Byddi Lee's Blog, page 21
February 22, 2016
The Singapore Chronicles - Ce La Vi
The Marina Bay Sands is a spectacular hotel that dominates the downtown Singapore skyline. It resembles a boat carried aloft on three huge waves. Weather or not that's what it's supposed to like is a different matter - that's what I see in it and art is in the eye of the beholder. In Singapore the buildings are art!
I really wanted to go to the top. There is an observation deck at the top called the Skypark. It costs S$23 to take an elevator to the top and walk about. I'd also heard there was a restaurant up there and an infinity pool. The infinity pool was only for guests of the hotel. Unfortunately the budget didn't quite stretch to that, but I wondered, could we stretch to lunch up there?
There are three towers in the complex, and off course, we went to the right tower to buy the tickets for the Skypark, only after we'd gotten lost in the the first two.
At the ticket desk, just as we were about to pay, I asked the guy about the restaurant. Turns out you don't have to pay to get up to the restaurant, Ce La Vi, which is one level above the sky park. The Skypark has no seating - it's just a huge observation deck. We checked the prices on the menu and spotted a tasting menu that cost S$48++ (don't know what the ++ meant but it only cost us S$48 each).
So it was pricey, but everything in that part of town was, and if you subtracted the cost of a ticket up to the skypark, add to that the idea that we could sit down and absorb the view over lunch - well, it was a pretty good deal...
We could see the Flower Dome and the Cloud Forest from our lunch perch, and the food was spectacular. Our waitress was amazing and she tailored the messages with dessert to each of us.
This was mine as it was my first time in Singapore. Allan had been here on work before but not to Ce La Vi, so he got...
After lunch, we wandered around the patio, overlooking the sky deck...
...and took in the sights of Singapore.
Looking down upon the Super Tree Grove in the Gardens by the Bay from the top of the Marina Bay SandsI should add that these are all shots straight from my phone. We took a lot on the Nikon, but haven't had a chance to sort through them. I just wanted to get the blog post done before I forgot too much of the experience!
After lunch, we wandered around the Marina Bay Sands and surrounding area - pretty much just wandering aimlessly and following where our feet took us (so to be honest I'm not exactly sure where this place is or how to find it again.)
We discovered a Venice-like basement...
Rain water collects in basin on the outside patio...
And feeds into the underground canal - complete with gondolas!
Surreal but very fun to explore. Outside we found a building shaped liked a lotus flower! It was the Science Art Museum.
There really is so much to see here - you can walk for miles and find something to amaze at every turn!
And I've hardly started blogging about it all yet...
Byddi Lee
I really wanted to go to the top. There is an observation deck at the top called the Skypark. It costs S$23 to take an elevator to the top and walk about. I'd also heard there was a restaurant up there and an infinity pool. The infinity pool was only for guests of the hotel. Unfortunately the budget didn't quite stretch to that, but I wondered, could we stretch to lunch up there?
There are three towers in the complex, and off course, we went to the right tower to buy the tickets for the Skypark, only after we'd gotten lost in the the first two.
At the ticket desk, just as we were about to pay, I asked the guy about the restaurant. Turns out you don't have to pay to get up to the restaurant, Ce La Vi, which is one level above the sky park. The Skypark has no seating - it's just a huge observation deck. We checked the prices on the menu and spotted a tasting menu that cost S$48++ (don't know what the ++ meant but it only cost us S$48 each).
So it was pricey, but everything in that part of town was, and if you subtracted the cost of a ticket up to the skypark, add to that the idea that we could sit down and absorb the view over lunch - well, it was a pretty good deal...
We could see the Flower Dome and the Cloud Forest from our lunch perch, and the food was spectacular. Our waitress was amazing and she tailored the messages with dessert to each of us.
This was mine as it was my first time in Singapore. Allan had been here on work before but not to Ce La Vi, so he got...
After lunch, we wandered around the patio, overlooking the sky deck...
...and took in the sights of Singapore.
Looking down upon the Super Tree Grove in the Gardens by the Bay from the top of the Marina Bay SandsI should add that these are all shots straight from my phone. We took a lot on the Nikon, but haven't had a chance to sort through them. I just wanted to get the blog post done before I forgot too much of the experience!After lunch, we wandered around the Marina Bay Sands and surrounding area - pretty much just wandering aimlessly and following where our feet took us (so to be honest I'm not exactly sure where this place is or how to find it again.)
We discovered a Venice-like basement...
Rain water collects in basin on the outside patio...
And feeds into the underground canal - complete with gondolas!
Surreal but very fun to explore. Outside we found a building shaped liked a lotus flower! It was the Science Art Museum.
There really is so much to see here - you can walk for miles and find something to amaze at every turn!And I've hardly started blogging about it all yet...
Byddi Lee
February 21, 2016
The Singapore Chronicles - Gardens by the Bay
Often described as the jewel in the crown of Asia, Singapore is simply amazing! It is without doubt one of the most intriguing, beautiful and interesting cities I've ever visited - not to mention the hottest and stickiest. here you don't have "bad hair" days, but rather "impossible hair" days, especially if you have a fuzzy mane like mine - I've had to wear my hair in a bun every day so as not to scare young children.
My husband and I are very fortunate to have good friends who live here in Singapore. We are staying with some of them in their beautiful penthouse apartment over looking the city's high rises. They are wonderful hosts! If it wasn't for their generosity, stay in Singapore might be a different, and much less comfortable experience. Hotels here are expensive. Everything is expensive! Very, very expensive.
However, public transport is pretty good and moving about the city is quite easy. Even taxis are not too bad, so long as it is not raining - then everyone wants a taxi and there simply isn't enough to go around! Surcharges are often levied, and prices can really sky-rocket as everyone tries to stay dry.
Staying dry is not easy in this humid city at the best of times. The heat makes you sweat, but it doesn't evaporate, leaving you feeling sticky all the time. The rain drops are huge, fat, warm dollops of water - it feels just like stepping into a shower!
Though nature makes living here quite the challenge, Singaporeans have risen to that challenge admirably and built a city with beautiful and innovative architecture so that no matter where you look, the eye is rewards with graceful curves and sweeping lines. Singaporeans are justifiably proud of their city and country.
Gardens by the Bay There is so much to do that I hardly have had time to blog about it all. So I've sectioned it off into different categories - were you to visit here, each post potentially represents a day's adventures!
On the first weekend, our hosts brought us to the Gardens By The Bay. Lush landscaping surrounds a series of beautiful gardens and two massive glass conservatories - The Flower Dome and The Cloud Forest.
Nearby, futuristic giant metal super trees support vertical plantings and we had a dizzying walk in the super tree grove sky way.
It was strange to be so high up and looking down at amazing views yet still dwarfed by the skyscrapers from the nearby Marina Bay Sands complex.
You could spend hours here - your biggest challenge - picking your jaw up off the floor! This seems to be a bougainvillea with many different cultivars grafted to the same root-stock. Pretty nifty...
Both the glass houses and the sky walk have an admission fee. Our friends suggested that we pick one of the glass houses and do it together. After some discussion we decided to do the Flower Dome.
It wasn't without some mirth that we noted the exhibit housed Mediterranean Zone plants. We'd come all the way to Singapore to walk around in a glass bubble artificially acclimated to grow Californian Plants! Though I didn't see too much of the California natives that I have growing in my garden, there were a lot of succulents and cacti.
It was beautifully landscaped and integrated with great sculptures.
A couple of days later, the rain pelted down. My Husband and I decided that it was a good time to visit the other conservatory - the Cloud Forest beckoned!
It was spectacular!
I loved the carnivorous plant section where they had Lego sculptures of the various plants - very cool!
It's hard to differentiate the real ones from the Lego ones!
And such abundance of flora...
You could easily spend a few days exploring this section of the city. It's a great place to chill out, and the air-con in the conservatories do help with the "chill" aspect of that!
So much to see, so little time!
Byddi Lee
My husband and I are very fortunate to have good friends who live here in Singapore. We are staying with some of them in their beautiful penthouse apartment over looking the city's high rises. They are wonderful hosts! If it wasn't for their generosity, stay in Singapore might be a different, and much less comfortable experience. Hotels here are expensive. Everything is expensive! Very, very expensive.
However, public transport is pretty good and moving about the city is quite easy. Even taxis are not too bad, so long as it is not raining - then everyone wants a taxi and there simply isn't enough to go around! Surcharges are often levied, and prices can really sky-rocket as everyone tries to stay dry.
Staying dry is not easy in this humid city at the best of times. The heat makes you sweat, but it doesn't evaporate, leaving you feeling sticky all the time. The rain drops are huge, fat, warm dollops of water - it feels just like stepping into a shower!
Though nature makes living here quite the challenge, Singaporeans have risen to that challenge admirably and built a city with beautiful and innovative architecture so that no matter where you look, the eye is rewards with graceful curves and sweeping lines. Singaporeans are justifiably proud of their city and country.
