Ryan Hellyer

Chilling out in Singapore

I’m currently blobbing out at Changi airport in Singapore en route to Norway. This is definitely the most pleasant short-term stopover I’ve ever experienced. The whole airport is just “nice”. Lots of shops, lots of good food, lots of pleasant little indoor garden areas, good transport around the terminals (and between them) and not overly busy.

My only problem is that I have a swollen hand, I assume because of some sort of insect bite last night. It was swelling up before leaving New Zealand and has got somewhat worse en route. Thankfully they don’t require prescriptions for medicines here it seems, so I was able to just rock on into one of the airport pharmacies and grab some hydrocortisone cream to treat it. Hopefully that will do the trick shortly, otherwise I’m going to be arriving in Oslo with a fat persons hand!

Chilling out with my Chromebook at Changi airport in Singapore.

My fat hand! I'm guessing this was caused by an insect bite of some sort.

8A 245 Cumberland St

I lived in this apartment longer than anywhere else since I was a child. Not the most luxurious accommodation available but a great landlord, selection of great flatmates and some terrific memories. I took these photos on the day I left in case I want to remember the place many years down the track.

Wellington on a budget

I was broke, so in my attempts to live in Wellington city on the lowest possible budget I resorted to the cheapest backpackers accommodation I could find. NZ$15 per night is enough for a dorm room at “The Lodge in the City”, it isn’t luxury accommodation, but it’s clean enough that you can live there without seeing too many rats or other creeply crawlies in the bedrooms. The people there however are awesome! I met so many cool people in that place it wasn’t funny. I highly recommend anyone going to Wellington stays there.

And for fine dining, you can’t go past the local graffiti’d fish n chip shop! Surprisingly, this is a functioning shop and they do serve edible food there. I recommend avoiding anything not deep fried (makes sure all the bugs are killed 🙂 ). And to top it off, this fine establishment is only a couple of minutes walk up the road from The Lodge in the City!

RIP Mike!

Dr Michael Hewitt Benn died in Calgary, Canada on Wednesday, December 21st at the age of 80. He was one hell of a guy. One of the nicest people I’ve ever met and the best boss anyone could ever ask for. He would do anything for anyone and was the epitome of kindness and generosity.

One of the last conversations I ever had with him involved him convincing me he had enough money to keep me employed for another three months. On pestering him about where the money was coming from, it turned out he was intending to make a trip to the bank and take my income out of his own personal account! I turned him down on that offer, but it is a shining example of how generous the man could be.

Mike, you will be sorely missed!