life's adventures lately

popping in quick to share a bit of life lately! aside from my trip to Jiufen last week and still sorting through my thousands of New Zealand travel photos, here are 5 things that have been going on around these parts:

preparing for singapore

somehow this trip snuck up on me, and it's only a week away! Husband and I will be spending Christmas [and a few days extra] eating and relaxing in Singapore. this is the first Christmas since 2011 that he won't have to work, so we wanted to do something special. I'm really excited to get some sun, explore, and of course EAT.

decorating the house

this year we went to IKEA and purchased an upgrade from the disco dinosaur tree. [don't worry, we just put that one upstairs this year.] since it's become a bit of a tradition around here to share pictures of my tree, you can expect that post next week. also I feel it necessary to make the statement that I'm sure is cliche by now but: how the heck is Christmas only 10 days away?

battling sickness

I tend to avoid Facebook more often than not these days. but it seems like every time I popped in this past week it shared a "memory" of me posting about being sick, from just about every year since 2007. I suppose it's not surprising that this sickness thing is an annual tradition, because I've felt pretty crummy the past few days. hopefully I'll be on the mend by the time we leave for vacation.

cooking indian food

we've been taking cooking classes from another expat here in Taipei, and learning how to make vegetarian Indian cuisine. this has been both fun and delicious! I've already managed to make some tasty chana masala at home, as well as chai tea, and I'm hoping to tackle dal tarka this week. what I cook has changed dramatically since I moved abroad - thanks to increasing food allergies, unfamiliar shopping situations, and lack of kitchen equipment. so it's great to learn some recipes I know I can find ingredients for, and actually make and eat.

planning for the year ahead

though I think I'm skipping the annual "blog reader survey" this year I have been thinking a lot about where this space will go in 2016. I also might have maybe purchased some new fonts... which of course means a design tweak is likely on the horizon. this year - especially the second half - has been a bit of a struggle with the blog. so thanks for sticking around, and I hope to give you many more reasons to stay in the coming year.

what adventures have you been up to lately? do you have any holiday plans?

driving to Milford Sound

Milford Sound is on a lot of New Zealand bucket lists, but it is one of the most remote places on the South Island. travelers can chose to arrive by plane or boat or even helicopter, but we opted to make the long drive from Queenstown by way of Te Anau.

the drive took much longer than anticipated. partly due to crazy winding mountain roads, but also the fact we had to keep stopping for photos because it was too damn gorgeous. [I've already shared photos from the Mirror Lakes area.] most of what you see in this post comes from the area before and after the Homer Tunnel.

we pulled off on the east end of the Homer Tunnel both going into and coming out of Milford Sound. going in - we were on a race against daylight. we needed to get down to our campsite and set up before dark. the sun was already low and the mountains cast enormous shadows along the valley. and maybe the coolest thing - a tiny cloud tried to follow us as we left.

on the way out of Milford Sound, we had to wait on the west end of the tunnel. cars are only allowed through in one direction at a time, and the timer had maybe 10 minutes left. I decided [not surprisingly] that I wanted to take some pictures. I opened the car door and stood on the step, turning away from the open door to look over the roof of our car. what I did not factor into this plan, is that the road was on an angle. shortly after I turned around, the car door tried to close [thanks, gravity] and slammed into my back. this of course shoved my gut into the doorframe along the top edge of the car. while I curled up in a ball for a few minutes, everyone, including the guys in the car behind us who had seen the whole thing, had a great laugh at my expense.

thankfully I had recovered by the time we made it through the tunnel. it was cold out but we still wanted to explore the area. there were plenty of rocks to climb and waterfalls to gape at, thanks to the heavy rains that had soaked our tent the night before. but the morning sun was bright [then again, the sun is always crazy bright in New Zealand.] Husband climbed on a rock and did some Gollum impressions. when in Middle Earth...

the roads might be icy in winter, but if you're visiting New Zealand in summer I would recommend taking the drive out to Milford Sound. obviously the sound itself is a huge attraction, but there's a lot of beauty along the way you won't want to miss either.