Windy Wellington and Wedding!

So this is what happens when foodies get married...

Kiddies!

Like Norway, but on a different hemisphere.

Wedding favors.

Love the lights.

Beauties by the water.

Te Papa Museum.

Remember that time a stranger approached you
and tied your wrists?  Me neither.

Lamb carnage.

Nino's Fish. Apparently, he's a family friend.

New Zealand: South Island

The South Island was pretty amazing...

Queenstown Hill Hike--
that's the look you get before hypothermia 

Freezing!  See hood.

View of the other bungee jump, from the Queenstown Gondola.

Mirror Lakes.

Arrowtown Chinese Settlement- a sad part of NZ history.

Te Anau.  Educational tidbit: Lake Te Anau is the largest 
lake in the South Island and second only within New Zealand to Lake Taupo.

Cadbury Factory in Dunedin.

Fleur's Place.  Spectacular views, location and food.

Rose at the Christchurch Botanical Gardens.

Singapore Sling

Unusual flora.

Singapore was the second of the two layovers I scheduled into my trip, and is/ was, in a word, HOT.  I mean like steam bath, hot yoga, hot.  But so is Dan, my awesome friend who got stolen away from the states for two years to work there.  So it might have been Dan.

Blue skies.

Anyway, it was the end of some sort of financial reporting period for Dan, and up until a week before my arrival we weren't sure if he'd be available at all during my visit.   My backup plan was to sleep in the airport and taking advantage of the free bus tour the airport/ country provides to losers with layovers.  Luckily, everything worked out and Mr. Awesome was available for my shotgun Singapore visit (literally, arrive at 10 pm, sleep, wake up, explore until noon, and hop back on the plane).

Someone reads this thing!

His apartment was twenty minutes from the airport, so during the ride back, he gave me a quick explanation of the major tourist attractions.  I learned very quickly that Singapore is really tiny. We saw most of the sites on the drive to his place.


After some silliness and me presenting him with the homemade beef jerky I promised him, we hit the sack.

The next morning was a whirlwind of cabs, public transport, F1 sightings, tourist sites blocked by the F1 course, and something called ice kachang.  Think of it as dessert goulash.  Shaved ice, lychee syrup, red beans, corn, coco de nata (I think...) and sundry other things.  I might eat it again if it were prepared with slightly less syrup. It's unusual for me not to finish a dessert, and I was not nearly close.

Pictures!

Ice Kachang.

Dan is a fantastic photog.  (c) 2013 Dan P.

Not what I expected.

Not getting to the sites.

Some team.

Some other team.

Boat on a building.  No words.

Take that, adulthood.

Merlion, but you have to say it with the accent.  Mer-lye-EN!

Mine.

Asia Trip 2013 (Overview)

I just returned from a quickly planned, but long-anticipated trip to Asia!  I'll be posting pictures and write ups about each leg of the trip, but the overview is as follows: fourteen days, four cities (and one horrible, wheelchair-bound layover in Toronto). 

Riding an elephant.  Bareback.  No hands.
You can practically taste my terror/joy.

The trip started as a visit to see my grandmother in Hong Kong with the benefit of fulfilling some residency requirements, but I quickly realized that I could choose flights with long layovers to maximize my adventure (under 24 hours is free, over 24 hours becomes an official paid stopover).  

With this in mind, I decided to visit a long lost friend during my a 17 hour layover in San Francisco.  I had to rejigger the dates of my flight, but it was totally worth it to see an oldie but goodie.  [Hi Keith!]  Sixty-five thousand airline miles and a hundred bucks later, my round trip to HK (with a jaunt in SF) was booked.

The dates during which I was supposed to be in Hong Kong coincided with Matt and Paul's trip to Thailand, so I figured I'd hit the beach with them for a few days while I was in that relative neck of the woods.  I found a flight to Thailand (25k miles and $125) with a layover in Singapore, and a side side trip to visit my buddy Dan P. (and the Singapore Grand Prix!) was in the works.

So there you have it.  Fourteen days, four cities, 95k miles, and under $250!