Gardens by the Bay There is so much to do that I hardly have had time to blog about it all. So I've sectioned it off into different categories - were you to visit here, each post potentially represents a day's adventures!On the first weekend, our hosts brought us to the Gardens By The Bay. Lush landscaping surrounds a series of beautiful gardens and two massive glass conservatories - The Flower Dome and The Cloud Forest.
Nearby, futuristic giant metal super trees support vertical plantings and we had a dizzying walk in the super tree grove sky way.
It was strange to be so high up and looking down at amazing views yet still dwarfed by the skyscrapers from the nearby Marina Bay Sands complex.You could spend hours here - your biggest challenge - picking your jaw up off the floor! This seems to be a bougainvillea with many different cultivars grafted to the same root-stock. Pretty nifty...
Both the glass houses and the sky walk have an admission fee. Our friends suggested that we pick one of the glass houses and do it together. After some discussion we decided to do the Flower Dome.
It wasn't without some mirth that we noted the exhibit housed Mediterranean Zone plants. We'd come all the way to Singapore to walk around in a glass bubble artificially acclimated to grow Californian Plants! Though I didn't see too much of the California natives that I have growing in my garden, there were a lot of succulents and cacti.
It was beautifully landscaped and integrated with great sculptures.
A couple of days later, the rain pelted down. My Husband and I decided that it was a good time to visit the other conservatory - the Cloud Forest beckoned!
It was spectacular!
I loved the carnivorous plant section where they had Lego sculptures of the various plants - very cool!
It's hard to differentiate the real ones from the Lego ones!
And such abundance of flora...
You could easily spend a few days exploring this section of the city. It's a great place to chill out, and the air-con in the conservatories do help with the "chill" aspect of that!
So much to see, so little time!
Byddi Lee
February 13, 2016
Lau Fau Shan Oyster Farm
My Hong Kong family have been such generous hosts during our stay here. They've given up their homes to us and fed us every kind of fabulous dish you can imagine. Culinary wise, I'm one of those people who tries everything and tends to enjoy most food, so the feasting in Hong Kong has been a real treat. Many of the dishes around Chinese New Year hold some kind of symbolism that promises wealth, health and happiness for the forthcoming year. Some of these I know about, for example, longevity noodles are for a long life and you're not supposed to cut the noodles. Here they are in the foreground of the photo, this feast cooked by my sister-in-law, the food better than you'd find in most restaurants.
Other dishes, I can't remember the exact symbolism though most are sort of word association things, for example, the word for small mandarin oranges sounds like the same word for gold and that's why there are so many oranges decorating the place.
In the background of the above picture are pigs trotters. I did try them, and much to the amusement of the family, found them not quite to my liking!
In the picture below we have (top to bottom, left to right) cucumber/zucchini stuffed with dried scallops, seafood stuffed Chinese mushrooms, oysters and ginger (these were my favorite - delicious!) chili oil dip, garlic and scallion with oil dressing, dried abalone with dried orange skins, and steamed chicken.
Prawns are another favorite of mine - these ones were massive.
A whole fish symbolizes wealth.
After lunch (yes - all this was just lunch!) we were sitting around chatting and we were telling them of our plans to explore some more that afternoon when one of the men got a text from his friend who was at the nearby Lau Fau Shan Oyster farms. He suggested that maybe we'd like to visit there and since oysters are one of my favorite foods, we said yes, without hesitating.
Here is a lady shucking oysters.
The oyster is huge!
These are oysters drying.
The bridge in this photo stretches all the way to mainland China. In the foreground, you can see all the discarded oyster shells.
Lau Fau Shan market sells all kinds of seafood. Many of the fish are sold live. Because this so close to a public holiday the market was not running at full capacity and many of the tanks where the fish are stores and aerated where empty.
It tweaked my imagination. I imagined being one of those fish. It was to them no doubt like something you'd hear about in those alien abduction stories. You're just going about your normal fishy business and the next thing a UFO (unidentified floating object) sucks up into it bowels of a ship and keeps you alive in tanks.
You can't escape and the aliens keep you there....until....it's time....to eat you!
There's no escape even if you try to leave your shell behind.
Or maybe they tie you up!
And in the end they stretch you out in a hostile atmosphere and stuck the very life-giving components out of your body!
It makes for quite the horror story, doesn't it? But from the alien's perspective, a very tasty horror story!
Byddi Lee
Other dishes, I can't remember the exact symbolism though most are sort of word association things, for example, the word for small mandarin oranges sounds like the same word for gold and that's why there are so many oranges decorating the place.In the background of the above picture are pigs trotters. I did try them, and much to the amusement of the family, found them not quite to my liking!
In the picture below we have (top to bottom, left to right) cucumber/zucchini stuffed with dried scallops, seafood stuffed Chinese mushrooms, oysters and ginger (these were my favorite - delicious!) chili oil dip, garlic and scallion with oil dressing, dried abalone with dried orange skins, and steamed chicken.
Prawns are another favorite of mine - these ones were massive. 
A whole fish symbolizes wealth.
After lunch (yes - all this was just lunch!) we were sitting around chatting and we were telling them of our plans to explore some more that afternoon when one of the men got a text from his friend who was at the nearby Lau Fau Shan Oyster farms. He suggested that maybe we'd like to visit there and since oysters are one of my favorite foods, we said yes, without hesitating.Here is a lady shucking oysters.
The oyster is huge!
These are oysters drying.
The bridge in this photo stretches all the way to mainland China. In the foreground, you can see all the discarded oyster shells.
Lau Fau Shan market sells all kinds of seafood. Many of the fish are sold live. Because this so close to a public holiday the market was not running at full capacity and many of the tanks where the fish are stores and aerated where empty.
It tweaked my imagination. I imagined being one of those fish. It was to them no doubt like something you'd hear about in those alien abduction stories. You're just going about your normal fishy business and the next thing a UFO (unidentified floating object) sucks up into it bowels of a ship and keeps you alive in tanks.
You can't escape and the aliens keep you there....until....it's time....to eat you!
There's no escape even if you try to leave your shell behind.
Or maybe they tie you up!
And in the end they stretch you out in a hostile atmosphere and stuck the very life-giving components out of your body!
It makes for quite the horror story, doesn't it? But from the alien's perspective, a very tasty horror story!
Byddi Lee
February 9, 2016
Exploring the New Territories
It is often the case that folk tend to undervalue the tourism value of where they live or were brought up in. My Husband and I decided that we wanted to explore the New Territories of Hong Kong having covered the more popular tourist spots on Hong Kong Island and Kowloon on previous visits.
Modern technology has made being a tourist so easy. Here's few great tips on how to use your smart phone to help find your way about:
If you are going to be in a place for a week it is worth buying a sim card. We bought CSL prepaid sim cards for our smart phones. This gives us 7 days of data for HK$100 (US$12) allowing us to access google maps as well as all the other online goodies we are used to.Sign up for Kindle Unlimited ($10 per month). Even if you don't have a kindle you can use the kindle app on your phone. Using Kindle Unlimited, you have access to all the Lonely Planet guides - a fabulous resource especially if, like us, you are covering more than one country/region on your travels. Then there's all the reading you'll have access to without adding to your luggage weight. When you return home you can simply cancel your subscription if you feel you are no longer using Kindle Unlimited to its full extent.When you use the Kindle Reader app on your smart phone you can click on links and get information directly from the web. There are also links to google maps. This is great for sussing out where things are.So using the Hong Kong Lonely Planet guide through Kindle unlimited on my phone, we were able to identify and locate a couple of places that sounded like they'd be worth a visit.
The first was right up our street - The Kong Kong Wetlands Park.
Using google maps public transport feature, (just click the wee train instead of the car icon) we were able to figure out which trains would take us to the park. There is actually a Wetlands Park stop. Goggle tells you to get of at the stop before it - ignore that and get off at the Wetlands Park stop - the park is clearly signposted from here. Either stop is fine and the park entrance is equidistant from both stops.
The sign said the park was closed on Tuesdays.
It was Tuesday but...
It was open on public holidays - so we were okay.
The nice thing about the park is that it is a haven of natural quietude in the midst of a huge busy city. The juxtaposition of the scenic ponds and vegetation with the skyscrapers peeking over the tree tops brought home how well this area has been maintained despite the construction all around.
The park itself has well appointed amenities and serves to introduce a wilderness area to city dwellers very effectively.
We got there early - about 10.30am (that's early in Hong Kong - in California... not so much!)
We had the place to ourselves and really enjoyed the change of pace. By lunchtime it had turned chaotic. All the families had arrived and it seemed like the majority of patrons were under the age of 4!
We got the heck outta there! But decided that it was well worth visiting. Good call, Lonely Planet.
