OLD FRIENDS - Mornington Peninsular, Australia

Our good old family friends, Dave and Jane, are on a big Aussie holiday. We’ve come to visit them whilst they house sit on the glorious Mornington peninsula where it’s all ‘vineyards and sailing clubs’…darling! On the house tour, I spotted a rather fancy carbon road bike with the name MEKK emblazoned across it.








I asked when back in the kitchen for a welcome coffee whose bike it was, and remarked that it was a rare sight in Australia, and that someone in my family actually makes those bikes. Jane went quiet (really unusual!) and got chills as she replied that her brother-in-law actually makes those bikes. Following a brief horrifying (for Jane) moment where we thought we may be related, I explained that my cousin Ken Knight is the KK from MEKK bikes. Jane replied that Mark Edwards, or ‘ME’ from MEKK, is her sister’s husband, and not only that, but he is on his way here to the house to stay tonight! What the..!!!!! He’s just been to see the ‘Tour Down Under’ bike road race.Ker-azy huh?!

Jane it turns out, has known my cousin Ken for many many years, and all this time had never joined the dots together. Mark, Jane’s sister Sarah, and their son Jack were great fun and we all spent a riotous evening drinking far too much local wine, and retelling stories, like long-lost family.

MALAY STOPOVER (Melaka, Malaysia)

After a hectic month, we arrived into KL having not slept for 72 hours. So you can imagine our delight when we found out the bus from the airport to Melaka was fully loaded with 'massage chairs'. We were asleep pretty quick! Upon arrival in the colonial city and a somewhat circular cab trip, we found an affordable room at rather retro looking Emperor Hotel. The yellow exterior and 1970's decor was right up our street. The view from our picture window up on the 18th floor was great for gazing out over the city. We conked out and spent the next day in bed, with short breaks for food at the night market opposite - where you could get 10 sticks of chicken satay for about $2. You could also sample tasty treats like monitor lizard curry, sweet and sour frog or pig brain soup!

Strolling the canal at dusk, you can see our retro highrise hotel in the distance,
and the next hotel we stayed in is just on the opposite side of the riverbank

You might be wondering, why Melaka? Most people only visit the World Heritage spot for a day or two - but we really wanted to just stop and chill out on the way to Oz and we'd been to KL before. We had considered flying up to Georgetown, Penang - but thought we'd save that one for another time. Maybe on the way south from our favourite Thai island Koh Lipe!

After five days at the Emperor, we moved over to the River Song Residence, a lovely little guesthouse with a balcony right in Chinatown. We discovered the most incredible brunch spot called Eat at 18 - my favourite place in all of Melaka - they also have stunning boutique rooms, so check them out if aren't travelling on a shoestring!

Rather lazily, we did some Christmas shopping in Chinatown, wandered around the night markets in Jonker Street, had massages every other day, ate delicious food, chilled on the balcony in the rain and enjoy a bit of sun by the pool.

One night we went out to Bistro 1673 and made friends with the two-piece playing live music  - Joseph and Lauren, who kindly gave us lots of insider foodie tips on Melakan cuisine. We met up a couple of times and sampled everything from traditional Nyonya food, authentic Chinese, frozen coconut shakes, Durian jelly and the famous Nadeje layer cake (dozens of crepes delicately piled up with cream inbetween each layer!) Amazing.

Unfortunately, our trip to the cake shop was en-route to the bus, which our friends had kindly offered to drop us to, and we missed it due to a traffic jam! There wasn't enough time to get another bus and so we thought we'd take a taxi - but they wouldn't hear of it, and drove us two hours back to KL. What angels! Thanks J&L.

SKIPPING WINTER (Bristol, UK)

It's been awhile since we were on the road, having settled down back in the UK for the past few years. We thought it was about time to visit family in Oz again and that we might as well rent out the flat and skip winter. So we're heading off in December for warmer climes...!

FLIGHT TIPS FOR OZ VIA ASIA (STA Travel, UK)

The journey to Oz from the UK is always a tiring one - especially when you only book tickets last second during high season! Luckily I came up with an ingenious and cost saving way to do the trip - which gives us the maximum amount of flexibility for our journey. We booked a six month return ticket from Heathrow to KL with Sri Lankan Air, as the price and their stopover time in Columbo was much less than the competition. This meant we could have a nice ten day stopover in Malaysia on the way to Australia. By booking one-way tickets to Sydney with AirAsia, we'll have the flexibility to do some travelling in SE Asia on the way back to England if we want to.

WHAT'S IN A BLOODY NAME?: (Victoria, Australia)

The Aussies like to call a spade a spade, as it were. We love the way place names Down Under get right to the point. Landmarks are imaginatively named things like Sandy Beach, Snowy Mountains, Running River, or in this case, just simply Big Hill.

