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.

Transpacific: Part 2 - USA!

This post details the second leg of my month long transpacific journey, in which I (vain)gloriously return to the USofA, stop in a few of my favorite cities, and see many of my favorite people along the way.

Flying east over the Pacific Ocean is kind of like time travel. Except not really, because anyone who has studied modern physics (and who was also not a cast member of Interstellar) will tell you that until we actually discover wormholes and learn how to fly to/through and survive them, time travel ain't happenin'. What I mean by 'kind of like time travel' is more a Twilight Zone where you are in a pressurized box (and a very large box the A380-800 is) miles above the Earth's surface, for 15 hours, screaming over the international timeline. This east to west traversing suddenly subtracts 24 hours from your life. Poof, gone. And then you are awkwardly experiencing an April 22nd that lasts 40 hours. Luckily for me, I was on an oddly empty Sydney to Dallas flight, giving me two extra seats on which to be recumbent.

So posh. Dallas isn't a destination that Aussies desire?

Pacific sunset, compliments of a 15 hour flight.

The reasons for my visit back home? A bachelor party, a Madison reunion tour, and my sister's wedding, all very good reasons.

Damian's bachelor party, beginning as I landed in Chicago after 20 hours of travel, was intense. It turns out if you party for 36 straight hours you never experience the dreaded transpacific jet-lag; rather, the numbing cocktail of caffeine, alcohol, two puffs of a cigar, seemingly endless pizza, and crisp spring air overrides whatever circadian disrhythmia one accrues on a long flight. Downtown Chicago is home to many locations/things (too many to count) that lend themselves to a good bachelor party, including:

Drinking and a comedy show at Second City,

4 hours in - photo appropriately blurry.

drinking and hanging out on a swanky condo roof,

Reunited. Sunglasses covering Jordan's tears of joy.

and drinking and...some other stuff that guys normally do during a bachelor party

Probably the wildest picture I have ever posted on here. I can't believe I was allowed to post it. What a crazy weekend.

Then it was on to Madison, my second home. Did I have to be in Madison for anything in particular? No, but I think there's a certain pull to places in which one has spent their mid-twenties. A sense of total ease in a place that is familiar and comfortable. Madison feels that way to me.

During my busy couple of days in Madison, I got to see a lot of my old favorites:  the Madison zoo, Nattspil, the former lab and colleagues at UW, Jordan's couch, and I even got to ride a bike around town. I miss riding bikes. Plus Jordan has FIFA 16 on his Playstation, so that's definitely worth spending a few days doing.

The perfect reverse selfie - a few Sunday beers on Dakota's front yard.

I don't really have any other pictures of the visit. And ultimately it was pretty short. I had a wedding to get to after all...

Loyal readers will remember that Lee and Keegan were in New Zealand at the beginning of 2016. So while I had seen them as fiances, I had not seen them in full last-minute-wedding-prep mode. Considering 1) it was almost certainly going to rain on their wedding day, 2) they had made their own favors and pre-planned all the decorations themselves, and 3) they had many day-of things to do (ya know, aside from getting married), their preparedness, composure, and easygoing natures were outright admirable.

It rained during the brief and intimate ceremony in the MSU botanical gardens, though I think it added to the scene. I will never forget leaning into Grandma to get under her umbrella, the look of pure joy on Emmett's face as his bubble-gun (in lieu of carrying flowers) fired into the sprinkling rain, and the difficult to recite yet heartfelt vows the newlyweds exchanged.

First dance. Loyal readers will also remember that Keegan broke his foot while travelling overseas. Here he dances in a moon boot (sandal? jandal?).

What do you think they're talking about? I bet it's an argument over who gets the wedding leftovers...

The reception was a kaleidoscope of conversations with family I hadn't seen in years on my mom's side, family members I didn't know willingly and attentively read this blog on both sides, and the heavily facial-haired and extremely magnanimous Peters clan. All of which is to say it was a blast. If everyday could be Lee and Keegan's wedding, I would do it. I would also only live for like one year more maybe (eating and drinking myself to an early grave), but I would do it. As icing on the cake (or for this wedding chopped peanut butter cup on top of ice cream), I got to invite of bunch of my friends (also Lee's friends) as seat-fillers:

Tired of looking at the back of Dakota's head yet? Me neither.

