Scott's Place

As an American, with all my biases and background, I've written in the past about differences between the USA and NZ - differences in language, food, language about food, and signage, for example. Another one that I have briefly mentioned is public holidays. In the USA (government workers not included), there are 8 days in the whole year considered to be universally public holidays. On the other hand, New Zealand has a lot of summer loaded holidays:  mandatory breaks around Christmas (Eve, Day, and Boxing Day), New Year's (Eve, Day, Day after New Year's Day), Auckland Anniversary Day (other cities in NZ have their own day), Waitangi Day, Easter (Friday and Monday), and ANZAC Day. That's 11 public holidays in the span of 88 working days, meaning once every 8 weekdays is free over the New Zealand summer.

I could imagine a person coming to work in New Zealand for that roughly 6 month period, leaving, and thinking that it is the easiest place in the world to work. However, with all these front-loaded public holidays comes a price - between early June and late October, there are no publicly-sanctioned days off. Incidentally, this is when New Zealand days are shortest, darkest, dampest, and coldest. It's as if the huddled masses are accepting their fates:  putting their noses back to the proverbial grindstone, stocking up on stocks for soup, plugging their electric blankets back in, and dreaming of the next time they can fly to one of the (relatively) nearby Pacific islands for a little sun.

The last holiday before the full dreariness-mode is activated is the first Monday of June, known as Queen's Birthday. This is a celebration by Commonwealth countries of the monarch's birthday. It is archaic and mostly pointless, but it give Kiwis one last chance to get out of the city for the weekend before winter truly arrives.

Rhiannon and I chose Raglan, which dubs itself the 'jewel of the Waikato,' as our destination. It's known as a mecca for surfers in New Zealand, and is only about 2 hours drive south and west of Auckland, so getting there is relatively simple. We packed up Rhiannon's delightfully small silver Honda Civic hatchback, and cruised down on a sunny Saturday afternoon. Our intended accommodation for the weekend we found on AirBnb, simply titled "Scott's Place."

Scott's Place, located in the Waitetuna Valley 15 minutes east of Raglan, is strange. Before diving into the photo evidence, here's a brief bullet-pointed list of just a few of the strange things we encountered:

• When we first arrived, we were greeted by some guy named Dave from Hamilton. He was also staying at Scott's Place while Scott was away and had the task of showing us around a place he didn't really know.
• He proceeded to tell us that he and Scott had gone down to the (presumably frigid) stream to do some breathing exercises earlier in the day, during which Scott repeatedly submerged Dave for some reason.
• After dinner and drinks in Raglan and returning back to Scott's Place for the night, Rhiannon came upon two massive dogs, a child, and a man dressed in a too-tight frog onesie. Guess which one was Scott.
• Also staying at Scott's Place were several German WWOOFers (read:  Rammstein loving surfer hippies), who were...
• by chance hosting a Viking-themed party that night. We were invited. 
• Viking party here means one or two guys wearing eyeliner.
• There was a female in the kitchen baking three cakes simultaneously. Her name was Forest.
• The party continued after we went to sleep in our cabin. The next morning Dave peeled out of the drive without even saying 'Good morning' or 'Hello'. Something very strange must have happened to him in the night. Poor Dave.

Now some photo-documentation.

"HEY THIS IS THE REFRIGERATOR GOT ANY HONEY???!!!"

Rhiannon and Shy Life-sized Panda share one of the many leather chairs.

Guitar and drum circle. Trying so hard to fit in.

I think I'm really fitting in now.

Overly friendly and overly massive pig outside our door in the morning. Kind of terrifying.

Not terrible. Just weird. Ultimately Rhiannon and I decided not to stay there for a second night. The real kicker was how cold the cabins were. I'm guessing the overnight temperature outside was about 4 or 5 degrees C. This meant that our cabin (4 pieces of aluminum, some laminated flooring, and a single sliding glass door) was also 4 or 5 degrees. Not comfortable. Not romantic. If you feel like reading my my AirBnb review of Scott's Place, please scroll to the bottom**. It's a little harsh.

But before we headed back to Auckland, tail between our legs, we decided to actually spend some time in the Raglan area. As per usual, I coerced both Rhiannon and myself into doing a pretty optimistic hike, this time to summit of an ancient coastal volcano known as Karioi. The 4 hour up and back track was steep, slippery, muddy, and often a little disorienting, but it made for truly spectacular views of Raglan, the coast, and the surrounding valleys.

