyone was being interviewed about. The interviewer is wearing a cool FA Cup sweatshirt though. We also like the gold trainers.

And Cliff and Liam will miss their hotel kimona-style dressing gowns.

We really wished that we'd been able to spend more time in Japan, as was the original plan. But we got a real taste in Tokyo and Cliff and I agreed it's certainly a place we'd love to return to.

Asakusa, Japan

On Monday (after realising that all the museums are closed on Mondays) we headed out on the subway again to Asakusa to visit the Asakusa Kannon temple there, also known as the Sensouji Temple. First of all we went through the Kaminarimon Gate, painted vermilion and housing a recently renovated huge red lantern. On the left of the gate is a statue of the God of Wind and on the right stands the God of Thunder. But bright blue skies for us today.

We went through the gate into the Nakamise shopping street, a row of shops that date back to the early 18th century. We bought some cool souvenirs here; a duo of Daruma dolls, a Kokeshi doll, (ours is the one on the right), postcards and some other little cute knick-knacks. And Liam bought some (rubber) shuriken, or ninja throwing stars. He also had his eye on a ninja outfit.

We went on towards the temple itself, where we chose some fortunes for ourselves. It involves shaking a long stick out of a metal box, then choosing the corresponding fortune out of the wooden cabinet. Mine and Liam's were good (wishes will come true, good time for travel, the one you are waiting for will come), Cliff's was not (wishes will not come true, not a good time to travel, the one you are waiting for will not come). He says he's going back again tomorrow.

In front of the temple there's an incense cauldron; the smoke is said to bring good health (err, have they read the reports on the effects of smoking?) and visitors rub it into their bodies through their clothes.

In the late afternoon, Cliff headed back to the hotel for a nap and Liam and I went to the Sony building to play with their toys (3D tv and an amazing camera that I have my eye on). We took dinner back to the hotel and made plans for our final day in this amazing city.

Tokyo, Japan

I knew Tokyo would be amazing and it really hasn't disappointed. Although expensive, we were sort of prepared for that and nothing is taking away the shine.

On Saturday morning we stayed in Ginza, it turns out our hotel is just two blocks from all the retail action. We walked up the main drag; Ginza Street and had a spaghetti lunch in the food hall at the Matsuzakaya department store. Then it was onto the Hakuhinkan toystore - 8 floors. We then headed out on the subway to Harajuku to see if we could spot some girls dressed up (or the 'crazy people' as Liam calls them). We weren't disappointed. We also got some stickers from a band called Man With A Mission who wear wolf heads (at all times, it seems). Then it was back to the massive Apple store to score some free wi-fi and play with their macs.

On Sunday, we went to the Imperial Palace gardens, Cliff and Liam were going for a run (Cliff 15km, Liam 5km). There was some kind of running event sponsored by Disney on which was just finishing as we arrived. We also saw some huge carp in the moat.

Hong Kong

Well, nothing much happened in Hong Kong. The original plan was for Cliff to leave Liam and I after a couple of days and return to the UK for the marathon. Liam and I were going to amuse ourselves for five nights (cinema, ice skating, schoolwork) and then do some touristy things with Cliff if he was up it when he came back.

Well, we did get out the airport to see Cliff off, but the flight was cancelled (you may have heard something about an ash cloud, I think it's been on the news), he missed the marathon and we spent our time in Hong Kong eating, sleeping very late and trying not to spend too much money in the thousands of shiny malls. The weather wasn't great, although the day we picked to take the tram up to the Peak at least wasn't foggy. Cliff did manage to fit in a few training runs around the inside track at the Happy Valley Racecourse - joined by Liam on his last run. Cliff's signed up for the Rotorua marathon on 1st May and Liam and I bought new trainers as we've signed up for the Rotorua 5k on the same day.

We stayed in Hong Kong's small scale equivalent of London's Barbican, Youth Square, a mix of hotel, theatre, restaurants and studios. It was handily right next to a metro station. They had an exhibition on on the lower level of graffited giant bears, a bit like the Kid Robot ones that Liam likes.

On Maid Sunday we ventured out to see them at first hand. There are thousands of maids working in Hong Kong, many of them from the Phillipines and Sunday is their only day off, so they meet up close to metro stations and bring food and games to enjoy their free time together.

