Doo, Doo, Doo, Lookin’ Out My Freezer Door

Tags

Australia, bungy jumping, Malaysia, New Zealand, Thailand, Travel

I left Antarctica on October 8, 2010. It was exactly my 364th day since arriving on Ice the previous October. That’s right – I had spent an entire year of my life on this desolate continent. It was time to travel.

If you read my previous post (A Year in 3:18) and watched the video, you may have gotten an idea of some of the places I went and the things I saw. But I’m going to take you a little more in depth.

We landed in Christchurch, New Zealand, pretty late in the evening, as per usual when redeploying form McMurdo. By the time we dropped our ECW gear at the CDC
(remember to refer to the glossary for Ice-lingo you aren’t familiar with) and got checked into our hotel rooms, there wasn’t much left open as far as dinner options went. But that was okay – we just headed to our favorite Antarctican watering hole: Bailie’s in Cathedral Square. (*I would like to point out that this was all before the severe earthquakes that wreaked havoc on Christchurch. Earthquake tracking available here.) Please excuse the debauchery you’re about to witness:

We spent a few days decompressing in Christchurch, catching up on all the stuff we’d missed out on – mainly beer on tap and good food:

The #1 thing I was craving.

Justin was pretty excited about these burgers.

We also used the time to visit doctors, radiologists and dentists in order to complete our PQ process for next winter. Then several of us piled into a rather cramped van and drove to Queenstown for some good ol’ fashioned adrenaline rushes.

Jumping off the 134-meter Nevis Highwire in Queenstown, NZ. HELL YEAH!

After my adrenaline fix, it was off to Oz. I spent a few days exploring Sydney…

Standing in front of the Sydney Opera House.

Sydney Skyline

Inside the Sydney Opera House.

…made a new friend – Joey, the Canadian-turned-Bangkokian…

Me and Joey.

…and took him out on the town with Brooks and his Aussie friends…

Out on the town with Brooks, his Aussie friends, and my new friend Joey

…and then Marika and I rented a car and headed north up the coast. We stopped at a Koala Hospital along the way:

A rescued koala.

Our plan was to take in some scenery and visit the Irwin family’s zoo (RIP Steve). And it just so happened that Byron Bay and our good friend Jackie were en route. What we originally thought was going to be a quick overnight stay turned into a few days of sun-soaked bliss as we gave in to the charm of that laid back surfing town. Thanks for the good times, Jackie boy!

Gorgeous Byron Bay - not a bad place to unwind for a few days.

The Byron Bay routine.

Justin was visiting too, and Jackie took us all on a road trip to Nimbin. Great times!

Jackie, me, Marika and Justin on our Nimbin road trip

Best business hours I've ever read.

After we left Byron Bay, Marika and I chilled with some wildlife at the Australia Zoo, owned by the late Steve Irwin’s family…

Australia Zoo

Me & my new wallaby friend.

Kangaroo at Australia Zoo.

…and then I put Marika on a plane back to Sydney and continued my northward journey solo. I planned to get up to Airlie Beach and book a trip out to the Great Barrier Reef. But alas, the weather was against me. I spent most of my time reading trashy brain-candy books (only because I could pick them up for bargain prices at used book stores, I swear) while listening to the rain beat down on my campervan. While I was bummed that I didn’t get to see the reef, I can’t lie to you: after all those months on Ice with no rain, I was rather content.

I did see some nice sunsets (you know how much I like those):

After my somewhat uneventful road trip through Queensland, Australia, I jumped on a plane to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. WHAT a place. I don’t mean to be uncharitable or ignorant or anything… but I tell you what, if you were blindfolded and put on a plane, taken somewhere without any clue of your destination, you would know you were in SE Asia when you stepped out of the airport and took your first breath. I have never been inundated with such an overpowering mix of sweet and wonderful with putrid decay. All blended together and fermented in a nice bath of humidity. Of course, at having shared this observation, I’ve been told that I’ve obviously never been to India…

Anywho. I spent a couple days taking in the bustling city sites of KL and visiting the Batu Caves…

Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur.