The next stop was just a little bit to the east along the West Rail line. According to Lonely Planet, Shui Tau Tsuen is a 17th-century village, "famous for its prow-shaped roofs decorated with dragons and lucky fish."
We thought we'd have a look.
It had a really rural feel to it and was eerily deserted, but you couldn't shake the feeling that you were being watched.
We wandered through deserted streets and thought some of the buildings were picturesque, we both agreed that perhaps Lonely Planet had over-sold this one!
The most interesting thing to see in the village wasn't even mentioned in the Lonely Planet. This huge tree that looked like something from Game of Thrones.
It was still a nice walk and a pleasant way to send an afternoon away from the crowds and claustrophobic high rises.
Byddi Lee
Modern technology has made being a tourist so easy. Here's few great tips on how to use your smart phone to help find your way about:
If you are going to be in a place for a week it is worth buying a sim card. We bought CSL prepaid sim cards for our smart phones. This gives us 7 days of data for HK$100 (US$12) allowing us to access google maps as well as all the other online goodies we are used to.Sign up for Kindle Unlimited ($10 per month). Even if you don't have a kindle you can use the kindle app on your phone. Using Kindle Unlimited, you have access to all the Lonely Planet guides - a fabulous resource especially if, like us, you are covering more than one country/region on your travels. Then there's all the reading you'll have access to without adding to your luggage weight. When you return home you can simply cancel your subscription if you feel you are no longer using Kindle Unlimited to its full extent.When you use the Kindle Reader app on your smart phone you can click on links and get information directly from the web. There are also links to google maps. This is great for sussing out where things are.So using the Hong Kong Lonely Planet guide through Kindle unlimited on my phone, we were able to identify and locate a couple of places that sounded like they'd be worth a visit.
The first was right up our street - The Kong Kong Wetlands Park.
Using google maps public transport feature, (just click the wee train instead of the car icon) we were able to figure out which trains would take us to the park. There is actually a Wetlands Park stop. Goggle tells you to get of at the stop before it - ignore that and get off at the Wetlands Park stop - the park is clearly signposted from here. Either stop is fine and the park entrance is equidistant from both stops.
The sign said the park was closed on Tuesdays.It was Tuesday but...
It was open on public holidays - so we were okay.
The nice thing about the park is that it is a haven of natural quietude in the midst of a huge busy city. The juxtaposition of the scenic ponds and vegetation with the skyscrapers peeking over the tree tops brought home how well this area has been maintained despite the construction all around.
The park itself has well appointed amenities and serves to introduce a wilderness area to city dwellers very effectively.
We got there early - about 10.30am (that's early in Hong Kong - in California... not so much!)
We had the place to ourselves and really enjoyed the change of pace. By lunchtime it had turned chaotic. All the families had arrived and it seemed like the majority of patrons were under the age of 4!We got the heck outta there! But decided that it was well worth visiting. Good call, Lonely Planet.
The next stop was just a little bit to the east along the West Rail line. According to Lonely Planet, Shui Tau Tsuen is a 17th-century village, "famous for its prow-shaped roofs decorated with dragons and lucky fish."
We thought we'd have a look.
It had a really rural feel to it and was eerily deserted, but you couldn't shake the feeling that you were being watched.
We wandered through deserted streets and thought some of the buildings were picturesque, we both agreed that perhaps Lonely Planet had over-sold this one!The most interesting thing to see in the village wasn't even mentioned in the Lonely Planet. This huge tree that looked like something from Game of Thrones.
It was still a nice walk and a pleasant way to send an afternoon away from the crowds and claustrophobic high rises.
Byddi Lee
Happy Chinese New Year of the Monkey
By some twist of fate and airfare prices we ended up arriving in Hong Kong (for the first leg of our Pacific Rim Tour) just in time to celebrate the Lunar New New with My Husband's family.
We left home and traveled to San Francisco Airport on Thursday evening and arrived in Hong Kong on Saturday morning just as the sun rose in a crisp blue winter sky. Friday did not seem to register at all!.
When I was a kid dreaming of world travel, crossing the international date line seemed so exotic, as did crossing the equator. On this trip I'll be crossing both imaginary lines on our planet and the thought still thrills me!
Temperatures have been uncharacteristically low here and we were surprised at how cold it felt - and still feels... But the up-shot is beautiful clear blue skies and sunny afternoons.
This is the view from our niece's apartment, where we are staying. It's been lovely reuniting with family and great to be celebrating the New Year with them. This holiday is laden with traditions and it was fun to learn about and take part in them.
Everywhere people were rushing about getting ready for the New Year festivities. Nearly everyone seemed to be carrying flowers and there's something about streets filled with random people, young and old, male and female, all carrying bunches of red gladiolas, bowls of daffodils. or branches of blossoming cherry blossoms, that gladdens the heart.
On New Year's Eve we went to the nearby flower market.
On the way there, I stopped to take a photo of this bamboo scaffolding that is used in construction in China. It just amazes me how this is just lengths of bamboo lashed together with twine, yet it covers this skyscraper. My awe greatly amused my in-laws who, I'm sure, think I'm quite crazy. That's something they have in common with most people who know me!
Most of the plants that are gifted at New Year are chosen because their names sound similar to words such as abundance, wealth, luck and good health, like these citrus trees. They can be kumquats or mandarins it seems and all the businesses have them at their doors.
I couldn't figure out what these were called or why they were so auspicious, but they were very popular.
I'm guessing the the word for daffodils sounds like something prosperous or the color yellow symbolizes gold and therefore wealth.
These decorations are on all the doorways. Firecrackers and fireworks play a big part of the celebrations. However, the first night we were here, we heard some fireworks go off at 4.30am, scaring the bejaysus out of us - they sounded for all the world like heavy artillery. Maybe having watched the movie No Escape recently had us on edge! My in-laws slept through it and didn't hear a thing.
We stumbled upon a Lion dance on New Years Eve in the local shopping mall.
The food is amazing! This is my new favorite - warm sweet dumplings in a sweet ginger syrup. The sesame-seed ones my sister-in-law makes are the best!
恭禧發財Gung Hay Fat Choy to you all.
Byddi Lee
We left home and traveled to San Francisco Airport on Thursday evening and arrived in Hong Kong on Saturday morning just as the sun rose in a crisp blue winter sky. Friday did not seem to register at all!.When I was a kid dreaming of world travel, crossing the international date line seemed so exotic, as did crossing the equator. On this trip I'll be crossing both imaginary lines on our planet and the thought still thrills me!
Temperatures have been uncharacteristically low here and we were surprised at how cold it felt - and still feels... But the up-shot is beautiful clear blue skies and sunny afternoons.
This is the view from our niece's apartment, where we are staying. It's been lovely reuniting with family and great to be celebrating the New Year with them. This holiday is laden with traditions and it was fun to learn about and take part in them.Everywhere people were rushing about getting ready for the New Year festivities. Nearly everyone seemed to be carrying flowers and there's something about streets filled with random people, young and old, male and female, all carrying bunches of red gladiolas, bowls of daffodils. or branches of blossoming cherry blossoms, that gladdens the heart.
On New Year's Eve we went to the nearby flower market.
On the way there, I stopped to take a photo of this bamboo scaffolding that is used in construction in China. It just amazes me how this is just lengths of bamboo lashed together with twine, yet it covers this skyscraper. My awe greatly amused my in-laws who, I'm sure, think I'm quite crazy. That's something they have in common with most people who know me!
Most of the plants that are gifted at New Year are chosen because their names sound similar to words such as abundance, wealth, luck and good health, like these citrus trees. They can be kumquats or mandarins it seems and all the businesses have them at their doors.
I couldn't figure out what these were called or why they were so auspicious, but they were very popular.
I'm guessing the the word for daffodils sounds like something prosperous or the color yellow symbolizes gold and therefore wealth.
These decorations are on all the doorways. Firecrackers and fireworks play a big part of the celebrations. However, the first night we were here, we heard some fireworks go off at 4.30am, scaring the bejaysus out of us - they sounded for all the world like heavy artillery. Maybe having watched the movie No Escape recently had us on edge! My in-laws slept through it and didn't hear a thing.
We stumbled upon a Lion dance on New Years Eve in the local shopping mall.The food is amazing! This is my new favorite - warm sweet dumplings in a sweet ginger syrup. The sesame-seed ones my sister-in-law makes are the best!
恭禧發財Gung Hay Fat Choy to you all.
Byddi Lee
February 3, 2016
Happy Birthday Daddy
Today is my father's birthday. He would have been 76, if cancer hadn't stolen him from us eight years ago.
Poor Daddy - I always thought that the presents we got him were so boring. Every year we'd ask him what he wanted and he'd say, "Just some peace and quite."