Sad to say, we were all rather pleased to be leaving Hong Kong. We found it a bit claustrophobic, which might have something to do with our lack of motivation to explore or do lots of touristy things. We're definitely not in any rush to go back there. Our plans for Japan have had to change as a result of the ash cloud too, as our Japan rail tickets were sitting in Lancing waiting to be collected by Cliff. And you can't buy them in Japan, so we couldn't buy replacements. So instead of touring around for 16 days, we're going to spend 4 nights in Tokyo instead and then it's off to New Zealand a bit earlier than planned!

Brighton Marathon

The latest news is that Cliff will miss the inaugural Brighton Marathon, he hasn't been able to return to Brighton from Hong Kong due to the volcanic ash - all flights cancelled. He is obviously disappointed but is already thinking about entering for either the Rotorua (May) or the Christchurch (June), New Zealand marathons. I would hate to see all that brilliant effort in training going to waste. There's a speed walking race on in Hong Kong tomorrow and I did suggest that maybe he could do his marathon alongside but he said they could probably walk faster than he'd be running so that could be a bit demoralising (not true - he's fast).

Good luck to all those who will be running tomorrow, especially Amanda and Vicky, our two beautiful nieces. Have a good one girls!

Xi'an, China

Xi'an is a great city. Cliff did two training runs along the top of the city wall, which surrounds the inner part of the city for 14km. Liam and I hired bikes and followed slowly behind. It was really cold there, so the gloves, scarves and hats all came out of the bag. The paper lanterns that they'd used in the recent festival of light were being displayed on the top of the wall, Liam was particularly taken with the tiger ones. It's the year of the tiger and so was 1998, Liam's birth year. As a result, he believes that he should be on for an extra-special birthday present this year :)

On our second evening here, our laundry was delivered back to us with a bit of a shock attached, granted we had a lot - probably two loads, but he wanted to charge us 495 yuan for it - about £50! They had also repaired Cliff's jeans, but still that was outrageous. We had only gone with this guy because he was recommended by our guide (!) from the previous day, as she said he would do it for a third of the hotel's cost. After a bit of wrangling, we paid much less than he was asking, but still far more than we've paid before. Tip: get all your washing done in Cambodia - $1 a kilo!

We did struggle to find food here though. On the first night we went to the restaurant right next door to the hotel. We thought we'd point at a couple of dishes and we'd be on our way. Cliff thought he'd managed to order three plates of noodles at the counter, whilst I pointed at three dishes on a trolley that they brought to the table. The noodles never arrived (maybe they thought Cliff was just admiring them?) and the baby sweetcorn that I managed to get delivered to the table turned out to be squid! I didn't have my glasses on. So we were left with some dodgy looking mushrooms and some pickled cabbage. Yum. The bill itself was some kind of strange maths puzzle, where everything was in binary or base 2 (for you maths geeks out there) so if something cost 12 yuan, they ticked one on the 8 row and 1 on the four row. This added even more confusion, as the bill had made us think that we were waiting for three extra dishes (the elusive noodles) that never came. We finally got our heads around the bill, paid it and left in search of more food.

Here's one of the many dogs here whose owners don't prefer the natural look.

One of the department stores had a climbing wall (right next to a full sized basketball court) and Liam had a go. He's pretty good and has no fear.

On our last night we went to an Indian restuarant that Cliff had researched down by the Big Wild Goose Pagoda. A little cutie called Angou who was 4 years old, came over to introduce herself and she entertained us throughout our meal. She even gave Liam a present, a set of Doramon chopsticks. After our meal, we had a wander around the pagoda grounds and saw a man practicing his caligraphy using water on the pavement. I'm surprised it wasn't freezing on the ground, it was so cold. But we still headed over to Baskin-Robbins for ice cream. Then we went back to the hotel on the bus (5p each).

Terracotta Warriors, Xi'an

We took the 21:25 train from Beijing West station. Getting into the station was completely mad. It was packed with people. We took a leaf out of the local's book and didn't bother queuing, we just pushed our way through with our luggage. After going through security (x-ray machines), we found the platform easily and within minutes we were boarding the train. We had three beds booked in a four-bed cabin. We were sharing with a very quiet young man who hardly made a sound, awake or asleep. I was amazed that we could get all our luggage (2 big rucksacks, 3 small daypacks, a food full of snacks, drinks and fruit and a kite) into the small space provided, but we did easily. It was a really comfortable night. It was only a shame that it was dark when we left the city so there wasn't much of a view through the large picture window.

