Hey! I had a quick walk around Singapore today and the first thing I noticed was how amazingly clean everything is. Littering, I should mention, is, as in many countries, against the law, but the penalty for doing such could mean actual jail time! There are many laws with strict penalties similar to this here in Singapore. For example, it is against the law to bring into the country more than two packs of gum, which, by the way, is not sold in stores. I found out today that if you want to chew gum, you will need a doctor's note! I guess that explains the clean streets. Singapore is an incredibly small country with just over 4 million people squished into just 264 sq. miles. To give you an idea of how small this is for a country, New York City is roughly 321 sq. miles. Of those 4 million people, the major ethnic groups are 77% Chinese, 14% Malaysian, 7.6% Indian, and the rest of the population is made up of people from Europe and other Southeast Asian countries. The currency is the Singapore Dollar and as of today the exchange rate is about 1 U.S. dollar to 1.58 Singaporean dollars. Just from walking around today (from buying lunch and dropping into a market) I could tell that Singapore is by far the most expensive Southeast Asian country to travel in. Eating is an art form here and I plan on exploring this side of the country to the fullest! Join me as we take a close look into Southeast Asia's economic dragon!

It's a long way up to Asia! Singapore, our first stop, is about 12 hours from New Zealand. I am going to miss Australia and New Zealand for sure, but I'm also very excited to jump headfirst into Asian culture. Let's go check it out! See you in Asia!

I had an amazing webconference the other day with a classroom of11th graders from Washington D.C. We talked about many different topics, but the one that really stuck with me was the geological history of New Zealand. One amazing fact about New Zealand's history is that the country has just one native mammal- the bat. Amazingly enough, there are roughly 20,000 species of fungi! Compared to most places on earth, the country is very young. Essentially, the land that became New Zealand seperated from the supercontinent known as Gondwana around 80 or so million years ago (give or take a year, or a thousand!) and since then has been in a state of constant isolation. Adding to this is the fact is that New Zealand's position on the boundary of the Australian and the Pacific Plates has caused many earthquakes in it's past, keeping NZ's evolution process somewhat out of sync with the rest of the world. Exploding massive volcanoes clustered around the country didn't help settle things either. Migrating birds with bugs and other insects in their stomaches from Australia helped flourish the bird and insect population in New Zealand and though many are now extinct, there are still many native birds still around. I wanted to get a bird's eyeview of the dramatic landscape that surrounds Queenstown, so I jumped off a mountain with the help of a Paraglide guide named Stephan. Sailing 3,000 feet above Queenstown, I was able to see some amazing views of The Remarkables, a stunning mountain range that dates back many millions of years. I was also able to feel what it was like to experience 4 times gravity as we came barreling down to earth! It was really an amazing experience...

Hello, It seems as though we caught Queenstown right in the middle of their two big tourist seasons: summer and winter. The ski lifts open in a few weeks, which is a bit of a bummer, but the positive side is that there really aren't any crowds. The streets are fairly empty and the restaurants quiet. For a town of about 12,000 things can get a bit congested in the winter when that number swells to around 25,000. I could see the draw to Queenstown: amazing mountains with just about any outdoor activity you can imagine. I chose to fly yesterday...but not on your average airplane. About 10 years ago when bungee jumping was becoming huge as an adrenaline seeker's sport, a man thought up an idea for the same thrill seekers only giving them the control bungee lacks. And what a better idea than to create Fly By Wire, a human sized "plane" hooked up to a single simple pendulum a few hundred feet above a wide canyon. You can control the plan in any direction you want. And as you swoop around the edges you can even experience some intense G-force. Here are few photos! "Foucault pendulum, noun. A simple pendulum suspended from a long wire and set into motion along a meridian. The plane of motion appears to turn clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and counterclockwise in the Southern Hemisphere, demonstrating the axial rotation of the earth." Quoted from dictionary.com Even though the last sentence is true, when you attach a motor at the end of the pendulum, the plain of motion is whatever you want it to be!

Wow. There is nothing like flying in a small propellor airplane through mountains and over rivers. For a few seconds I thought the pilot was practicing his stunts. The wind was causing some severe turbulence as the plane swayed from side to side as we approached the runway. The tail jutting left and right had me both appreciating and questioning the seatbelt system. "How secure are these things?". I wondered. Despite the questionable landing, we made it safely to Queenstown which has a population of around 15,000 permanent residents. Queenstown sits at around 310 meters, or 1,020 feet, above sea level. Surrounded by densey wooded moutains, the fall season gives some beautiful fall folliage, but the winters are incredibly cold; Cold winters=snow, snow+mountains=excellent skiing and snowboarding. The week we're going to be here falls right before the ski season so I'm afraid you wont see me ripping up the mountain on a snowboard, but you can be sure of some exciting things regardless... Josh