Brattleboro Adventure – the Auckland Edition
In which we find ourselves in another part of the world
One of the people who also arrived early for this morning’s flight to Christchurch was Gwen, pictured above. She’d been traveling for 36 hours following a cruise in Scandinavia. Missed a connection. A bit wired up. Lost her luggage.
She’s written a book about her life, reviewed above. Does a lot of motivational speaking. She took my card and said she’ll send me a copy, here’s hoping!
I arrived at the gate 1 hour 7 minutes before departure and was the first by quite a bit. Still not used to the casual approach to domestic air travel here… but it’s a good thing.
For Mother’s Day weekend the fine folks who plan this sort of thing put on an evening show of lighted-up stuff down by the Viaduct. I had jogged by in the morning and it looked like a thing to do so we did.
That’s a person in a lighted costume up above, who did a mesmerizing fairy dance that even managed to make lots of high fives look elegant and mysterious.
Thousands of other people also thought it would be a fun time! It was shoulder to shoulder. Some of the installations seemed pretty cool, like one that made noise when you touched it. But the artist’s vision might or might have included the reality we saw: 50 sticky overstimulated kids slapping as hard and fast as possible so all the sounds and all the lights.
The Harbour Bridge got in on the act.
This sculpture is actually there all the time but looked cool all lit up.
This Plexiglass tunnel boasted the most pretentious artist statement. Vitruvian Man, polygons, harmony, blah blah blah. But many many people lined up to walk through and experience the novelty of lights. And Plexiglass!
Many of the same sculptures will be on display in Parnell in July… maybe with a smaller crowd?
Got to go to Sydney a couple weeks ago for an HL7 meeting. Here’s a few shots. It seems like I always get to make a scenic approach over the Harbour.
The meeting was held in the very rarefied air of the KPMG offices.
Random morning run pictures. It was very beautiful. There are some parts of business travel I miss, for sure.
But 48 hours later… home again. And I stop missing those parts.
We had a nice tour of Singapore’s giant garden domes. I think they have to keep the plants indoors because it’s too hot outside.
Giant indoor waterfall
Cherry blossoms
Flowers
All the pictures above are things you’d expect to find in a botanical garden.
More surprising … downright surreal in fact… was the All-Stars of Cosplay convention.
I am a little uncomfortable around a lot of this cosplay stuff, to be honest. But this family of tourists was all in and didn’t share my queasiness, and it was cool to watch mom and kid having such a good time.
I’ve done my share of consulting engagements where the deliverables were poorly defined, but this shop seems like it might be operating at a whole different level.
Adding to the feeling that Singapore is actually Disneyland, twice every night you can watch a fantastic music and light show at the giant tree sculptures. Just like Fireworks on Main Street USA.
It was amazing… maybe not breaking any new artistic ground with the classics themes and the flashing lights… but still, wow!
Worth a second visit for me, and a first for Lee who has always had a thing for scale models.
In addition to the big models, they had a lot of interesting propaganda/exhibits about all the clever things they’ve done to make Singapore as cool as it is.
The Buddha’s Tooth Temple was far and away the most sumptuous temple we saw, or maybe have ever seen. Spectacular and also mystifying. How do you keep up with the hundreds of interconnected deities and practices and offerings? And why?
We ate and drank really well in Singapore. The giant food halls are the most exciting, with dozens of tiny stalls and communal seating. I love eating that way and would grow fat and hypertensive if I lived there.
I had a bowl of fish ball noodles soup for breakfast, an experience I don’t regret but wouldn’t necessarily repeat.
After seeing this guy tuck into a giant bowl of shaved ice, fruit, and custard goo, I ordered my own. Just right for a 95-degree day.
The famous Raffles Hotel bar is closed for renovations, so we settled for Singapore Slings at a waterfront tourist place… tasty but not the same.
Our whirlwind tour of Singapore was largely spent walking around looking at stuff, including a lot of big tall buildings…. here’s some pictures.
One more place we visited in Vietnam was the Thiên Mu Pagoda.
At first, not realizing where we were, it seemed like another chance to see some bonsai trees and carvings and stuff…
But then we came to this… the car driven by Thich Quang Duc to his self-immolation in 1963.
I first learned about that terrifying day a few years ago:
But somehow in my head the movie sort of started with him in the street dousing himself with gasoline. Thinking of driving yourself to your death, of having breakfast that day, brushing your teeth, simply being alive all morning… and the day before… yikes.
Instead of a tangled web of power lines, in Singapore it’s a thicket of air conditioning units.
My bespoke Vietnamese shoes were not confiscated as a fashion violation, although it was a close thing.
We were excited to see a Popeye’s Chicken in the Hanoi airport, especially since our flight was delayed a couple of hours. But they were out of the lemongrass flavor, sad.
A not very good shot of the vast ship parking lot in the Singapore Straits.
So much to see… and not enough time.
We had about 12 hours in Hanoi. It seemed like a nice city… we had the best of the trip’s several massages,
a reasonably good American style BBQ meal,
a swanky cocktail,
a moment to consider the Rolex store in a Communist country,
a good night’s sleep,
and a good breakfast including New Zealand butter.
Less fun was farewells with the Provs, who carried on their trip for a few more weeks. It was great to see them, and it will be too long till we see them next.
Brattleboro Adventure – the Auckland Edition 