Dance crew.

I delighted in the fact that the wedding was in Michigan. It afforded me not only the chance to catch up with so many friends and family in the area, but to also experience a lot of the things that make Michigan home in my mind:  giant Jenga at the Riv in East Lansing, a multitude of Michigan-brewed beer (most notably Two Hearted Ale at the reception), shopping at Meijer's (including sending Rhiannon like 20 Snapchats of various cheap American produce and sugary cereals), and experiencing a little outdoor time in Portland.

Dipping, in which a net on a lever literally scoops out fish resting in calm waters. Probably the easiest fishing in the world. Accompanied by America's pisswater and fire. We even caught a somewhat impressive catfish. 

Though it was a vacation and a homecoming of sorts, it all went too fast. Before I knew it, I was being chauffeured (thanks Dad) to Chicago to board a plane for Hong Kong. 

Thanks USA, let's do it again sometime soon...

Cheers!

Bonus:  Pies. I was inspired by some pie at the rehearsal dinner,

That pecan caramel pie, ungh.

to make a very rich and delicious (sour but not too sour, sweet but not too sweet) key-lime pie (yes using real key-limes).

And then proceeded to leave half of it with my Dad as I flew out of the country...

Transpacific: Part 1 - Sydney

This is the first post detailing my month-long excursion in which I basically live on a plane. I'm not saying that I'm a jet-setter or anything, but by mid-May when I return to Auckland I will have spent 53 hours in air transit, covering roughly 41,000 kms (25,500 miles, not quite around the world). There's only so many times you can watch the new James Bond movie (which was crap) on a 15 hour flight.

Luckily for me from a financial perspective, most of my trip is funded by Siemens Healthcare and the University of Auckland. And they even booked my plane tickets and a few accommodations:

"Doctor (not a real doctor)" Eric Schrauben. Please don't steal my Qantas points.

My first week has been spent in Sydney, ("the Harbour City") Australia. From a tourist's standpoint, it has not been a productive week. I've spent the majority of everyday in a classroom at the local Siemens Healthcare Education Centre learning how to manipulate MRI scanners in C++ programming. This is what the (capital A) Adults would label a 'business' trip, ugh. The course is located just off the campus of Macquarie University, which is really nice and new and beautiful, but also about 45 minutes from downtown Sydney via public transit. So yeah, it's been a little dull. The good news, aside from my cushy air-conditioned hotel room, is that I got most of Sunday to explore Sydney on my own. 

Let me just say this, in a few sentences, to point out how quickly someone can (seemingly) fully explore a city when they are by themselves. Travelling in general by yourself just goes faster. Instead of worrying about the rest of group staying together, you just go. The same goes for a new place; every tourist attraction takes so much less time to experience/see when you don't have to take a plethora of photos with other people, or discuss its beauty, historical significance, overcrowdedness, overratedness, etc. It's not necessarily better, just different, in a faster sort of way.

Anyway, this is precisely what I did in a 6 hour period in Sydney on my only free day, which happened to be mostly cloud-covered and muggy.

For my Auckland friends. This is what traffic-free Auckland looks like at 6 am on a Sunday morning. Astounding I know.

Even though Australia and New Zealand are relatively geographically close to each other, the similarities are only relative. I've gotten used to the flora, fauna, and food of Auckland. But in Sydney these are just different enough that I felt obliged to take a few pictures:

Bird of Paradise outside of Siemens Healthcare in Macquarie.

Sulphur-crested Cockatoo, surprising in size and audibly distressing.

Australian white ibis. A strange combination of vulture, goose, and heron. I was entranced by and hated these, simultaneously.

All the macaron flavo(u)rs. Designed by celebrity chef Adriano Zumbo, dubbed Zumbarons.

Sydney Chinatown. I'm a sucker for big rainy-day bowls of steaming spicy Ramen-esque things.

I spent several hours walking near the Sydney harbour. The city has a truly excellent waterfront. Sydney is probably most well-known for its opera house, which doubles as a dish-drying rack if looked at from the correct angle:

There are so many other comparisons. Source.