I suppose we two girls were quite the handful back in the day! Not being able to manage the requested "peace and quite" we'd go shopping and usually end up buying him socks! In fact, that's what I got him for his last birthday ever - socks with the days of the week on them. The week before he died, he accurately predicted the day he would die on - Thursday.
Daddy had never gotten around to wearing the socks, but his humor, like my own could be a little dark at times and when the undertaker was dressing Daddy, I gave him the "Thursday" socks to wear as a little joke. Daddy would have liked it. We gave the rest of the week's socks to a charity, though I often wondered if anyone would ponder over why Thursday was missing and where did it go!
Daffodils were Daddy's favorite flower.
This morning finally, I accepted it - he's not coming back. In my extended denial of having lost him, I must have believed that he'd gone on some great adventure and would be back to tell us all about it. He'd come into the kitchen, put on the kettle, direct me to grab the biscuit tin where he always keep the Kit Kats, we'd sit down and the story telling would commence.
This was routine in our house. Everyday after school, we'd have coffee and sit round the kitchen table for a half hour, sharing our days experiences before we went off to our rooms to do homework and he'd go out to work in the barn where he ran a business after a day's work in school. He worked so hard, along with my mother, and I know that he'd be pleased (as she is) that their hard work meant that my sister and I have had lives with many more choices than we'd otherwise have had.
Daddy was all about the story. If one of the family went away on a trip, there be a debriefing upon our return. We'd sit with your steaming mugs and he'd direct us to begin at the very beginning...what time we left home, what time we arrived at our destination and in chronological order he'd listen to us retell the stories that our trip spawned. Likewise, if he were the adventurer he'd tell us his stories, and boy, what stories he had to tell! Daddy was so funny - he used humor to get through the toughest things in life...even death.
I'm so lucky he was my daddy. He was my hero, my confidant, my port in a storm - an adventurer, a rebel, a man of principal. He was a brilliant teacher. He believed that there was goodness and worth in very person and it was up to the teacher to unlock that. As a teacher myself, I learned more from my father than I ever did in teacher training college.
He believed there was no peace without justice. He sided with the underdog, the poor, the oppressed and fought for human rights for all people.
He and Mummy lived on a First Nations Reserve in Canada in the late sixties-early seventies, making life-long friends there. They presented him with a beautiful Chiefs head-dress when he moved back to Ireland - an amazing gesture of respect and goodwill, not to mention generosity on their behalf.
He loved people, and most of all he loved us.
He rarely lost his temper - in fact, I could count on one hand how often he lost his temper - Okays, I'm not going to count the times he kicked and swore at the lawn mower which always seemed to breakdown halfway through him mowing the lawn, (we'd snigger at his bad language and John Cleese-like antics from the shelter of the house) nor the annual pantomime of lighting the Christmas tree - him trying to find that one broken bulb and the ensuing swearing when he got electric shocks - once a big enough shock to send him flying halfway across the room and passing a fizzle of the shock on to my sister who'd been unlucky enough to break his fall!
But one morning, when I was ten years old, he lost his temper big time.
We were getting ready for school and dawdling over breakfast. Mummy was a nurse, with an earlier start than us and Daddy liked to leave the house tidy for her (or us) returning. He was in a frenzy trying to feed us, tidy up and rush us kids along. There was a general air of grumpiness from all quarters.
At one point he picked up a brown paper bag and said to me, "What's this?"
He could have looked in the bag himself, but Daddy was no snoop, always respecting our privacy.
Being a huffy little brat, I ignored him.
That made him mad, and he slammed the brown paper bag onto the tiled kitchen floor, smashing the bananas that were in it.
For some reason, I felt really sorry for the poor, innocent bananas! I burst into tears and the whole situation, having been blown out of proportion deflated. There were hugs and apologies and off we all went to school with lighter than normal lunch-bags, due to the lack of bananas that morning!
It was just after morning break and we were all back in class when a knock came to my classroom door. The school secretary came in with a gift wrapped basket of fruit. It was for me from Daddy! My sister had gotten one too. The fruit selection was lovely and even had grapes, which, back then were pricey and exotic, a real treat! But best of all was the card Daddy had hand-made (cutting out the cat picture from a magazine - because he knew his little girl loved animals!) and included in the basket.
I love his handwriting but in case you have trouble with it here's the poem he wrote -
To this day I cannot read this card without tearing up. I've kept it all these years because of all the gifts Daddy has given me in my life, this one is the most precious. It symbolizes the most valuable gift he ever gave to me - his heart!
He taught me how to laugh, love and above all, forgive. I see the repercussions of that lesson in my sister and her family. It is echoed and reciprocated in the love I share with My Husband and in every relationship I have.
Maybe he won't ever be physically sitting across the kitchen table from me drinking coffee ever again. But he's there with with every day, in my heart and the hearts of the people I love. And sometimes when I'm really lucky he makes a special appearance in my dreams - he's already been back to tell me that heaven is amazing and that he's having a ball!
So have a happy birthday up there Daddy - I hope you got the peace and quiet you were looking for because you deserve more than just socks!
Byddi Lee
Poor Daddy - I always thought that the presents we got him were so boring. Every year we'd ask him what he wanted and he'd say, "Just some peace and quite."
I suppose we two girls were quite the handful back in the day! Not being able to manage the requested "peace and quite" we'd go shopping and usually end up buying him socks! In fact, that's what I got him for his last birthday ever - socks with the days of the week on them. The week before he died, he accurately predicted the day he would die on - Thursday.
Daddy had never gotten around to wearing the socks, but his humor, like my own could be a little dark at times and when the undertaker was dressing Daddy, I gave him the "Thursday" socks to wear as a little joke. Daddy would have liked it. We gave the rest of the week's socks to a charity, though I often wondered if anyone would ponder over why Thursday was missing and where did it go!
Daffodils were Daddy's favorite flower.This morning finally, I accepted it - he's not coming back. In my extended denial of having lost him, I must have believed that he'd gone on some great adventure and would be back to tell us all about it. He'd come into the kitchen, put on the kettle, direct me to grab the biscuit tin where he always keep the Kit Kats, we'd sit down and the story telling would commence.
This was routine in our house. Everyday after school, we'd have coffee and sit round the kitchen table for a half hour, sharing our days experiences before we went off to our rooms to do homework and he'd go out to work in the barn where he ran a business after a day's work in school. He worked so hard, along with my mother, and I know that he'd be pleased (as she is) that their hard work meant that my sister and I have had lives with many more choices than we'd otherwise have had.
Daddy was all about the story. If one of the family went away on a trip, there be a debriefing upon our return. We'd sit with your steaming mugs and he'd direct us to begin at the very beginning...what time we left home, what time we arrived at our destination and in chronological order he'd listen to us retell the stories that our trip spawned. Likewise, if he were the adventurer he'd tell us his stories, and boy, what stories he had to tell! Daddy was so funny - he used humor to get through the toughest things in life...even death.
I'm so lucky he was my daddy. He was my hero, my confidant, my port in a storm - an adventurer, a rebel, a man of principal. He was a brilliant teacher. He believed that there was goodness and worth in very person and it was up to the teacher to unlock that. As a teacher myself, I learned more from my father than I ever did in teacher training college.
He believed there was no peace without justice. He sided with the underdog, the poor, the oppressed and fought for human rights for all people.
He and Mummy lived on a First Nations Reserve in Canada in the late sixties-early seventies, making life-long friends there. They presented him with a beautiful Chiefs head-dress when he moved back to Ireland - an amazing gesture of respect and goodwill, not to mention generosity on their behalf.
He loved people, and most of all he loved us.
He rarely lost his temper - in fact, I could count on one hand how often he lost his temper - Okays, I'm not going to count the times he kicked and swore at the lawn mower which always seemed to breakdown halfway through him mowing the lawn, (we'd snigger at his bad language and John Cleese-like antics from the shelter of the house) nor the annual pantomime of lighting the Christmas tree - him trying to find that one broken bulb and the ensuing swearing when he got electric shocks - once a big enough shock to send him flying halfway across the room and passing a fizzle of the shock on to my sister who'd been unlucky enough to break his fall!
But one morning, when I was ten years old, he lost his temper big time.
We were getting ready for school and dawdling over breakfast. Mummy was a nurse, with an earlier start than us and Daddy liked to leave the house tidy for her (or us) returning. He was in a frenzy trying to feed us, tidy up and rush us kids along. There was a general air of grumpiness from all quarters.
At one point he picked up a brown paper bag and said to me, "What's this?"
He could have looked in the bag himself, but Daddy was no snoop, always respecting our privacy.
Being a huffy little brat, I ignored him.
That made him mad, and he slammed the brown paper bag onto the tiled kitchen floor, smashing the bananas that were in it.
For some reason, I felt really sorry for the poor, innocent bananas! I burst into tears and the whole situation, having been blown out of proportion deflated. There were hugs and apologies and off we all went to school with lighter than normal lunch-bags, due to the lack of bananas that morning!