Exceptionally calm and sunny day for the beginning of winter.

Raglan and its coastal estuary off in the distance. Mountain peak destination to the right.

The rolling farmland of the many valleys between Raglan and Hamilton.

The summit - that moment during a hike when everyone briefly wishes for a zipline directly back to their car.

That horse in the distance did not move once during the final 45 minute descent. My best guess is that it's still there to this day. What an existential crisis it must be going through.

Survived both Scott's Place and the hike! Not pictured - wobbly, tired knees.

Goodbye sun. See you in October...

Cheers!


Bonus:  A (mostly American) sugary cereal and pajama party I hosted a few weekends ago:

The future generation of diabetic American children don't know how nice they have it.
Most of these cereals had to be purchased at an American import store.

There were also balloons. Here I suffer from sugar-induced coma.

**My harshest ever AirBnb review:

My partner and I stayed at Scott's Place over Queen's Birthday weekend. We arrived and were greeted by Dave, a Hamiltonian also staying at Scott's Place for the weekend. It was not until late that night that I actually met Scott, and he did not inquire about the state of the cabin we were staying in or really host us in any way.

The cabin itself was small and cozy, but not in a warm sense. There is absolutely no insulation inside the cabins, so they experience the exact same temperature as the pig that will be snuffing and snorting outside your door in the morning experiences.

Scott's Place, itself, has the many amenities promised on his page, and is quite a unique place to hang out. We were sharing the space with a large group of strangers who were hosting a viking themed party, which sounds amazing and fun until you realize that you can't escape the party unless you want to freeze to death in your cabin.

We did not stay a second night as we had originally intended, and I'm pretty sure Scott had no idea...

It's essentially a hippie abode, which is fine if you are traveling with 6 other hippies (like his other guests seemed to be). But nothing on Scott's page fully hinted at this. I would also add that his 'cabins' are too cold in New Zealand winter and should not be hosting anyone unless he increases the insulation in them.

note - To Scott's credit, on his AirBnb page he has responded to my critique by adding heaters to the cabins...

Transpacific: Part 3 - Singapore

I'm guessing most people would not expect Chicago to Hong Kong nonstop to be a real flight. It's kind of surprising. I mean, not only does it cross the entire Pacific Ocean, but it also starts from the middle of the USA, which is not that small. Interestingly, it doesn't even crack the top 30 longest flights by distance currently commercially operated (note that the Sydney to Dallas I did is the second longest flight, so yeah). 

Rest assured, it is a long flight - some fifteen and a half hours. Normally for a long flight (long here meaning over 5 hours), I would have some travel anxiety. Not about the travel or destination or being on time, but just knowing that I have to waste however many hours the flight takes finding things to do. Kind of a idiosyncratic, I know. Long haul flights are pretty good at distractions; somehow American Airlines and partners have all of the same new movies that HBO does, which makes for hours of entertainment. I've found that the really uncomfortable flights are the budget 3-5 hour flights around the US where they've scrimped on every amenity and seat comfort imaginable. Anyway, all of these points become moot when you take a sleeping pill shortly after dinner (and two glasses of wine), lean your seat back, and pass out for 8 hours in an awkward upright-ish position.

My destination was, after a layover at the modern and agreeable Hong Kong airport, Singapore.

Nothing like spicy pork noodles in Hong Kong at midnight after 15 hours of flying.

In Singapore for a work research conference, I luckily had a few days before it began to take stock of the city. Even more fortuitous (though totally planned), I would get to explore with Rhiannon, who had arrived fresh from 3 weeks of travel in Cambodia and Thailand.

I think a good word to describe Singapore is teem, because it really encapsulates the city with all of its varied definitions:

• teem - be brimming with...life - The cultural milieu of a modern-day Singaporean brings them into contact with people from all places (namely India, Malaysia, and China, though strong European presence as well), speaking all different languages (English still reigns supreme, hooray colonialism?), expertly preparing surprisingly affordable associated cuisines (the hawker centres are the best way to experience various parts of the city like Little India and Chinatown). All of this happens under a mixture of colonial and very modern (sometimes futuristic) and strange architecture. More on this in a minute. 

My favorite place to hang out in Singapore is known as the Arab Quarter, where my hotel was located. The mixture of all these cultures was most evident here, with (for instance) Swedish cafes, specialty ice cream / doughnut shops, Mexican restaurants, German beer bars, and hostels all overshadowed by a massive golden-domed mosque and calls to prayer.