Entrance to the Batu Caves outside Kuala Lumpur.

Monkey outside Batu Caves.

…then it was onto the train for a journey north. Thailand, here I come! First, though, I had to stop off in Panang to sample their world-famous cuisine. I don’t have any pictures of that… I was too busy eating! But I did visit the Kek Lok Si temple while I was there – the largest Buddhist temple in Southeast Asia:

Kek Lok Si

Candles and offerings at Kek Lok Si.

I got to Thailand without much of a plan for my first few days, so I decided to beach bum on Koh Phi Phi.

Long Beach, Koh Phi Phi Don, Thailand.

You might know Koh Phi Phi from this little movie called The Beach that they partially filmed there. No, you say? Yeah, well, it was pretty indie, so I’m not surprised. That probably explains the total lack of tourists there…. (If you can’t detect the sarcasm that is practically running off the screen, I’m sorry, you’ve been disqualified and are hereby banned from my blog.) Met an awesome German girl there – Frauke – and we had some fruity drinks and watched fire spinners (no shortage of those in the Thai islands), and then went on a beach bar hopping spree with a high-energy Israeli guy we’d met that day:

Me and Frauke with some fruity concoctions.

Fire spinner at Carlito's Bar.

After Phi Phi it was off to meet Mother Dearest in Bangkok. What an acid trip of a city that is. There are some amazing things to see, the temples and the markets, but it’s just too big, too busy, and too much for me.

Guardian at What Phra Kaew, Bangkok.

Mom at What Phra Kaew, Bangkok.

What Phra Kaew, Bangkok.

After a couple days in BKK, and one LONG night in the gay nightclub scene, courtesy of my new friend Joey (the one I met in Sydney)…

Bas, me, Joey and Mom. Mom was shocked when she realized it was after 2 a.m. and we were still there

…we hopped a short flight north to the much quieter, much more peaceful city of Chiang Mai. We made it just in time for the Loi Krathong festival.

Sending off lanterns for Loi Krathong in Chiang Mai.

Mom and I sent off a couple lanterns of our own.

We also played with some elephants at Elephant Nature Park…

Hope is a "naughty elephant" (a little mischievous apparently), so he has to wear a warning bell.

Me and my new hungry friend.

…and took a zip-line tour of the jungle.

Mom on the zip-line.

Then it was southwards to visit the ruins of Sukothai and Si Satchanalai, which we toured on bike. SO peaceful and gorgeous!

On my bike, riding through the ruins of Sukothai at sunset.

Mom riding her bike at Si Satchanalai.

For the final stage of our journey together, I returned to Koh Phi Phi with Mom in tow and we got our Open Water scuba certifications. PS: I love diving!

Dive site at Koh Phi Phi Leh - the actual cove/beach where they did the filming for The Beach.

Mom and I parted ways, as she had to return to Heathen Gulch while I still had a week before my return plane ticket home. I headed over to Koh Tao in the hopes of earning my next diving certification in a place where accommodation prices were a little lower. Sadly, I got into a bit of a motorbike wreck. Yeah… no diving for me after that. At least I made friends with a kickass German couple staying at my dive school and whiled away the days drinking 40s of Chang and eating Chinese BBQ.

Chinese BBQ in Koh Tao with some new friends.

Louie and Aaron were also in the area, so I got to hang out with them. While I really wish I could have done some more diving, at least I had good company.

Louie, me, and Aaron drinking some buckets on the beach in Koh Tao.

Then it was home, just in time for some snowboarding and Christmas chaos. What a whirlwind that was. I only had four weeks at home, and in that time I had a season pass at 49 to use, a trip to Denver to do my psych evaluation, Christmas, New Years, a trip to Seattle to get my passport renewed and to visit my wonderful Seattle friends…

Alysse, me and Jeremy. How am I THAT pale when I just came from SE Asia and they've been in the middle of a Seattle winter?!

