Wellington
Thursday January 26, 2023
I arrived back in Aotearoa New Zealand on Christmas Day, an emotional return to my homeland of thirty years. All through the last hour of the flight I had a Kiwiana playlist on repeat: Brooke Fraser, Nesian Mystik, Bic Runga and of course, Dave Dobbyn's Welcome Home. We circled around the Waitemata Harbour with Rangitoto and the Sky Tower in full view before touching down in Auckland International Airport. I was out within 30 minutes, a record time.
I spent Christmas Day in Pukekohe with the Palmers, then on Boxing Day, it was dad's turn to come back to New Zealand. I had a week of holidaying before I had to start work again, so I tried to catch up with as many people as I could. Quite a few fellow expats were back in the country too, it was great to reunite after all these years, even if we only lived 500km away from each other. The weather was absolutely stunning and I was lapping it up. I visited Auckland Grammar and the University of Auckland to see the new buildings that had been constructed in my absence. I spent New Years at Mat's house on the Shore, playing Loveletter and Rockband. There were brunches and fried chicken and desserts... and badminton too!
After New Years, the North Island was hit by two cyclones, bringing some inclement weather to Auckland. I flew to Wellington on the 6th of January, where the rain continued for that weekend, but a few days later, that beautiful scorching sun was back. I spent two weeks there, working from an Airbnb near the Embassy with my colleague Pete commuting in to work with me from the Official Crop Circle Games Wellington Office. Every day, I finished at 4pm and was able to enjoy the afternoons in the sun. The city hasn't changed much, physically, but friends have moved away or out of town, or they've got children and aren't able to hang out as much. But I really missed that Wellington lifestyle of living downtown, being able to walk around to all the good restaurants. I visited all my favourites and got to try some fantastic new ones as well. In fact, when I went to Little Penang, Uncle Keith recognised me and gave me a hug, it was truly wholesome and I was so interested to hear how he had been and how they had navigated the last few years. I saw friends I hadn't seen in six years, eight years, ten years, and each time, it felt like I hadn't been gone at all. Conversation flowed so naturally. So many people made the effort to come and see me as well, and for that I'm truly thankful.
I even made it to Zealandia, and was able to explore the vast expanse of greenery. What a great place - I wish I came here more often when I lived there. We saw some Tui, Kaka and Tuatara. I climbed Mt Vic, walked around Oriental Parade, had hot pot in Brooklyn, went for Spicy Food Thursday, played badminton and on my last day in the city, I even did an escape room about Atlantis. I had such a great time in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, and I wish I could have stayed longer.
Posted by Jeremy at 7:41am on Thursday January 26, 2023 :: 0 comments :: 
Onwards
Saturday December 24, 2022
My time in Malaysia has come to a close, and with it, just over three weeks of what I consider the best cuisine in the world. I’ve enjoyed constant 25C to 30C weather, much preferable to the horrendous snow, rain, sleet, freezing rain, freezing wind and weather bombs back home in Toronto that have grounded several flights across Canada and the US. I do not miss that one bit. There’s been a fair bit of rain and thunderstorms here, but nothing has prevented me from enjoying my holiday.
I’ve been successful in my decadely clothes revamp too, with bargains to be found everywhere thanks to the strength of the Canadian dollar. On Thursday, I had the day to myself since my parents were invited to a lunch, so I started the day at Pasar Seni, the Central Market, before heading to Sungei Wang, Lot 10, Pavilion and KLCC. There, I walked around the gardens, admiring the gigantic Christmas trees and the even more gigantic Petronas Twin Towers. I spent some time catching up with a family friend in Cheras before finishing off my last bit of shopping at KL Sentral’s NU Sentral shopping mall. It was a great opportunity to do some touristy sightseeing as well as get some exercise - I clocked 25,500 steps that day!
With all my newly acquired clothing, I was worried that my luggage would be marked as overweight but thankfully the check-in process was quick and they didn’t even bat an eyelid at my 24.6kg bag, or my giant laptop backpack. Customs and security were a breeze as well, almost as if no one cared. In New Zealand, I’ll be offloading all my maple syrup and trading it for every kind of Whittakers I can possibly fit in my bag.
I continue to be thankful for the hospitality of everyone I’ve seen this trip, especially those who gave me a place to stay, took me for delicious food or drove me around the city. Can’t wait to be back!
Posted by Jeremy at 5:19am on Saturday December 24, 2022 :: 0 comments ::
Gluttony
Saturday December 17, 2022
Just over two weeks of being in Malaysia and I'm loving it. Normally I'm quite flustered by the heat and humidity but for some reason this time, it's been quite pleasant. I wonder if the intense Toronto summers have trained me for this? Certainly don't get that kind of heat in New Zealand. It has been pretty wet here though, a consequence of the convectional rainfall that occurs almost every day.