Chili crab, one of Singapore's signature dishes. 
Sometimes in a curry, here simply barbecued and served with chili paste. Yum.

• teem - be crowded with...err...crowds - Singapore is a dense city (though density-wise not in the top 40 of world cities, the Phillipines is horrifyingly packed). Singapore's density is balanced with clever usages of space, namely in the vertical direction. I can confidently say that I have never spent so much time in or seen so much indoor walking space. Speaking of indoor space and globs of people, Singapore's underground metro system is world-class, affordable, always on time, and by far the easiest way to get around the city. I spent a lot of time riding it to and fro during my week there. Oh, and it's air-conditioned, which really comes in handy with our next definition...

• teem - be swarming with / be thick with...heat/humidity - It's like right on the equator after all. This makes weather predictably unpredictable. With nearly constant 100% humidity, most forecasts look like this:

The classic "you're gonna get randomly dumped on eventually" forecast. I won't do the conversion for my Fahrenheit-disabled friends, but rest assured it's (nearly) inescapably hot.

I say nearly, because as I mentioned above, Singapore has a lot of air-conditioned spaces. So while just 5 minutes in the oppressive heat can clog breathing, glue shirts to backs, and burn the soles of shoes, a blast of recycled cool air is always just a few steps away. 

• teem - abound in...just some damn cool architecture - Now for some actual pictures:

At Gardens by the Bay - the Supertree Grove.
Tall and weird and light up at night and I want to climb them now.

Oh and there's a walkway.
A good place to get my last sunburn before the dark and dank New Zealand winter.

That dome in the background of the previous picture?
It's a Cloud Forest Conservatory with a 6 story indoor waterfall!

A lot of green as the seemingly omnipresent storms roll in over the Singapore Flyer (Ferris wheel).

The most iconic structure in Singapore has to be the Marina Bay Sands hotel, which has a boat (not a real boat) perched upon its three massive towers. It also has a big subterranean casino and an infinity pool on its roof and cost 6 billion (with a B) Singapore dollars to build.

No better way to survive the rising ocean levels than to start 55 floors above current sea level.

It's pretty easy to get to the top, even for non-hotel guests (though the pool is only for guests). The roof has splendid views of the city skyline, which glows marvelously in the night.

The hand-shaped structure is the ArtScience Museum, where one can ponder questions like, "do buildings have souls?"

And one more to show that, yes, the Supertrees are indeed luminescent. 

and the last definition, for the week I was there,

• teem - be thronged with...MRI nerds. There's really nothing stranger than watching (and being a part of) 6000+ MRI scientists/physicians all waiting in line to collect a "free" conference umbrella and then waiting even longer to get one free tepid beer with the drink ticket that's been hoarded and guarded for a whole week. The conference's closing ceremony was right on the water, which despite the heat and long lines, still made for a good setting.

The projectile-vomiting Merlion, Singapore's 'mascot and national personification.' Kind of strange to call it that when everything on the Wiki page for national personification is human related.

So Singapore is in fact pretty cool. It was a delight to catch up with a lot of former colleagues, learn some new research with 'my people,' and wear a button-up and tucked-in shirt for multiple days in a row.

Auckland is still a 9 hour direct flight back from Singapore, but that just meant I got to partake in Air New Zealand's excellent unlimited drink ordering process and wide array of movies. I also enjoyed some aerial views of Indonesia and the Aussie outback.

I'm getting drunk on a plane.

I was anxious to get back to Auckland:  my bed, my routine, a more constant dose of  soccer, and less jet-lag. A month of travel really isn't that long, and as I sit here typing about it now, so many of the certain conversations or events from it spring to mind with clarity:  a steaming bowl of Ramen in Sydney's Chinatown, a hungover morning run along the Chicago River with Michael and Ben, sitting in a Madison coffee shop pretending to work with Dakota and Jordan, strolling down a street in Okemos with the whole family a few days before the wedding, watching the new bride and groom swill beers post-reception at the The Riv in East Lansing, playing some damn terrible golf with Dad in Portland, walking through the bat enclosure with Rhiannon at the Singapore night safari. 

All of it stands out, but collectively has already begun to blur into a very happy month-long memory.

Cheers!

Bonus:  more cool photos from Rhiannon in Singapore.

"Think, think, think." - Pooh

Lego carnivorous plants, because #singapore.

Evil or something.

That's a big-ole lizard.