Goodbye, New Zealand and Hello (briefly), Singapore!

Sadly, we have reached the end of our time in New Zealand which essentially marks the end of our
7 1/2-month sabbatical.  Boo-hoo!  Fortunately, there was a lovely send-off, Auckland style:  The Lantern Festival, honoring Chinese New Year.  It was held in Albert Park, directly across the street from where we were living on the University of Auckland campus.  The park was decorated with dozens of huge lanterns, hanging from trees and also figures, animals and scenes of all kinds.

Pink dragons in daylight

Fisherman casting his net

 Boat sailing to sea

As pretty as these "lanterns" were during the day, they were spectacular at night:

 Chinese lion

 Goldfish

 Rose

A stroll across a bridge

So, we left Auckland and had a lightning-fast 1 1/2 day layover in Singapore before returning to Haifa.  We arrived at night and it was very warm--about 25 degrees C.--and took a stroll by the river.  There were lots of people enjoying the warm evening and the restaurants were bustling.

Clarke Quay along the river

Funky motorcycle

Singapore is a multi-cultural, modern city with loads of huge skyscrapers.  This one caught our attention:

 This is a huge hotel/casino complex with a "boat" across the top

We started our jam-packed day at the Gardens by the Bay, a huge complex of indoor and outdoor gardens. This award-winning horticultural attraction houses over 500,000 plants.  Really impressive!

 Inside the Cloud Forest, a cooled conservatory housing a vertical garden

 Carnivorous plants made of Lego!

 Alligator canoe

 Lush vegetation

 Inside the Flower Dome conservatory

 Stone sculptures and wooden goats

 Interesting sculptures--something missing?

 Super Tree Grove Skywalk--wonderful views from the walkway

Next it was time for lunch.  Hard to choose because Singapore is well-known for its amazing food choices from many Asian regions.  We decided on Indian food and wandered through the Little India neighborhood that was crowded with shops, markets and restaurants.  We stopped at one veg-only place and were really impressed with what our table companion ordered.  This dosi is a very thin crunchy crepe rolled into a cone.  Interesting and delicious!

 Dosi cone with three dipping sauces

Hindu temple

After lunch we walked through Bussorah St. where the shops are Turkish.

 Bussorah Street

Our last stop of the day was to Chinatown which was extra busy because of Chinese New Year's.

 Bustling street

Thian Sock Keng Temple

Chinese lanterns

So, dear readers, this ends our 2014-2015 blog.  What a ride!  Thanks for reading and stay tuned for our next blog from a future sabbatical!  Happy trails to you...until we meet again...

Hamilton and Te Waihou Walkway

We're winding down our time here in New Zealand (boo-hoo)!  Although we're sad to leave this amazing place, it's time to get back to our regular life and we look forward to spending time with our kids!!!

We were able to manage one more getaway, this time to Hamilton, about 1 1/2 hours south of Auckland.  Miles' former colleague from the Bio Engineering Institute in Auckland now works at WINTEC, Waitako Institute of Technology, in Hamilton and invited Miles to give a lecture.

It was a very positive experience from all sides.  The attendees were instructors who had more of a technical background so Miles modified his lecture skipping details of his equations.  Miles was very pleased to talk to some of the participants afterwards to learn how they teach more practical aspects of engineering.   I also attended the lecture, and although all of it was over my head, I enjoyed seeing Miles lecture (he's a very engaging and enthusiastic lecturer) and I only dozed off a bit.

When you tell most people you're traveling to Hamilton, they say, "Oh, Hamilton--not a very exciting place to go and there's not much to do there."  Well, we were up to the challenge and after visiting the local I-Site (information center), found plenty to explore.

Our first stop was Hamilton Gardens which has 21 themed garden collections which explore different civilizations, and recreates historically important garden styles from many parts of the world.

Sung Dynasty Japanese Garden

Garden of Contemplation

                                                              Chinese Scholar's Garden

•  

 Indian Char Bagh Garden


 Italian Renaissance Garden


 Tudor Garden


Te Parapara (Maori) Garden

Cultivated Maori Garden

The next day, we drove about 45 kilometers south to the Te Waihou Walkway to Blue Springs.  After all this time, you'd think we'd seen it all and were used to the nature.  Not so!  Once again, we were overwhelmed.  See for yourself:

Rushing cascades...

...turquoise water through the trees...

 ...the clearest water--you can even see a trout in the middle of the picture...

...and moving waves of plants under the water

 We thought this looked a scene out of the movies

And as if this wasn't enough, the Blue Spring at Te Waihou Walkway is internationally acclaimed with water so pure it supplies around 70% of New Zealand’s bottled water.  The water actually takes 100 years to filter through the rock before surfacing at the source of the stream. Wonderful!

Waiheke Island and EcoZip!

Time for a real adventure.  After all, we ARE in New Zealand.  Miles and I went on a "flying fox" zip line on Waiheke Island, a quick 1/2 hour ferry ride from downtown Auckland. 

The EcoZip mini-bus picked us up at the wharf and the driver gave us an excellent highlights tour of the island on our 20-minute ride to the zip line location.  Once there, we were suited up in harnesses with 2 other zip liners (a maximum of 12 in a group) and oriented about the experience.

 Rarin' to go!

 Grrrrr....I'm psyched!

The activity consists of three 200-meter zip line trips, all with dual cables which allow you to fly side-by-side or "race" a friend.  The first one is over a vineyard (Waiheke Island is home to about 40 vineyards and has a well-developed wine industry.) 

 

Our guide standing waiting for us to go on the first zip over the vineyard

 Here I am at the landing platform after the first zip

The second and third trips were even better:  we zipped over the forest and the view looking over the trees was amazing.  Steeper, higher, zippier and really fun! Unfortunately, Miles can't multitask and didn't try to take pictures of me while we were racing tandem zipping.

View of the forest zip

After the third zip, our guide took us back to the headquarters on a 1 1/2 kilometer nature walk, exploring pristine pre-European high canopy forest.

 Very cool forest

After the zip line trips back at headquarters

But wait!  Our day wasn't over!  While on Waiheke Island, we went to the biennial Headland Sculpture on the Gulf art exhibition.  We enjoyed the large-scale contemporary sculptures by some of New Zealand’s most significant artists, exhibited along a spectacular 2.5km coastal walkway overlooking Matiatia harbour, the gateway to Waiheke.

 Incredible views from the path

 Colors kept changing as the clouds floated by

 Intricately carved wooden top

 Concentric circles made of plastic sheeting

 Looks like a bucket on stilts, right?

 But look from underneath and you can see the Orion constellations of stars