Our step-dad Steve cashed in cleverly on this concept with the ingenious "Medium Sized Building Company".

WAIFS & STRAYS: (Aireys Inlet, Victoria, Australia)

En route to the 12 Apostles, monolithic stacks on the south coast, and flagrantly ignoring Mum's advice on Australia's beguiling sense of distance, we found ourselves a little way off from our final destination and our reserved accommodation for the night. Humbled, we took the advice of some friendly locals in The General Store regarding alternative places to stay.

Clearly, my 'lost puppy' eyes and general hopeless demeanor invoked the kindness of the shopkeeper, who realising our complete ineptitude, offered to put us up at her home! We were really blown away with the gesture and proceeded to enjoy a great evening chatting over some local wine with our hosts (Greg, Jill, and Asher) about surfing, travels, home design (Greg is a building designer) and…well thrashing the Aussies at the cricket of course.

I grew up in a house where we had allsorts staying - Mum had the softest heart and didn't have the strongest professional boundaries going, so we'd end up with 'clients' coming home for dinner or to stay - she was working with alcoholics (might be where Georgie & I got some of our own work passions from). I really want to be that same kind of family and have the same sense of open home. We offered our hosts an open invitation to visit us, and I would return the favour of removing any large spiders that might crawl into their room.

POMS DOWN UNDER: (Sydney, Australia)

Our great friends Jeremy & Ana made the adventurous move to emigrate to Australia. For some bizarre reason, they chose to settle in Adelaide! We miss them. We got to see them a fair bit when they were in Bristol, although never for more than a few hours at a time, as is normal for everyday life. Sometimes you have to move away to really see somebody - we got four straight days with them as Mum & Steve kindly played host to all of us at their fab new pad.

We got to meet new arrival Edie, the cutest baby girl in the world, and mess around with Godson Jasper, cool Henry, and Ben who's well, hilarious. We hit the Sydney Aquarium, went crab hunting at Balmoral and got deliriously excited at Luna Park (the kids were angels as always but we were a bit out of control). On the last day we went to the Opera House and then met up with other Poms Jo and Danny, and Kate at Manly Beach. Of all the bugs, pests, critters and nasties in Oz, the Poms are probably the most
 pesky.

IT'S ONLY A GAME: (Sydney, Australia)

I'm no cricket fan, but if you have to watch paint dry, then Sydney is a pretty good place to do it, in the sunshine with a nice cool stubby.

It's been really just awful being here throughout The Ashes. I hate gloating, I really do….and it's been breaking my heart seeing the Aussies get so upset with their abysmal loss. I have in no way mocked my colonial chums or taken the opportunity to rub their sunburnt faces in it.

Neither did they try to drown me in the surf (Kit) or kill me in a freak fishing accident (Mark). Alrighty sport.

GRAND DESIGNS: (Sydney, Australia)

Well, here we are, tagging a final leg on our Around the World Tour. Annoying isn't it? After being shunned from coming to Oz earlier in the year whilst the renno was still underway at the family 'stead on Sydney's beautiful Northern Beaches, we've finally got to see the folks big dream house realised. It's pretty spectacular. It has been an amazing spa-like retreat…erm, a retreat from our student scum and unemployed bum lifestyle that is.

Well, it's wonderful to spend time with family and catch up with Aussie friends. As well as feeding us up three year's worth of food in a month, Mum has our social calendar planned out with meticulous detail, starting with a fancy house-warming-cum-jazz & canape infused event.

Great to be home…a broad term for us Griffins.

LOST IN TRANSLATION: (Beijing, China)

We left Bristol with a piece of paper helpfully written out in the vernacular by my course mate 'Daisy' with local tasty Chinese delicacies we ought to sample on arrival in Beijing.

On the paper were numerous references to animals and animal parts, including donkey (apparently not actually donkey, but a dessert), so much so in fact that we were told that if we were to ask a stranger where we might find these foods, they may direct us to the zoo.



Now if it had been me writing the list, I'd certainly have written some exceptionally dodgy things on there for my tourist friends, so I assured them I'd be back to punish them if they were leading me up a merry path. Meanwhile, in a fit of self abuse, I stomached an evening treat of sea slug and scorpions.
Deep fried …mmmm.

There are a bunch ways of you can make yourself misunderstood in China. When explaining 'what I do' (study film) to interested new people, I managed to leave someone with the idea that I star in the movies.

Equally, there were plenty of times when i think we got the wrong end of the stick. We visited a Church near our hotel in the 'Chongwenmen' area where we learnt that Jesus was in fact born in 'a mansion'.

Contrary to popular belief, the Church is thriving in Communist China. Despite the stereotypes we've picked up somewhere, we weren't arrested or followed back to our hotel.