The next morning, about an hour after waking to a tape of a woman giving some kind of inspirational talk and some loud instrumental music, we had arrived in Xi'an. We were getting picked up from the station by our guide, who would be taking us straight to the Terracotta Army. Again, the crowd at the station was crazy. 'Tiffany' - surely not this young Chinese woman's real name - was there to meet us and we popped into McDonalds to grab some breakfast before getting in our mini-van.

First stop was the obligatory terracotta warrior statue factory, where we saw them making the figures, which ranged from 5 inches to lifesize (only £1500 to be shipped home). We didn't buy anything here and a good job because we later realised that they were seriously overpriced and that all their stock was available all over Xi'an for a tenth of their prices.

It was then about a 40 minute drive out to the Terracotta Warrior musuem complex. We were really surprised at how it's totally geared up for tourism. I think I was expecting a couple of sheds. They've built some really striking buildings to house the warriors. For those who don't know much about this archaeological find; a farmer was digging a well in 1974 and found some pottery which he took home. It turned out that the pottery signalled the presence of some 8000 figures made of terracotta, which formed the army protecting the remains of emperor Qin Shi Huang, buried in 210BC.

We had been to see the travelling exhibition when it came to the British Museum back in 2008, so we thought we knew what to expect but seeing it in 'situ' was just incredible. I am getting goosebumps just writing this now. There are four pits excavated (three open to the public) and there is speculation that there are more, still undiscovered. The emperor's tomb itself has not been excavated but is it rumoured to contain palaces, rivers of mercury and jewel-studded ceilings.

We also saw two amazing puppets that they used in the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony.

We bought a book in the gift shop and had it signed by a really old man purporting to be one of the farmers who first made the discovery of the pottery that led to the unearthing of the army. Who am I to doubt him?

Over expensive tea and buns in the teashop, we gave our guide a bit of counselling over a personal problem she had with a friend - Cliff as a part-trained counsellor, thought she was setting up a scam.

Olympic excitement

On our last day in Beijing, we headed out on the subway to the Olympic Park to visit the National Stadium, otherwise known as the Bird's Nest, the centerpiece of the Beijing 2008 games. After fending off unwanted taxi drivers who wanted to take us across the road - there was a perfectly good bridge - and having wandered around for half an hour trying to find an ATM, we finally paid our money and went into the stadium. It's an incredible sight and they have huge screens at both ends, playing highlights from the games. I have to say that both Cliff and I had tears in our eyes. Liam was too busy climbing to the the top seats to cry.

It seems such a shame that since the Olympics the stadium has had little use, although they have recently had a snow park in the middle - we saw the snow being cleared away during our visit. They seem to be missing a trick as whilst there are a couple of well-stocked gift stores where Liam bought a mug, and a frankly bizarre opportunity to have your photo taken with a waxwork of any number of previous IOC Chairmen, they don't offer any kind of guided tour. You are left to your own devices and can walk anywhere in the stadium.

We also saw the impressive Water Cube where the swimming events took place. Then it was back to the guest house to collect our bags for our overnight train journey to Xi'an.

The Great Wall of China

Today we took a tour out to Badaling to see the Great Wall. But first we went to the Ming Tombs, a complex about an hour ouside of Beijing, containing the final resting places of thirteen emperors of the Ming Dynasty. Our Chinese guide was called 'Ali', we assume after Ali McBeal, and throughout the day, she referred to herself in the third person, which was a bit weird.

As with many of these tours, we were also 'treated' to a visit to a jade factory (no, we didn't buy any) and to a traditional Chinese medicine place, where they diagnosed Cliff correctly with a couple of the ailments he has (and yes, he bought the cures). We also had a really nice lunch, back at the jade place, although we still weren't tempted to buy anything.

As we only had a couple of hours on the wall itself, we opted for the cable car to take us up and back. We had prepared ourselves for the fact that it would be busy up on the wall, as Badaling is the most accessible part of it from Beijing. So we weren't too surprised by the number of people up there and it didn't take anything away from the amazing experience.