Really though, it is an impressive piece of architecture. And to think it only took 15 years of mind-bending architectural and engineering design and execution.

Iconic.

Iconic x 3.

Iconic x 20 + night filter.

I guess it's generally a thumbs up for a city or place if when I'm leaving I wish I had spent more time in it. Sydney made me feel that way. 

Now for the next portion of my trip - Chicago/Madison/Michigan. I'm coming home (-ish).

Cheers!

Bonus:  My favorite (most noteworthy) pieces from Australian artists at the Art Gallery of New South Wales:

At least it took good care of its teeth.

Yes. I get it. I like it. I would put this on my wall.

Please make your own assessment (hint - mine is not positive).

Rotorua, (s)Wellington, and the Coromandel Peninsula (again)

Next weekend I'm leaving New Zealand for the first time since I arrived in late July 2015. Rest assured it's not a permanent departure. But it has been eight months since I've stepped on Kiwi soil, and flying away from it feels monumental somehow. My sojourn over the next month will include a week in Sydney, two weeks back in the States, and a week in Singapore - a real jet-setting lifestyle. My basic plan is to let the west to east jet lag be offset by drinking and eating and the eventual east to west jet lag. "If I never sleep I can't get jet-lagged," the man with one pupil more dilated than the other screamed into at own reflection.

Before I embark on that trip, which I will dutifully write about here, I wanted to make sure that I equally diligently wrote about three of the weekend trips I've taken (that is, Rhiannon and I have taken) in the last couple of months. All locations are on New Zealand's North Island, all are drive-able (kind of) from Auckland, yet the three are distinctly independent, giving wholly different appreciations of NZ culture and history and geography. 

* * *

First up is Rotorua, a 2.5 hour drive south of Auckland. Chronologically it makes sense to describe this trip first (since it happened in mid-February); from a journalistic perspective it's also a good place to start, because things can only improve relative to Rotorua. Imagine the boiling mud pools and steam that stinks of rotten eggs and weirdly colored stream beds indicative of Yellowstone National Park (admittedly very cool and eye/ear/nose-catching). Now imagine that geothermal stew mixed with the utter kitschy-ness and money-grubbing over-priced merchandise and all-this-tourism-is-just-a-facade-covering-up-rampant-violence-and-poverty feeling that, say, Niagara Falls or the Vegas Strip, evokes. At some point in the recent past the local council decided to make the sacred Maori locale of Rotorua a tourist haven (read:  trap) where one can pay out the ass to get some 'authentic' cultural Maori experiences. That's all I have to say about Rotorua. 

Here's some boiling mud:

Everyone come sample Rotorua's stomach-churning primordial soup.

For some reason this makes me think of the movie Congo.

But it wasn't all bad. There was a decent grocery store in town with cheap wine and pummelos (look and smell delicious, but overall underwhelming in flavor), and it supplied our camping excursion outside of town. In fact, leaving Rotorua in any direction brings you to a number of lovely places, such as the adjacent Blue and Green Lakes:

Didn't capture them at their greenest (left) or bluest (right), but you get the idea. 
Note my fancy unintended J.J. Abrams lens flare.

  
Or to relaxing hot pools fed by naturally boiling water tucked into a remote valley:

Boiling spring water, instant pore-opener.

Ultimately the camping at one of the nearby tucked away lakes made the weekend worth it. But I definitely do not recommend Rotorua as a destination for tourists, not when there are countless free and more interesting/beautiful places to see nearby.

Not a bad view from the tent door. Hobbit feet.

* * *

Next up is Wellington, New Zealand's capital city, located at the southern tip of the North Island. And for a special treat here is Rhiannon's guest telling of it:

"Wellington - You can't beat it on a good day". The city's unofficial catch phrase is spoken in various tones, depending on whether or not the speaker believes that the 30 days of good weather Wellington receives per year allow it to reign superior as a place to live. Fortunately for Eric and I, we were there for one good evening, a full good day, and a following good morning. 