It was just after morning break and we were all back in class when a knock came to my classroom door. The school secretary came in with a gift wrapped basket of fruit. It was for me from Daddy! My sister had gotten one too. The fruit selection was lovely and even had grapes, which, back then were pricey and exotic, a real treat! But best of all was the card Daddy had hand-made (cutting out the cat picture from a magazine - because he knew his little girl loved animals!) and included in the basket.
I love his handwriting but in case you have trouble with it here's the poem he wrote -Please accept this fruit as a little token,
My regrets at a little heart broken,
I'm feeling much better
hope you are too,
on receiving this letter,
What a fuss over so little
I really got the nettle
I'll try not to be so blind
but to be more kind
Don't look on me as a badie
After all I'm only
Your Daddy
To this day I cannot read this card without tearing up. I've kept it all these years because of all the gifts Daddy has given me in my life, this one is the most precious. It symbolizes the most valuable gift he ever gave to me - his heart!
He taught me how to laugh, love and above all, forgive. I see the repercussions of that lesson in my sister and her family. It is echoed and reciprocated in the love I share with My Husband and in every relationship I have.
Maybe he won't ever be physically sitting across the kitchen table from me drinking coffee ever again. But he's there with with every day, in my heart and the hearts of the people I love. And sometimes when I'm really lucky he makes a special appearance in my dreams - he's already been back to tell me that heaven is amazing and that he's having a ball!
So have a happy birthday up there Daddy - I hope you got the peace and quiet you were looking for because you deserve more than just socks!
Byddi Lee
January 29, 2016
Best of Both Worlds
I'm the first to admit that I'm a philistine, especially when it comes to the greats of literature. In fact, the first time I was called a philistine, I was in 1st year at university, and I thought that "Philistine" was a country in the Middle East!
Even worse, I was in 2nd year at university when I discovered that the Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights was not actually a cat! And there was me thinking that poor Cathy got lost on the moors trying to find her cat, as she roamed through the mists calling, "Heathcliff! Heathcliff!" Sure wasn't that what Kate Bush was telling us when she sang, "It's me, I'm Cathy, I've come home. So co-wo-wo-wold, its' me..." Cathy'd found the cat and was knocking on the window looking to come in from the cold... Right? Wrong!
As I writer now, is it a dumb move for me to to admit this? Maybe, but the truth of the matter is this, I'd rather have Steven King over Shakespeare any day of the week. Likewise, I was so bored by Hemmingway's Old Man and the Sea that just a few pages in, I started to read just one sentence per page, got to the end and still knew what had happened.
In school, we had to read Thomas Hardy's The Woodlanders. God was that excruciating! The whole selling of her hair bit... Jeez... I nearly had to buy a wig myself, the experience had me pulling my hair out!
But I did enjoy Tess of the D'Urbervilles. I read it by myself, at my own pace and didn't pick apart every sentence. Perhaps that was what made English Literature so miserable for me - being told what to infer from the words before me, though in fairness, it didn't take away from my enthusiasm for Oscar Wilde's Importance of being Earnest. Maybe some things are just too good to be destroyed by such microscopic examination.
As we waded through Frost and Heaney's poems, I though it would have been fun to do the same thing with the lyrics of the compensatory music classics of that time - Meat Loaf's Bat Out Hell, Queen's Bohemian Rapsidy, anything... anything at all by Pink Floyd! Wasn't that poetry too?
English Literature as a subject in school was compulsory and tedious. I scraped through Lit with a C. I was a literary lout, an uncultured clodhopper, a scholarly slob! Science was my thing.
So it is with some irony that I look at my life now and wonder how I got to this point...
I'm still a scientist... I even work part-time as a scientist, doing biology fieldwork with a fabulous conservation team at Creekside Science. I love working with them so much, I'd nearly do it for free (shhhh! don't tell them that) and in fact, in the past I have done!
And I'm a writer. Can a person be both creative and a Scientist? When I was at school we sure weren't encouraged in that direction.
I write because I love it too - most of the time - and because I'm lucky to have a huge amount of support from family and friends. It is highly unlikely that conservation work or writing will ever make me rich - at least not in coinage but as a lifestyle, yes - I'm a gazillionaire.
This week, as I sat in the "lunchroom" at work - a rock on Coyote Ridge, overlooking green valleys, with a morning of baby-butterfly counting under my belt, chatting with my co-workers about my Science Fiction Novel I'm writing, I realized that this is one of those moments - a culmination of all the parts of life poured into one pot, stirred and left to simmer.
Writing has always been a part of my make-up, just as much as science. I'm now writing a regular monthly column for Girl Who Reads, and my posts will all be about how "ordinary" folk can be writers too - if you have the write stuff! My first post explored my own experience of figuring out that I wanted to be a writer...
Now, if I can just figure out how to make money being a traveling-writing-conservation scientist, I'd be able to afford to feed Ninja - the mutant teenage Rottweiler that's going to be staying here for the next few months....
Byddi Lee
Even worse, I was in 2nd year at university when I discovered that the Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights was not actually a cat! And there was me thinking that poor Cathy got lost on the moors trying to find her cat, as she roamed through the mists calling, "Heathcliff! Heathcliff!" Sure wasn't that what Kate Bush was telling us when she sang, "It's me, I'm Cathy, I've come home. So co-wo-wo-wold, its' me..." Cathy'd found the cat and was knocking on the window looking to come in from the cold... Right? Wrong!
As I writer now, is it a dumb move for me to to admit this? Maybe, but the truth of the matter is this, I'd rather have Steven King over Shakespeare any day of the week. Likewise, I was so bored by Hemmingway's Old Man and the Sea that just a few pages in, I started to read just one sentence per page, got to the end and still knew what had happened.
In school, we had to read Thomas Hardy's The Woodlanders. God was that excruciating! The whole selling of her hair bit... Jeez... I nearly had to buy a wig myself, the experience had me pulling my hair out!
But I did enjoy Tess of the D'Urbervilles. I read it by myself, at my own pace and didn't pick apart every sentence. Perhaps that was what made English Literature so miserable for me - being told what to infer from the words before me, though in fairness, it didn't take away from my enthusiasm for Oscar Wilde's Importance of being Earnest. Maybe some things are just too good to be destroyed by such microscopic examination.
As we waded through Frost and Heaney's poems, I though it would have been fun to do the same thing with the lyrics of the compensatory music classics of that time - Meat Loaf's Bat Out Hell, Queen's Bohemian Rapsidy, anything... anything at all by Pink Floyd! Wasn't that poetry too?
English Literature as a subject in school was compulsory and tedious. I scraped through Lit with a C. I was a literary lout, an uncultured clodhopper, a scholarly slob! Science was my thing.
So it is with some irony that I look at my life now and wonder how I got to this point...
I'm still a scientist... I even work part-time as a scientist, doing biology fieldwork with a fabulous conservation team at Creekside Science. I love working with them so much, I'd nearly do it for free (shhhh! don't tell them that) and in fact, in the past I have done!
And I'm a writer. Can a person be both creative and a Scientist? When I was at school we sure weren't encouraged in that direction.
I write because I love it too - most of the time - and because I'm lucky to have a huge amount of support from family and friends. It is highly unlikely that conservation work or writing will ever make me rich - at least not in coinage but as a lifestyle, yes - I'm a gazillionaire.
This week, as I sat in the "lunchroom" at work - a rock on Coyote Ridge, overlooking green valleys, with a morning of baby-butterfly counting under my belt, chatting with my co-workers about my Science Fiction Novel I'm writing, I realized that this is one of those moments - a culmination of all the parts of life poured into one pot, stirred and left to simmer.
Writing has always been a part of my make-up, just as much as science. I'm now writing a regular monthly column for Girl Who Reads, and my posts will all be about how "ordinary" folk can be writers too - if you have the write stuff! My first post explored my own experience of figuring out that I wanted to be a writer...
Now, if I can just figure out how to make money being a traveling-writing-conservation scientist, I'd be able to afford to feed Ninja - the mutant teenage Rottweiler that's going to be staying here for the next few months....
Byddi Lee
January 22, 2016
Faith, Trust, and a Little Bit of Pixie Dust.
"So come with me, where dreams are born, and time is never planned. Just think of happy things, and your heart will fly on wings, forever, in Never Never Land!"-J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan
This the last in the series from my trip back in time to New Zealand...
The 23rd May 2003 proved lucky for us. We awoke to a crystal clear morning in Wanaka, a ski resort in the South Island. The snow capped mountain peaks twinkled in the morning sun as we approached the hangar at the airfield. After we had been weighed and suited up, we were introduced to our tandem masters and the camerapersons who were doing our video.
And still no clouds in the sky...
