Arrived in Thailand a couple nights ago. A very different country compared to the other places I have been so far. Unfortunately I don’t have internet at the place I am staying, so updates to this site might not be too frequent. I will do the best I can.

The plan is to stay here for at least a few weeks. I am staying with my friend Annie who teaches English here and has a spare bed. Her place is just a 10 minute walk from a pristine beach. It is definitely pretty sweet and I am enjoying it so far.

No real plans yet of what I will be doing here, but tomorrow I am visiting the school with Annie and giving a lesson on the South Pole! Hopefully it goes well. More next time!

As hinted earlier, I finally completed a youtube video of the highlights from Australia and New Zealand. Check it out. Let me know what you think in the comments.

The picture page has been updated with pictures from Australia.  Make sure to check out the Lone Pine photos.  Handfeeding kangaroos was awesome.  Also, I have trained monkeys hard at work on a video slideshow of Australia and New Zealand.  Hopefully they churn out something good.

Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary

Feb 18th trip to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary outside of Brisbane, Australia.

178 Photos

The Gold Coast

Feb 19th trip to the Gold Coast with Jack Page. Took surfing lessons!

109 Photos

Brisbane, Australia

Feb 15th-20th. Picutres in and around Brisbane

38 Photos

 

I am pretty convinced that Singapore is the shopping capital of the world. Literally mall after mall after mall. Every store you can imagine. One of the malls had a Yamaha floor. Not a store, a floor. An entire floor devoted to everything Yamaha – Pianos, Guitars, ATVs, Trumpets, Audio Equipment, etc. Another mall had a bread store. A huge store that had every kind of bread, pie, cake, bun, biscuit you can think of.

The most exciting mall for me has been the Sim Lim Square. This is a 6 story mall of nothing but tech gadgets and electronics. Another really interesting experience was going to the movies. This afternoon I decided to cool off in a cinema and was suprised at a couple things. First, the movie theatres here have extremely comfortable seats, way more comfortable than the US. Second, your seats are reserved. You select your seat on a touch screen when you buy the ticket and you are required to sit in that seat.

More to come as I keep exploring the city.

Hey everyone, sorry for no updates ove the past few days, but the place I was at in Australia had no internet.  I just arrived in Singapore.  The travel map is updated.  I took a lot of pictures in Australia and I will post them as soon as I get the chance.  The two highlights of Australia were definitely surfing and handfeeding Kangaroos.  Today I am trying to get some visas in Singapore and explore the city a little bit.  More later!

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Just a FYI.  There is a really good way to view pictures in the gallery.  Click on the link that says “view with pic lens” and it will bring up a really nice browser for all the images.  For you tech savvy people, you can also install a add on to Firefox called Pic Lens that will allow you to browse through the images on a sweet 3-d wall.

Here it is. The road trip post!  A quick rundown of my week driving all over New Zealand’s south island.  The pictures are all posted on the pictures page.

Day 1 – Feb 9th – Christchurch to Oamaru:

Mike and I rented a car from a very cute little punk rock chick in downtown Christchurch.  Left in the afternoon and headed down to Oamaru.  On the way we stopped in Raikia Gorge to snap some photos.  In Oamaru we just made it in time to see the penguins come out.  We went down to observation point, but it was quite difficult to see them as we were high up on the cliffs.  That night we stayed in a little shack of a hostel, but it was run by some very nice people.

Day 2 – Feb 10th – Oamaru to Te Anau:

Most of the morning was spent driving down the coast past Dunedin, then we turned inland.  The low hills are quite pretty in New Zealand, and there are sheep and cows everywhere.  That night we got to Te Anau and hopped on a sunset cruise and tour of the glow worm caves.  The caves are quite amazing.  It is just what it sounds like, thousands of tiny glow worms light up thecave with small blue lights.  The highlight is the last room of the cave where it actually feels like looking at a starry sky rather than the ceiling of a cave.

Day 3 – Feb 11th – Te Anau to Wanaka:

We had to wake up around 5am to drive to Milford Sound – the highlight of the trip.  The drive takes a couple hours through stunning valleys, fiords, and lakes.  Then we took a two hour cruise of the sound.  I took nearly 300 picutres while we were there.  Definitely check them out, but they don’t really do the scenery justice.  On the way out we stopped and hiked up to a waterfall coming off a high glacier.  We found out later that it was off limits.  Whoops.  That afternoon we drove back to Te Anau and then all the way to Wanaka, a small town up by a mountain lake.

Day 4 – Feb 12th – Wanaka to Hanmer Springs:

Probably our longest day of driving.  In the morning we drove to the west coast and stopped at Fox glacier.  We hiked up to the observation point, which was quite far away from the face of the glacier.  There were all kinds of signs warning of dangerous slides, ice falls, rocks, and surging water past that point.  We promptly ignored the signs and went right up to the face and the river coming from the glacier.  That afternoon we drove all the way to Hanmer Springs and crashed for the night.

Day 5 – Feb 13th – Hanmer Springs to Christchurch :

The morning in Hanmer Springs was spent soaking in hot pools and sulfer pools.  Very relaxing, all though they stretched the idea of “natural” a bit.  Mid day we drove back down to Christchurch to meet some friends of my dad – Nigel and Wendy Gilchrist.  They invited us to join them for a fantastic dinner party with fresh scallops, lobster and whitebait.

Day 6 – Feb 14th – In Christchurch :

Mike left back for the states in the morning.  In the late afternoon Nigel took me to my first professional rugby match.  It was very exciting and I think I finally have a handle on how the game is played.

Day 7 – Feb 15th – To Brisbane, Australia:

Today is day 7.  I am leaving this afternoon for 5 days in Brisbane, Australia.  Then on Feb 20th I am headed to Singapore.  It has been a great time in New Zealand.  I haven’t even been able to post about a tenth of the experiences I have had here, but I am looking forward to more in other countries!

-Steve

Hey, sorry for no updates, but I have been on the road in New Zealand and staying in places with little or no internet. No time to post either. We have covered over 2000km in about 3.5 days, so been busy driving. I will try and get a detailed update soon and post a few hundred pictures. I have also finalized plans for leaving New Zealand. I am flying to Brisbane, Australia on Feb 15th and to Singapore on Feb 20th. That’s all I have time for right now. More to come soon!

PS, the travel map has been updated:

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Today, some drillers and I took a day trip out to the Banks Peninsula and the town of Akaroa. It is a small touristy village with boat cruises, sea kayaking, and whale watching. We mostly just bummed around town all afternoon and then headed back tonight. While we were in town they had a pretty neat airshow. This was apparently related to the national holiday that was yesterday – Waitangi Day. The country side was also quite beautiful so you will have to check out some of the pictures in the album.  Reminds me a lot of the costal hills in California combined with a seaside Oregon town.  Also, lots of sheep were present.  Fact: There are more sheep than people in New Zealand.

Edit: Whoops, I had that fact turned around before

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Arrived back in New Zealand last night at around 9pm.  Very glad to be back in warm weather.  Not much of an update today, need to recharge my batteries, but a quick list of important things:

1. Anyone who was emailing me at faulknst@usap.gov, that email no longer works.  Please use southpolesteve@gmail.com now.
2. I can use Skype again!  My user name is southpolesteve.  Hit me up anytime I am online.  There is a online status indicator on the side of the website and here:
   

   
   
   » Get Skype, call free!
3. There will be a few more posts on Antarctica to cover some things I didn’t get to while I was down there.
4. No more walking outside to go to the bathroom!
5. Travel map has been updated

Hei konā! (Thats Māori for “see you later”)