Wellington is widely regarded to be the cultural capital (as well as the regular capital) of New Zealand. There are cool bars, cafes, shows and markets. A larger-than-usual percentage of the local population wear fashionable hats (which is an impressive practical feat given the high wind speeds). We found our way to one of these cool bars on our first evening. The Library bar, situated off one of the main streets, is set up like the inside of a boldly decorated 1970s home - if that home were to comprise only of a series of living rooms. Sipping on cocktails (their specialty) we pondered the purpose of the presence of a bathtub in the middle of one of the lounges. No conclusion was reached.

On our second evening, we trailed Yelp and Google (how great is technology) around the city in our quest to hit up the trendiest and most interesting spots. Highlights include an Asian night market, a very confusing, unstructured experience at a brewery tasting, a bar with great beer (though I'm pretty sure the bartender made up the ingredients; "grapefruit and, umm...lemongrass?") and a cafe with a string jazz quartet which transported us to a world of sophistication and relaxation. In contrast, the evening ended in a tiny underground bar that smelt strongly like garlic butter, packed with hip people listening and dancing dangerously to a Russian Gypsy Jazz trio.

After a day of eating and drinking everything in sight, it was necessary to partake in some exercise on the final morning. Now, as you will know from watching LOTR, every walk in New Zealand must be accompanied by epic music. It was therefore only appropriate that as we started our march up Mount Victoria, a local brass band set the mood by playing the national anthem, followed by a series of other of grand brass pieces. This reassured us that our walk up the hill was important and for the greater good of Middle Earth as we know it.

The Madison of New Zealand! But bigger, and with hills, and a movie special effects studio. Also, one of the best places for expats to live!

Bravo, Rhiannon. Wellington also has a free national museum, Te Papa, where medals vaguely reminiscent of 'participation awards' are on display:

The Self-congratulatory Iron Cross. The Medal of Honor and Give Yourself a Pat on the Back.

Someday I'll start an Instagram account where every picture is me looking bored with aloof animals.

Maybe most importantly, Peter Jackson's special effects studio, The Weta Cave, is tucked into a sleepy neighborhood near the Wellington airport. All of your favorites from the LOTR are on display:

Checking out disturbingly real nose hair and snot globules. "They have a cave troll." 

Wearable Hobbit feet. As noted above, these are superfluous for me. Embrace your heritage.

* * *

Last up was a trip over Easter weekend. In New Zealand, Easter is celebrated as a major holiday. Both the Friday before and the Monday after are national holidays, meaning everyone has a 4 day weekend. USA needs more Christian (or Jewish or Hindu or Islamic or whatever) holiday four-day weekends.

This gave me a chance to settle a personal vendetta that had been stewing in the back of my mind since late October. Faithful fans and loyal readers of my blog (pretty much just Dad) will remember that Rhiannon and I had planned a weekend camping trip to the Coromandel peninsula. They will also remember that it had to be cut a day short after I succumbed to a mysterious food-borne illness, causing me to become violently sick. 

Well this time we came back with a vengeance - and stayed in a resort called Nature's Window Retreat tucked away into the Coromandel range.

In case you wanted to know what I thought about it, here's my TripAdvisor review (yes I opened a TripAdvisor account just to post this):

Lassitudinous? Thinking you'll never trump your torpidity? Mollify your mind. My prescription - Nature's Window Retreat. 

No need to worry about subterfuge here - what you see is what you get. And what you get is very good. Sure I could extol the virtues and state of equanimity offered at this hidden oasis:  unwinding by an infinity pool that peers out over the mountainous rain forest, sipping Pinot Grigio in a blue-lit hot tub under night time raindrops, waking up to a steaming pot of coffee and homemade toasted muesli with fruit and yogurt, or luxuriating in a plethora of tranquil nooks tastefully decorated with hand-made Balinese furniture and sculptures. 

But I don't need to do that, because you can rest assured that Mark and Lisa will assiduously see to your every need. 

Too wordy? Says a lot without really saying anything? If you said yes to both of those questions then I did my job perfectly.

Cheers!

Bonus: Here's a picture (back and front) of a hedgehog that got stuck running away from us in a driveway. Adorable. I can't recall if we just left it there to die or pushed it through.

My worst spelunking nightmare.