After the four other attempts, I had imposed a media blackout – no-one was allowed to talk to me about the sky dive that morning, thus preventing a huge build up of excitement/terror, to be followed by a huge anticlimax/relief, if the jump were called off.
My tandem master was very nice, joking that he had only done this once before and telling me to pay extra attention to the video showing us the procedures so that I could tell him what to do, apart from "Don't let go.”
Fiona and Bex, a Zimbabwean girl we were friends with, and our tandem masters and video cameramen all loaded into an extremely small airplane.
As we took off, I held on very tightly to the windowsill of the plane, my knuckles pure white. Grinning, my tandem master, unhooked my fingers and I had visions of him having to peel my fingers from the doorjamb when it came time to jump.
As the plane got higher and the ground got smaller, the fear abated. At one stage, between eight thousand and twelve thousand feet, I actually said to my tandem master that the plane was very small and noisy, and I couldn't wait to get out of it. I think at this point my brain had gone on strike, like it was saying to my body, "Go ahead do what you like, but I am not getting involved." I went into autopilot.
Shortly after that, the doors opened. Fiona was first. She went over to the door and vanished. I let out a wail. She just disappeared so fast.
Then it was Becky and then me.
Sitting on the edge of the plane was surprisingly okay. I was confused about which camera to smile at, wave at and maintain eye contact with. Remember, my brain was on strike, so I just kept trying to get into the position for the freefall. The tandem master kept turning my head to this camera and that one.
Then in a blinding, stomach-whooshing, vacuum-breathing moment we were out, flipping over, back upright and flying.
Look how tiny the plane is!The wind blasted past my ears. I sliced through crystalline crisp air at two hundred kilometers an hour. What a rush!
Somewhere between twelve thousand feet and eight thousand feet, I fell in love with my tandem master – even though I couldn't remember what he looked like. The feeling of flying was so soul filling I kept thinking "Thank you. Thank you. Thank you." But I wasn't really sure who I was thanking.
The tandem master pulled the parachute. Then came my favorite bit. Only when we slowed down to a graceful glide did it impact on me just how fast we had been going.
The tandem master asked, "Well, what did you think of that?"
All I could breathlessly say was, "Holy Majoley!” Well, the brain was still sulking.
OMG - the scenery!We floated over stunning scenery, chatting, with the tandem master pointing out the names of various mountains and lakes. Mostly I didn't answer, just grinned inanely and wondered if angels felt this way when they look down from heaven on a perfect earth. From up here you’re not close enough to see the rubbish that the up-close intricate detail shows.
The landing was uneventful and graceful enough for a first timer. I landed on my feet, and not for the first time since I’d embarked upon my travels. After the dive I was a bit shaky, my brain obviously kicking back in. I also saw my tandem master for what seemed like the first time. Love affair over. Brief but beautiful.
As if that wasn’t enough, the next day Fiona decided to do the Canyon Swing – a ten second free-fall for one hundred and nine meters, ending up in a swing across a canyon. Bex, our fellow skydiver from the previous day, and I decided to go watch Fiona. As it turned out she was the only one scheduled to do it. She did it twice. It looked terrifying.
Her first canyon swing began with her suspended over the edge. The jump guy gave Bex a cord to pull and some gave way beneath Fiona. Hers eyes and mouth popped open with shock as she plummeted towards the canyon floor, but she loved it and came back for another one.
This time she did "The Chair." A plastic patio chair was strapped to her. She was still safely snug in her harness and they balanced her over the edge backwards, like an errant pupil swinging on her chair, and then her let go. Off she toppled, with fear etched into her face. I told the jump guys, who were whooping as she wailed through her free-fall, that they were “evil bastards.” They took it as a compliment.
I was adamant I was not going to do it. The guys working on the swing offered Bex and me a two for one deal. I said no way... No doing it not even for free... But Bex was particularly low on money, so the deal was great for her, but the guys said if I didn't jump (or at least pay or a jump), no deal. What to do? Bex really really wanted to do it... Guess what I did....Ten minutes later I stood terrified with my back to the ledge, harness on, ropes attached, balancing over a one hundred and nine meter drop. I decided to go off backwards, for something different. Something different? How mad does that sound? I stared into the eyes of the jump-master as he counted down. I nearly bottled. I hadn't had time to fully disengage my brain, but at the word “Go” I managed to somehow launch myself. Fiona reckons my legs collapsed beneath me and for the second time in thirty six hours I was free-falling.
I roared all the way down. It was so far that I had time to go “Arrrrrrrrrrrgh!” Breathe in and restart a new, “Arrrrrrrrrrrrgh!” again. It wasn't as violent as the bungee I'd done six months before in South Africa and the swing part was lovely, whistling through the canyon with the river beneath me. I laughed at myself, replaying the scream in my head, as they winched me back up. Anyway, once was enough for me.
I vowed no more free-falling for at least a year. I was dreaming about it at night.
It had been amazing. Not just the crazy stuff we were doing but the gang of friends we had gathered up was great too. But alas, as with everything, it had to come to an end. It was a tearful farewell between us as we moved on to our next adventure in life. Fiona promised me that now she’d had her skydive, she’d stay safe and sound inside her Air New Zealand plane on her way west to Australia.
I went to Milford Sound. This was where some of the Lord of the Ring's most spectacular scenery was filmed. It had been raining for a few days and the fjord was just teeming with waterfalls. I think I photographed most of them.
Queenstown was a huge party town and I was glad to be leaving if only for the sake of my liver. There were many mad nights out and drunken adventures. I won a bungee jump one night in the pub and resorted to having to "lose" the voucher. I'd had enough adrenaline.
The weather here had been frustrating. It was too cold to do much by way of outdoor pursuits but no snow for skiing. A warm-up was in order.
After a disappointing lack of skiing due to the fact that it hadn't snowed, I too decided not to hang around and headed back up to Auckland. I’d made friends up with a couple of sisters from Cork, Jen and Brid. I arranged to travel with Jen and Brid to Fiji the following where I was hoping to meet up again with Bex.
I’d simply had a marvelous time in New Zealand but was looking forward to settling down in Canada for a while and living a tamer life. No more jumping off bridges, out of planes and off the sides of gorges. I was looking forward to the monotony of routine and some sunshine in the mountains.
But I still had to get through Fiji first.
I’ll always remember the toast Fiona and I raised our glasses to on the first night in Auckland.
“Why spend thousands of pounds on counseling when you can do this instead.”
Fiona was the best travel buddy I could have wished for. We laughed so much and rejoiced in each other.
In New Zealand, I experienced freedom from my broken heart. New Zealand was about rekindling the magic of a lost era. I began to think and react like I had done as a teenager. Not as a form of regression, but more by way of digging up old values and remembering things that I had forgotten I liked to do.
I saw the world as beautiful again. Like I used to before I met my ex. I used to love the sounds of nature; for example, rain tinkling down a broken drainpipe outside my window a musical sound, despite the exceedingly primitive digs I’d lived in as a student. Sunsets made my heart ache before I'd even known what real heartache was. I'd look at a velvet black sky, knowing that the stars were in fact real diamonds, placed there by God. A spider’s web on a frosty morning was the manifestation of those diamonds on earth. The simple pleasures in life!
Back in my youth, my imagination had been free and innocent, before it became tainted by skepticism and cynicism. Back in those days, I had believed in magic.
New Zealand and the friends I'd met there, re-introduced me to the girl I was before and I really liked it. I could once more cry, “I believe in Fairies” and know that Tinkerbelle would live. After all, hadn’t Fiona and I flown? We have the photos to prove it...
Next week - back to the present...like buying in dog food for Ninja, the mutant Rottweiler... you know, that sort of thing...
Byddi Lee
January 15, 2016
Somewhere Over The Rainbow
The more I re-read my journal from the last time I was in New Zealand the more I look forward to our next trip. I'm sure, Ninja, the rottweiler, will love living here while we are gone too!
Sooo wavy flashback lines as we travel back to 2003...
Lake Matheson, near Fox Glacier, New Zealand, 2003
Fiona and I enjoying the signage at Fox Glacier, New Zealand, 2003
Byddi Lee
Sooo wavy flashback lines as we travel back to 2003...
Lake Matheson, near Fox Glacier, New Zealand, 2003
Somewhere over the Rainbow
Dorothy traveled "somewhere over the rainbow" to get to Oz and at the end of April 2003 I think I found the Rainbow. Well, the Rainbow Warrior to be precise. It was a choppy day and the boat trip out was two hours long. Arriving at the dive site, shaken but not stirred, we donned our wet-suits and hit the water. It was a cool nineteen degrees Celsius which was a whole ten or so degrees colder than what I’d been used to in Cairns. So when I jumped in, one of the first to do so, I squealed so much from the shock of the "cold" water that I scared the other divers.