Beijing, China

We took an early flight to Beijing via Hong Kong (just enough time for a drink at the pretty impressive airport before heading off to Bejing). It was late by the time our taxi reached the guest house and we were pretty impressed that we found it so easily as a lot of the reviews mentioned the difficulty in locating it. This is probably because it's called something entirely different on the website. It was really well situated just a five minute walk from Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. It was in an area known as a hutong, which are walled houses and so are very secluded. Our own place was a room opening up onto a central and enclosed courtyard.

The next morning we wrapped up (it's cold here) and after breakfast at Grandma's Kitchen we headed along to the Forbidden City. If anyone has seen films such as The Last Emperor and Hero, you will already have some idea of what the Forbidden City is like. Huge and very impressive.

In the evening we walked down to night food market near Wangfujing Street, where we got some really good noodles and vegetable pancakes (and the woman tried to seriously overcharge us for them). We passed on the snake, giant centipede, scorpians, sea horses and sheep's penis though.

Ha Long Bay, Vietnam

Early on Saturday morning we were picked up for our three hour minibus ride to Halong Bay. It was a fairly good journey with a stop for a coffee along the way. We waited at the port for a while for our guide and when the group (about 20 of us) were together, we were taken out to our junk on a tender. Our cabin was a nice surprise (bigger than some of the hotel rooms we've had!) and with a shared balcony at the back and Liam had his own twin cabin next door. After lunch we headed out into the Bay. Ha Long Bay was beautiful, despite the foggy and drizzly weather, which seemed to make it all even more mysterious.

In the afternoon we were taken to the Surprising Cave and later we all went kayaking, Liam sharing his kayak with one of our fellow passengers, a Japanese guy. We all got soaked.

I was glad to get back to the boat for a hot shower and to warm up before dinner. There was no danger of us starving; boats followed us around selling provisions. The next morning after breakfast we 'checked out' of our cabins, settled our drinks bills and cruised back to the port. There was a bit of excitement when the tender driver came into the port a little too fast and hit another boat, but as with all accidents in Vietnam, any damage is just shrugged off. We were taken for lunch at a nearby restuarant before our journey back to Hanoi. We met Sarah and Alison, two sisters from Australia and the conversation soon melted away the journey back to the city. Cliff left his hat on the bus (again) and sadly, this time there was no reunion.

One more night in Hanoi and it was off to China.

Hanoi, Vietnam

We arrived early in Hanoi and took a taxi from the travel office as we hadn't a clue where the hotel was in relation to where we'd been dropped off. We'd read about Hanoi taxi drivers who have fast-running meters and we were unlucky enough to run into one that morning. He drove literally around the block to our hotel (it was about a 5 minute walk!) and it cost 100,000 dong (about £3.50). We had the feeling it was too much but it was 7am and in no mood to argue. We realised we'd been scammed later in the morning when we took a taxi over to Ho Chi Minh's mauseleum about 5km away and it only cost 50,000 dong. We'd taken a taxi because it was Thursday morning and the mauseleum was closed on Fridays and only open in the mornings the rest of the week. Unfortunately our rush there was fruitless, it was 1st April and summer opening hours had begun which meant the complex had closed at 10.30am. We met a trio of English girls who had also missed getting in but they gave us a spare map.

We walked back towards the city centre, stopping off at the Temple of Literature. Whilst Cliff was buying our tickets, I was surrounded by a class of school kids asking my name. They were a happy bunch.

The temple was very tranquil and Liam thought the stone turtles were cool (as well as the live ones in the pool). We spent some time at one of the gift shops for Liam to choose a Chinese character pendant for himself ('Agility and Cleverness') and his friend Charlie ('Success'). Just got to get them home in one piece now.

In the afternoon we went to the Thang Long water puppet theatre, we bought the tickets just as the performance was about begin but still managed to get front row seats. The puppets are moved with long wooden sticks in the water and the stories usually centre on rural Vietnamese stories and in this performance it was the legend of Hoan Kiem lake (literally across the road from the theatre). It was very good visually and musically; there's a live band but nothing could stop me having a tiny nap.

Once again we lucked out on the food in Hanoi, finding some really good places to eat and watch the world go by. Cliff and Liam went for a run in the rain around the lake and we did some souvenier shopping on our last night including a new bag for Cliff to take it all back to the UK in.

We had just two nights in Hanoi before heading off to Halong Bay for our cruise.