My time here has basically been eating, sleeping and seeing family. I have a lot of family to see. I have a lot of things to eat. There's been a little bit of time to do shopping as well, which is great because the CAD to MYR exchange rate is so good at the moment. A few days ago, I bought four pairs of shorts and three t-shirts from Sunway Pyramid for less than CAD$100. Food, of course, is also cheap after conversion. I've had my share of nasi lemak, char kuay teow, curry laksa, assam laksa, yong tau foo, Hokkien mee, prawn mee, wan tan mee, banana leaf rice, cendol, ice kacang, nyonya kuih, apam balik and more. CAD$30 can feed four of us easily. Almost every day is an exquisite reminder of why Malaysian cuisine is so special.
In amongst all the eating, I've been trying to go to the gym as well. I haven't found anyone to play badminton with though, but my days have been busy anyway. I've definitely put on a little bit of weight around the tummy but surprisingly little for the amount of food I've been eating, which pleases me because it means my metabolism is still pretty good.
In another week or so, I'll be on a plane again, bound for the land of the long white cloud.
Posted by Jeremy at 2:03am on Saturday December 17, 2022 :: 0 comments ::
Flights
Wednesday November 30, 2022
The last few days have been very busy. I’ve caught up with a ton of people who were keen to see me before I go, and had a blast seeing all the friends I have lament the coming months without me.
I find airports stressful. Being around so many people who are also stressed, watching people have meltdowns at staff…the logistics for travelling are so complicated and exhausting. My luggage was overweight as well, but I managed to get around it by putting my Switch and battery packs in my jacket pocket and wearing my jacket. That’s one advantage of travelling in winter, at least.
I’m on a 17 hour flight to Taiwan, with 4 hours layout before another 5 hours to Kuala Lumpur. This will be the longest flight I’ve ever taken but I’m already tired from all the worrying, so hopefully I’ll nod off for a few hours, providing I’m not sitting next to jerks.
Posted by Jeremy at 4:55am on Wednesday November 30, 2022 :: 0 comments ::
Summer Turns to Fall, Turns to Summer
Wednesday November 16, 2022
I was interviewing someone for a designer role at work who mentioned he had read my blog prior to the interview, and I said I hadn't updated in a while because my summer was so busy and good.
It really was. At the end of June and beginning of July, I spent ten days on the east coast of Canada in the Atlantic provinces, gorging myself with the most delicious seafood the country has to offer, as well as witness the incredible tidal phenomena that the Bay of Fundy is so famous for. We landed in Halifax, Nova Scotia on the first day and wandered around the Halifax Citadel and the waterfront, taking in the wonderful salty smell of the sea that I've missed for so long. The next day, we were up early to get to the seafood market where the nine of us splurged on $270 worth of lobster, oysters and fish cakes for dinner that night. We visited Peggy's Cove, shrouded in fog but so interesting with the rock formations overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, as well as Lunenburg, a small little town further west. That night, I murdered over a dozen lobsters... :( but it was so delicious. Sweet and meaty, absolutely delectable, I felt like Homer Simpson tearfully eating his pet lobster Pinchy. I'm so sorry. Please forgive me.
We continued our tour of Nova Scotia with a hike at the Cape Split Trail, which overlooks the Minas Basin and the Bay of Fundy, and then to Cape Breton Island's Skyline Trail the next day, where we saw a black bear in the distance further down from the lookout point! After a long drive, we were in New Brunswick, covering Moncton and the tidal bore, the Hopewell Rocks, Crooked Creek Falls, the Third Vault Falls in Fundy National Park, the Reversing Falls in Saint John and the Ministers Island Gravel Bar in Saint Andrews. Our last night in New Brunswick was celebrated with a proper lobster dinner that cost me $100, but it was totally worth it; it came with scallops, mussels, shrimp, potatoes and delicious garlic butter and I completely demolished it like a boss.
We were in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island for Canada Day, and we caught some spectacular fireworks from Victoria Park being let off less than 500 metres away from us. It was so close by that the shells from the fireworks had hit some people in the crowd! We did a bit of hiking as well but the rest of our time in PEI was rained out. However, we managed to visit the famous Cows Ice Creamerie a few times during our stay. On the last day, we took the ferry from Wood Islands to Pictou to get back to Nova Scotia and Halifax Airport. While waiting for our flight, Sunshine casually mentioned she found some "New Zealand chocolate" being sold at the airport convenience store, so I had to take a look - and sure enough, Whittakers Peanut Slabs, the chocolate equivalent of gold bullion, were being sold for $3 apiece (they're available in New Zealand for $1!!!).
I bought four. It was worth it.
