Patrick Lam

Thoughts and travels of Patrick Lam

2020 Retrospective part 1: travel

I was writing a 2020 retrospective but it was getting too long so I split it up. Here’s a retrospective on the travel that I’ve been privileged to be able to do. Other parts of the retrospective to come. I should say up front that I strongly dis-recommend travel anywhere there is a pandemic. The safest thing to do is to limit contact with other people. Travel is not that. Definitely don’t go to St.

Posted by Patrick Lam on Wednesday, January 6, 2021

New Zealand Restaurants

I consolidated the list of restaurants we liked in New Zealand from my monthly summaries so far. Considering how few days we spent in Christchurch there are a surprisingly large number of restaurants from there. In general we’ve been doing a lot of cooking at home. Wellington Upesh Kitchen: Our favourite Kelburn take-out place, Malaysian and South Indian Harbourside Market: Sunday market with food trucks Best Ugly Bagels: Montreal-style bagels

Posted by Patrick Lam on Saturday, October 3, 2020

Long-Delayed Trip Report: Queen's Birthday Weekend in Charleston

The plan, then, was to get in some climbing on granite in Charleston for the Queen’s Birthday long weekend. Side note: In Canada [except Quebec], Victoria Day is the Queen’s Birthday (unofficial start to summer), scheduled for the last Monday preceding May 25, while in NZ, it’s the first Monday in June. Close but not quite, and the weather is different. Kind of like many things in NZ. It’s a different country.

Posted by Patrick Lam on Thursday, September 10, 2020

Our First Great Walk: the Heaphy Track

Finally, part 1. Part 2: Pohatu Penguins. Part 3: Arthur’s Pass and the TranzAlpine. Part 3b: BreakFree on Cashel. All the pictures: gallery Introduction As soon as the Great Walks bookings opened after lockdown, we thought we would sign up for at least one, to see what they were like. At this point I can’t remember why, but we chose the Heaphy Track as our first Great Walk. This is the longest great walk at 82km, and we would be doing it in the middle of the “winter”, sharing the track with mountain bikes.

Posted by Patrick Lam on Saturday, September 5, 2020

The TranzAlpine and a day at Arthur's Pass

Here’s the third part of this South Island trip. Part 1: Heaphy Track. Part 2: penguins, Mount Sunday, and Christchurch. Part 3b: BreakFree on Cashel. On my list of “things to check for re-opening” was New Zealand railway trips. So when I saw that the TranzAlpine was re-opening for $75 winter fares, I talked MP into a trip from Christchurch. Like the Heaphy, this trip leaves you far away from where you started, and on the wrong side of the Southern Alps.

Posted by Patrick Lam on Saturday, August 22, 2020

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Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Waterloo; patrick.lam@uwaterloo.ca

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