…and of course lots of hockey games to attend.

It went by in a blink, and then it was right back to the Ice for my second winter (which is where I still am, for a few more weeks).

So, that’s the off season. PHEW! At this rate I’ll be caught up in no time.

Until the next post, I remain, toastily yours,
Ceds

A Year in 3:18

Tags

Antarctica, Australia, Malaysia, McMurdo Station, New Zealand, piano, sunsets, Thailand, Travel, videos

I promised in my last post that today I would begin the rather daunting task of catching up on the last year and change, and particularly on what has happened this winter. I figured that a great way to start would be to post a little video I made one night that I was exceptionally bored.

Bear with me. This is the first video I ever put together, so it’s a little rough. And the recording was done with the “voice memo” feature on my iPod. So it’s a far cry from professional cinematography. So sue me.

Without further ado, I present to you a whirlwind summary of my last year of traveling through Antarctica, New Zealand, Australia, Malaysia, and Thailand. Soundtrack song played by yours truly (“Jessica’s Theme” from the movie The Man From Snowy River). It’s a little sunset heavy… what can I say? I like sunset.

Enjoy,
Ceds

A Welcome Home Non-Party

Tags

Antarctica, Cat loader, Christchurch, Condition 2, Denver, Deploying to Antarctica, hockey, Jeckle, MacTown, New Zealand, Purcy the Pug, Season 3, Spokane Chiefs

After the long silence of a summer spent unemployed at home (hey, I deserved a break), here I find myself again in McMurdo – on the Ice with a big, capital “I” – and feeling obligated to update my blog so that the few of you folks back home who give a rat’s patella what I’m up to have a way of finding out.  (Wow, that was a run-on; I love those.  And semicolons; I love semicolons   So, as I have promised in the past and have somewhat delivered, I will try to keep this blog updated on a quasi-regular basis.

To catch ya’ll up:

I was scheduled to leave home on Saturday, October 3, but Mom and I drove down to Spokane the night before to catch one last Chiefs game before I left.  (On a side note, they lost, but it was a HECK of a game – good fighting!)  Mom bought me a Chiefs jersey for my birthday (or was it Christmas?) present, so now I have that to wear around as a souvenir of home.  People keep asking me “What team is that?” and I delight in telling them about our boys, our Memorial Cup win of 2008, and our close run last year… sorry, I’m getting sidetracked.

Chris Bruton after the Chiefs won the 2008 Memorial Cup (from http://afterthewhistle.wordpress.com)

So Saturday morning I flew Spokane to Denver, checked into my lush suite at the Staybridge (a 2-bedroom suite complete with kitchenette and a sitting room, 3 beds and 3 TVs in all – I almost felt a little lost), and hooked up with Eli and some other Ice-bound folks for a beer.  Orientation the next day – 5 hours of repetitive blah that I can almost recite by heart now, but some interesting info on the status of the contract rebid - and then off to the park so the boys could toss a Frisbee and do some slack-lining while Michael (FNG GA – great guy) and I enjoyed our last chance to sprawl in the grass.  Eli and I grabbed dinner at Robin’s parents’ house and played with Purcy (what a ham) and Zeke, and then off we went to see Toy Story 1 & 2 3-D double feature!! It was great.  Really, really great… Next day we wrapped up orientation and while everyone else was herded onto busses and shipped to the airport to sit around for hours on end, Eli and I (since Eli had Robin’s car) went and hung out with Cary for a bit, and then Robin’s mom took us to the airport.  Made for much less sitting around time.  Then it was Denver to LAX to Sydney to Christchurch, complete with a jump over the international dateline.  RIP Tuesday, October 6, 2009 – for those of you who lived it, I hope you lived it to its fullest.

photo by Elisfanclub (http://www.flickr.com/photos/elisfanclub/)