The wreck was twenty-four meters down, and it was beautiful. Covered in jewel anemones which were literally every color of the rainbow, this was one Warrior still fighting to be a Rainbow. We went into one of the cabins, briefly, because I was a bit of a scary cat at this point. There were hundreds of nocturnal fish hanging out waiting for the sun to go down. It was a bit freaky because it was dark and there were so many. They were like the marine versions of bats/vampires. Perhaps I was narked. I spent longer than I really should have down there and got back on the ship with only ten bars in my tank. It was just too hard to leave. I hadn't really been that into diving wrecks before but I think this may have converted me somewhat, though I still find it a bit creepy and ghoulish. It’s like walking around graveyards.
We arrived back to Auckland that night where we visited the sky tower and then ended up in the casino bar. I don’t know how that happened. We were sitting for a while watching all the people gambling and I was just saying to Fiona, "Where the hell do all these people get money to literally throw away?" and then in the next breath I found myself saying, "Let's put twenty dollars in each and play till it’s gone". So that's how all these people must do it. Seeing as how I taught Fiona how to kayak, she decided to teach me how to play Black Jack. It was a fair trade. To cut a long story short, we lost all our money, but as Fiona pointed out, it took us an hour to lose it.
We traveled south from Auckland on the Kiwi Experience. It was an early start, as usual. This adventuring lark was hard work.
We stopped at a beach called Hot Water Beach, where we were told you simply dig up the sand to find hot springs underneath, so you get your own hot pools. At the start, we weren’t having much luck. About ten of us dug around randomly, sticking a foot in the hole to see if it was hot. The beach looks as though it had been attacked by giant prairie dogs. However, there were actually only two hot springs. The power of advertising had led us to believe these things simply covered the beach, but it was fun and a good opportunity to get chatting to the rest of the folk on the bus, about twenty-five people in total.
Fantastic scenery surrounded us all the way. Unfortunately, the weather turned so we couldn't go kayaking in Cathedral Cove. It was said to be "some of the best kayaking on the planet" quoted from the same book that told us about Hot Water Beach.
We had begun to realize that we simply couldn't do everything, and there was so much to do here that we had to make difficult choices. We were given the option of carving a bone pendant in traditional Maori style, but I decided to be boring and went to the hairdresser – backpackers are people too you know! Afterwards, all gorgeous, of course, I met Fiona in the pub where we ate a mountain of green-lipped mussels for the equivalent of three quid each.
Again we were up early the next day and we all grumbled in a good-natured way getting on the bus. We were all getting to know one another and the group was good craic even if a little young – nineteen to twenty-three year-olds. I felt a bit like the aunty on the bus. The driver told us about each town that we would be going to as we drove along and every time he mentioned Taupo my heart missed a beat. That was where we planned to skydive. It was weather dependent, but it was now striking fear into my heart. I'd run out of excuses as to why I hadn't already done a sky dive, except for the obvious one – That jumping out of perfectly good plane twelve thousand feet in the air was just plain nuts. It looked like I was going to be doing it, and soon. We were due to arrive in Taupo the next day.
For the moment, I was content to soak in some more hot springs and maybe treat myself to a massage. Thinking about skydiving was just so stressful. Fiona often said, "Don't sweat the small stuff.” So did that mean it was time to start sweating?
What a nail-biting time we had trying to get our skydive fitted in. We stopped in Taupo, booked it and waited for our lift the first afternoon. It was so nerve-racking, that I hadn't been able to eat all day. As soon as our driver came to collect us telling us that it was cancelled, hunger crashed down upon us, and we went for another feed of green-lipped mussels.
The next afternoon, we were brought out to the airport and shown the video. Personally I think that this was cruel as it only served to heighten our anxiety. I preferred the idea of going about the skydive BA Baracus - style, (ref: the A Team) whereby I get knocked unconscious until the bit where I am shoved out of the plane by my tandem buddy.
We were told we had ten minutes to go, and Fiona and I set up a relay race back and forth to the toilets. Then, just as we were about to get into the lovely red "Jump" suits the sky clouded over and the jump was cancelled. After we had our complimentary muffins to abate the whoosh of starvation that engulfed us, we were brought back to our hostel and we retired early to bed under the conviction that our rescheduled jump at seven thirty am would be third time lucky.
At seven am I rang the skydive center. The weather was awful and the skydive was cancelled, so we had a big fry-up for breakfast.
Later on, back on the Kiwi Bus, we traveled down to Wellington for an overnight stop and then on to the ferry for the trip to the South Island. Our bus had been whittled down to a core group of eight of us who got on very well together. Whilst on the three-hour-long ferry trip we devised a great game. Sarah, a crazy nineteen-year-old American girl, had a digital camera. She would set off and take a photo of some random punter on the boat, then come back and show us the picture. We seven had to split up and see who could find him in the shortest time. It was hilarious. We also had a breath choking moment when one of the guys, Steve, wanted to know where exactly in the South Island Mordor was? He thought it was a real place. But he did add he wasn't expecting there to be a big ring of fire over the mountain as in the movie. Hours later we stopped laughing.
In Nelson, we picked up a full bus, and made lots more new pals. This included two other Irish guys one from Monaghan, Seamus, and the other from Dublin, Ian. The bus was quite entertained, and baffled, by the constant slagging we gave each other – all in good humour.
We stopped at a beautiful coastal national park called Able Tasman and I went on a kayak trip. Unfortunately, I managed to land myself with the only "unpleasant" person on our bus, a rather sour English girl who really did not appreciate my navigation skills.
Okay, so I went the wrong way. It was a fifty-fifty chance. Anyway, despite the obvious sour milk which, I couldn't detect, but which must have been floating around if my humorless Kayak buddy's face was anything to go by, it was a beautiful kayak trip. Lots of big rock formations and interesting little islands, and some submerged rocks, which must have been where the milk was spilled, perhaps by another boat that had previously grounded on them, just as we had.
But my personal highlight for this section was the Horse Riding. Fiona was going horse riding. If Fiona was going to jump out of a plane, then so was I. Thus it followed that despite an allergy to horses, I was going horse riding too. Tanked up on anti-histamine, we set off in our welly-boots looking suitably “horsey-set” to find our mounts. Fiona's horse was a rather grumpy black mare called Lady who kicked any other horse that got too close, much to Fiona's horror. My horse was a frisky little mare called Pixie. She liked to eat grass all the time but we soon learned who was boss. She was. So we got grass reins to stop her guzzling and off we went.
Even before I’d gotten on the horse, I was surprised at how scared I was of them. They were very big and tended to look down their noses at me. This more due to their anatomy than their attitude, but it still unnerved me. I was not comforted by the guide's advice to calm down once I was on Pixie because “...horses can tell if you are nervous...” I guess it was those shaking knees at her shoulders that gave it away.
Pixie and I came to a tentative agreement. She could go whatever way she wanted so long as it she followed the other horses. The best bit was having a go at cantering. We started by learning to trot. I found it a very bumpy and ungainly form of transport. The next stage, actually cantering, was more of a rocking motion. It brought me back to my old rocking horse. We’d had the best rocking horse a kid could ever want, and as a child I’d traveled all across the plains of North America with my rocking horse and my imagination. Now, I was approximating that for real. It was a wonderful feeling.
The following day we went to Franz Joseph. This was another skydive venue up in the mountains with spectacular glaciers. So, as we were staying for two nights, Fiona and I put our names down for the Heli-Hike on the glacier and the sky dive. Guess what – the sky dive was cancelled. The Heli-Hike involved a trip in a helicopter on to the glacier and a two-hour hike with some ice climbing and exploring ice caves too. We couldn't wait. Alas, that morning it too was cancelled. Fiona threatened that if she did not get to do her skydive in New Zealand, she was going to jump out of the Air New Zealand plane on the way to Australia.
At this stage serendipity called. We decided to walk the five mile round trip to the glacier to have a look. Well, I hate walking, so the plan changed to hitch hiking and as there were two of us, we felt safe. We got a lift in a ‘64 Daimler driven by a ZZ top reject who was really nice. We had a look at the glacier. The up-side to having our booking for the helicopter cancelled due to rain was that we were treated to the most stunning rainbows across the glacier. You simply can't pre-book a rainbow.
The scenery was heart-achingly beautiful. I wished I was spending more time here.
We decided to hitch hike back to the hostel and two English girls stopped to give us a lift. They mentioned they were going to the Glacier in the next valley and we asked could we go too. It was even more beautiful and the four of us had a great day together. They were teachers on a career break too. We planned to meet up with them in Wanaka the next night. That’s where we would make our fifth attempt at a sky dive or Fiona was going to be requesting the emergency exit on her flight to Australia!
Fiona and I enjoying the signage at Fox Glacier, New Zealand, 2003Byddi Lee
January 8, 2016
When the worst things turn out to be the best things...