In July, I started my job at Crop Circle Games, being the seventh employee there. A few days later, my friend Marc, from Catalonia, arrived in Toronto, and for three weeks, we ate like kings: Korean barbeque, Filipino kamayan, Vietnamese pho, Japanese Izakaya, Chinese dim sum, Toronto’s finest ice cream and exotic desserts like Mabu Generation’s matcha cube toast tower. We kayaked around Toronto Islands, we went for karaoke and we explored the Warsaw Caves east of Peterborough.
At the end of the month, we began our sixteen hour drive to Thunder Bay, with our first stop being in Sault Ste. Marie. In Lake Superior Provincial Park, we visited the Agawa Rock Pictographs and Sand River Falls, and we saw a black bear as well! Closer to our next destination, we stopped for a short hike at Scenic High Falls before continuing on to the town of Wawa, famous for its geese monument. I found a "Lai Restaurant", but it wasn't the same character as my name, and it was closed, like many of the other restaurants in town. We ended up having to eat at Subway.
The next day, we covered Pukaskwa National Park. Though it was raining slightly, there was still beauty as we walked around Horseshoe Bay. We had ambitions to reach the White River Suspension Bridge and Hook Falls, but the terrain was wet and muddy, and we ended up having to turn back. That night, we arrived at Thunder Bay. For our first day, we checked out an historical village called Fort Williams, staffed completely by actors in costume to fit the 1860s theme. It was interesting to learn about life back then, as well as how they used the land and resources around them to survive the bitterly cold winters. I learned to throw an axe (successfully!) and met tons of adorable animals on the farm, like Pygmy goats and a ginger cat.
Over the next few days, we covered Kakabeka Falls, Silver Falls and Dogs Falls; we managed to see the whole city from Mt McKay's viewpoint before a storm blew in. We had ribs from Tony Roma’s! We walked along Canada’s longest suspension bridge at Eagle Canyon and saw the massive Ouimet Canyon. We took a dip in the shallow pools of the Cascades Conservation Area but hurried out when dark clouds of rain began to approach. The highlight of the trip was Sleeping Giant Provincial Park, where we did a mammoth three hour hike called The Top of the Giant. We followed a relatively flat path for two hours, then a steep uphill for one hour to the final viewpoint, the Gorge, a gigantic crevasse and rock formation. The weather was absolutely perfect and the views were stunning.
Our last meal in Thunder Bay was unfortunately some disappointing Thai. We stopped by Aguasabon Falls in Terrace Bay before driving back to Sault Ste. Marie, and then finally Toronto. All in all, we covered close to 3,000km over 9 days in some of Ontario's most beautiful scenery.
Summer didn't end there though. There was plenty of time to enjoy festivals and food popups as well as Summerlicious. I counted 42 ice creams consumed over three months - that's almost one every other day! There were meet ups, urban hikes, axe throwing and great food all around.
As October rolled in, the temperatures started to cool down. I visited the Toronto Zoo for their Terra Lumina light show. We took a trip up to Killarney and Sudbury for the fall colours. We were super lucky to be there at just the right time, and with perfect weather conditions again. Last time we were here in 2020 and we did The Crack hike, but this time, we were going to conquer Silver Peak. We started with an hour of canoeing, then two hours of hiking to the highest point in Killarney Provincial Park, where the magnificent reds and oranges of the leaves were hitting maximum. On the way back, I sprained a muscle but was able to keep going and we all made it safely back to the canoe rental. We also covered Lake Laurentian Conservation Area in Sudbury, and the North Shore Rugged Area Hike in Parry Sound that weekend.
I was fortunate enough to see Nigel Ng's HAIYAA comedy show, where for the first half, he roasted the audience as Uncle Roger, and for the second half, he was himself, talking about all sorts of weird and awkward situations. Though some of the topics were pretty dicey, the night was full of hilarity and chaos; at some point in time, he had managed to force a couple to get engaged for a packet of MSG. I also went to see fellow New Zealander Bret McKenzie in concert at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, which was a chilled out and pleasant night full of 80s electronica and easy, relaxed music.
Last week was the final total lunar eclipse until 2025, which I got up at 4am to see. Thankfully the skies were clear (for once!) and I could see the entire spectacle from my balcony. The eclipse was still visible as the sun began to rise around 6.30am, but I was back in bed around that time.
Today was our first major snowfall of the season, which only reinforced my excellent decision to leave this barren wasteland in two weeks time for the tropical heat of Malaysia and the summer vibes of New Zealand. Things are going to be super busy over the next few days while I catch up with people before I leave. The weather is going to be consistently hovering between -5C and 5C, so it's definitely the onset of winter, but the days are counting down and I absolutely cannot wait to see everyone again.
Posted by Jeremy at 4:21am on Wednesday November 16, 2022 :: 0 comments ::