Flights to McMurdo had been piling up in Chch prior to our arrival due to mechanical problems with the C-17 (something with the deicers I’ve been told, but who knows if that’s just part of the McMurdo “rumor mill”) and I was hoping for a delay with some extra per-diem, but I guess I don’t get that lucky two years running.  We had exactly the two scheduled nights in Chch, which we passed by strolling along Sumner Beach and going way overboard at the Indian restaurant (seriously, there was hardly room on the table to fit all the stuff we ordered).  We bumped into a number of returning winterovers, and their stories have me excited for my potential overnighter.  (Oh yeah, did I mention I’m gonna try to winter this year?  Hence why I deserved the summer of unemployment before a year’s worth of 54-hour workweeks.)  It was sad that I only got to see Roo Roo for a couple hours, but hopefully he’ll be back down for this coming winter.  Firday, October 9 (that was Thursday, October 8, for all you people stateside), we landed at Pegasus.  I stepped off the plane, took a big, deep breath, and all the hairs in my nose froze stiff.  Welcome back to McMurdo!  Thus began Season 3 of Cedar on Ice.

I’ve been here almost two weeks, but work’s been slow.  The first week was a lot of sitting around in various trainings, although I did get to do loader training (FUN!).  I’m gonna be driving a big CAT 930 around station – everybody better run for the hills.  I’m working as part of a 4-person special project, which – in classic McMurdo fashion - has a catchy acronym: WOPR (pronounced “whopper”), or Warehouse Optimization PRoject.  It’s basically a sort of musical chairs in which we’ll be juggling materials between various warehouses in order to get some old buildings emptied so that they can be demolished, and to get some stock to more accessible locations.  Since we’ll need to be using the loaders and forklifts a lot, they’ve put us on nights to stay out of everyone else’s way.  Thus, we had two days of transitioning to the night shift last weekend.  Getting on a day-sleeper schedule is not easy, especially over a weekend when everybody’s out socializing on Saturday night and then tromping around the dorms all day Sunday.  I have so much more respect for day-sleepers now and so much guilt for the errors of my past ways.  Okay, not really… but a little.

So Sunday night was our first night shift.  We got to drive the loaders around for a few hours – mainly practice since we’re by no means experts yet – which was a lot of fun, but towards the end of the shift I started feeling shifty.  I thought it was just from lack of sleep after transitioning… but a couple hours later found me on my knees in the Highway 1 bathroom puking my guts out, so I guess it was a bit more than fatigue.  Of course, the tiniest little thing is wrong and you HAVE to go to Medical – you can’t figure out on your own that you’ve got a flu bug and you should go to bed and take the night off.  Joy of joys, I got the good ol’ 10-inch long Q-tip shoved up my nose and into my brain (my past DA comrades – you know the misery to which I’m referring).  Gotta run tests and make sure it’s not swine flu!  Anyway, I spent most of the next 24 hours sleeping, slept right through my sister’s birthday (sorry, Rhe!), but was feeling 100% the next day and went right back to work.  I was excited to get back on the loader (that baby is SWEET – his name is Jeckle, and I think we’re in love – pictures forthcoming), but the weather took a turn for the worse and we were driven indoors.  Temperature only got down to about -28 F, but wind chill was down to -50 F and possibly lower.  So it was inventory time…

When we got to work tonight it was still Condition 3 in town (of course – I’m reminded of the Zim Brothers song), but it was Condition 1 everywhere else.  Part way through the shift they called Con 2 in town (still Con 1 everywhere else).  So it was looking like more inventory.  But, as weather in McMurdo does, is quickly shifted gears around MidRats time, temps went up and visibility improved, so it was loader time.  Me and Jeckle, together again!

Anyway, that’s your up-to-the-minute update.  I’m on break now.  Hope all are well.  Hug a tree for me, would you?  Until next time, I remain your faithful correspondent on ice,

Ceds