2016 is bringing us big changes. We are not sure where we'll wash up after it all. It's scary and exciting all at once. Here's what's happening... My Husband's contract finishes up this month and he'll be looking for a new job. But before he does, we are going to take a few months out and travel. (If robbers are reading this and you know were we live, please note that we have hired a man with a vicious dog, who does martial arts (the man not the dog!) to house-sit while we are away. Or maybe we haven't ... but would you risk it? *Narrowed eyes* - I don't think so...!)
Anyways, one of the places we will visit is New Zealand. I've been there before. Back in 2002 I embarked upon a two-year-long trip around the world. It was on the heels of a divorce and I believed that the only way to heal my broken heart then was to travel. What a way to self medicate! It forced me out of myself, to experience life at a time when I really just wanted to curl up and wither away. Like many things, I've discovered in my life - sometimes the worst things that have happened to me have turned out to be the best things that have happened to me.
My trip began in 2002 in South Africa for 7 months, where I worked as a volunteer on a Dolphin and Whale research project and learned to dive there. Then I went to Australia for 3 months and dived the Great Barrier reef for a couple of weeks. New Zealand 6 weeks, Fiji 2 weeks, then the Canadian Rockies for 10 months where I fulfilled a dream of being a ski instructor for a season. A quick 6 week tour of the US and then back home to Belfast to teach Biology in 2004. Shortly after, I met the love of my life and married him in 2006.
During my travels, I kept a journal, which I emailed home periodically. These emails were typically written in internet cafe's where I had to pay for internet time. So I had to write quickly and hadn't much time to edit. The writing was rough, first-drafty, misspelled with terrible grammar, but entertaining enough that many of the recipients told me that I should make it into a book - Eat, Pray, Love beat me to it!
My Husband has never been to New Zealand, so we decided to incorporate that in our Pacific Rim trip in the next few months. I pulled out my old journals and reread them. I enjoyed them so much that I decided to attempt to correct the grammar and spelling and present it as a kind of "throw back" blog post in the weeks coming up to our departure - you know - in between putting away things that the giant ninja dog might chew while we're gone - yeah, maybe the dog does do martial arts too!
There are some foot notes with it to help give context and one XXXed out name because I haven't had the chance to ask that person if I can publish that name. Fiona - my travel buddy and all round wonderful person, didn't mind me using her name.
Though I journaled through South Africa and Australia, I'm sticking with the New Zealand section. When I get there in March I can use it as a comparison. We pick up the story in May 2003 as I fly into Auckland...
Byddi Lee
Anyways, one of the places we will visit is New Zealand. I've been there before. Back in 2002 I embarked upon a two-year-long trip around the world. It was on the heels of a divorce and I believed that the only way to heal my broken heart then was to travel. What a way to self medicate! It forced me out of myself, to experience life at a time when I really just wanted to curl up and wither away. Like many things, I've discovered in my life - sometimes the worst things that have happened to me have turned out to be the best things that have happened to me.
My trip began in 2002 in South Africa for 7 months, where I worked as a volunteer on a Dolphin and Whale research project and learned to dive there. Then I went to Australia for 3 months and dived the Great Barrier reef for a couple of weeks. New Zealand 6 weeks, Fiji 2 weeks, then the Canadian Rockies for 10 months where I fulfilled a dream of being a ski instructor for a season. A quick 6 week tour of the US and then back home to Belfast to teach Biology in 2004. Shortly after, I met the love of my life and married him in 2006.
During my travels, I kept a journal, which I emailed home periodically. These emails were typically written in internet cafe's where I had to pay for internet time. So I had to write quickly and hadn't much time to edit. The writing was rough, first-drafty, misspelled with terrible grammar, but entertaining enough that many of the recipients told me that I should make it into a book - Eat, Pray, Love beat me to it!
My Husband has never been to New Zealand, so we decided to incorporate that in our Pacific Rim trip in the next few months. I pulled out my old journals and reread them. I enjoyed them so much that I decided to attempt to correct the grammar and spelling and present it as a kind of "throw back" blog post in the weeks coming up to our departure - you know - in between putting away things that the giant ninja dog might chew while we're gone - yeah, maybe the dog does do martial arts too!
There are some foot notes with it to help give context and one XXXed out name because I haven't had the chance to ask that person if I can publish that name. Fiona - my travel buddy and all round wonderful person, didn't mind me using her name.
Though I journaled through South Africa and Australia, I'm sticking with the New Zealand section. When I get there in March I can use it as a comparison. We pick up the story in May 2003 as I fly into Auckland...
Pretty tame so far. Let's see how long that lasts for!
A Change in Climate
Flying into Auckland, I was struck by how green everything was. Considering it was nearly ten months since I had seen so much green, I could really understand now how foreigners perceive Ireland.
Anyway, the best way to describe the difference between South Africa, Australia and New Zealand was this: If each country was like a new house being built then Australia hadn't even started the landscaping of its grounds. South Africa had started. It has fountains, ponds and water features, i.e. the hard-scaping in place and was waiting for the plants to grow in. New Zealand had fully matured grounds with water features, gazebos, mazes, the works. It truly was a beautiful landscape.
I arrived in Auckland and met up with a girl I went to school with. Fiona was travelling around the world too, but in the opposite direction. By coincidence we happened to be in New Zealand at the same time. It was great to see her again, especially as New Zealand was the first place I've come to where I hadn't had the luxury of knowing any locals to meet up with. So we decided to do the Kiwi Experience together. This was a hop-on-hop-off bus trip system similar to the Oz experience I had already done on the way up the east coast of Australia.
My Dad had told me that his friend's son was in New Zealand, but he wasn't sure where. He was finding out the contact details for me. In the meantime, Fiona and I wandered into an Irish bar, for a bowl of soup for lunch. The barman, upon hearing our accents, asked us where we were from. When told him we were from Armagh, he said he was too. I started laughing and said, "Are you XXXX Mc XXXXX?" He looked a bit concered, in a “Who wants to know way?” But yes, it was my Dad's friend's son. We couldn't believe it - and we got a free soup.
On Friday, we started the Kiwi Experience and arrived up in Paihia. That first afternoon we booked to do a swimming-with-dolphins tour. I was a bit "dolphined1 out" but thought it would be cool to actually swim with them. Unfortunately, when we did eventually find a pod of bottlenose dolphins, they had young with them. According to New Zealand law, we couldn't swim with them because of this. I still enjoyed watching them, so it wasn't a wasted journey. The boat trip was a bit cold. The weather was like the start of autumn, on a good day at home2, but I'd been spoiled by too much sunshine and heat. I was feeling the nip in the air. When we got back to land, we spent a couple of hours lazing in natural hot pools in a place nearby. It stank of sulphur, but you did get used to it after a while.
Next day, we boarded the J. Tucker tall ship for a voyage around the Bay of Islands. I got to drive the ship, well steer it I suppose. Many of the crew commented on the fact that that never usually sailed so close to one of the little rocky islands that we passed. I don't think they were complimenting my navigational skills, which were; let's face it, getting an international reputation3. Anyway disaster was averted by the skipper taking over, and we had a glorious trip. Back on land, we capitulated to the New Zealand climate and went shopping. A pair of gloves, beaney hat, thermal undies and a lovely pink fleece later, and I felt better equipped to deal with the Kiwi climate.
That evening, Fiona and I went to the pub quiz in the nearby (too near really) bar and came fourth, winning a large pizza for our efforts. Next day, we had a sleep in and then went kayaking in the Bay of Islands. It was Fiona's first ever time in a kayak, and she coped admirably. In fact, we spent a long time mutually congratulating each other. Fiona, on her new found paddling skills, and me, on my prowess as a teacher.Kiwi Experience was already starting to go the same route as the Australia Experience. We were constantly bumping into people we met along the way and were making lots of new friends. I even bumped into a guy one night from Bangor, Co. Down who I’d met on one of the dive boats in Cairns. Fiona was amazed. She would get used to it. We were going to be tripping over lots of people the whole way round New Zealand.
New Zealand was truly beautiful. Dare I say even more so than South Africa and Australia. There was a lovely atmosphere, despite the chill in the air, and I was already wishing I had more time here. My advice to people thinking of a trip to both Australia and New Zealand – give yourself plenty of time for New Zealand.
As I walked up to the hostel this evening the sun was setting over the Bay of Islands. It was simply stunning. The Bay was practically landlocked and within it were scattered dozens of little islands. The water was a perfect mirror of a pink and bronze sky. Simply looking at that kind of thing fills the soul. Once more, I think someone up there was watching over me and will continue to as long as I let him, or her.
1 - I had volunteered on a Dolphin and Whale Project for three month while I’d been in South Africa. 2 - “Home” means Ireland.3 - This refers to a diving incident on the Great Barrier Reef that resulted in me and my buddy having to be twoed (by speed boat) back to the ship because we’d “lost” the ship and gone quite far off course.
Byddi Lee
