Category: wildlife

Don’t Put Leisure On Layaway

Leisure Is Not the Leftover.

What three summer books – and the words I carried to my grandmother’s funeral – taught me about making room for a life that matters.

We keep putting life on layaway

Finish the work. Clear the inbox. Handle one more problem. Then, when everything is finally under control, make time for the people and places that matter.

There is one problem with that deal: the work never ends.

This summer, I barreled through a ton of books (mostly audio while I’m plugging away). Three books kept pulling me back to the same question from different directions: What if leisure is not what remains after a productive life? What if it is one of the things that makes life worth living?

Arthur Brooks’s The Meaning of Your Life, Neil Pasricha’s The Happiness Equation, and Jennifer Wallace’s Never Enough gave me language for something I have felt for years. Then my grandmother’s funeral made the question personal.

When I and my siblings spoke in her honor at the service, a couple key themes played out: relationship-work she did to hold a special place with so many people throughout her life, her stubborn resolve, how the Depression formatively played a role through her (and our life upon “Clean Plate Club” standards), the roles of love for nature and our family “Camp” on a quiet lake and the beaches nearby to York, our senior trips abroad (mine to where they lived and the nearby sites in England, image below) and “Camp” and the games we played with her til the end – like cribbage.

Grammie and I outside the Tower of London
Travel and visiting new places, something I picked up from Gram.

Leisure is work we choose

Brooks describes leisure as the basis of culture. That does not mean doing nothing. It means doing the work we choose for ourselves, without an economic force standing behind it.

Time in nature. Learning or sharpening a skill nobody assigned. Making a meal. Sitting close enough to hear the full story. Building and tending relationships.

Real leisure takes time, effort, discipline, and structure. That is exactly why it matters. Workaholism offers the opposite bargain: more hours, more strain, and less distance between who we are and what we produce. The harder we chase happiness through work alone, the farther away it can feel.

The answer is not to become less serious about life. It is to become serious about the part of life that does not appear on a timesheet.

Make a quiet space

Pasricha makes the idea practical: create space. Delete access to yourself for a while. Lock the door. Close the window. Put the phone somewhere it cannot negotiate with you.

Every interaction takes time. The notes I took from his book point to David Meyer’s University of Michigan work on task switching, with an estimated efficiency cost of 20% to 40%. Our attention does not move for free.

Protect a holy hour with the same seriousness as the meeting you cannot miss. Use it to think, learn, recover, or stand and stare. Quiet is not hiding from life. It is how we return to it as ourselves.

Carl Jung put it this way: “The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.” We need enough silence to hear who that might be.

If you are in a situation and you don’t want know what, do nothing. Literally, you can sit there, go for a walk, meditate with some deep breaths; it can have a profound impact on you, even if it’s just for a few minutes.

Find a Third Place

Wallace writes about mattering as connection. We need to know other people value us and that we can add value to their lives. Proximity helps make that possible.

Sociologists call parks, libraries, pubs, cafes, trailheads, and other informal gathering spots “third places.” They are neither home nor work. They are where we become regulars, notice one another, open up, serve, and tend.

We shape those spaces. Then those spaces shape us.

That is the Third Place: the lodge, the corner booth, the friend’s backyard, the patch of grass where everyone somehow ends up. The adventure may be the excuse. The community is the point, along with the legend you may become there.

What my grandmother left me

At my grandmother’s funeral, the words I chose were not about output, efficiency, or a packed calendar. They were about a life and what remains in other people when that life ends.

In my speech, I made a comment about Maine being “Vacationland” where no one seemed to work aside from their own version of Down East Dickering. It helps that my grandparents were able to retire at 50 and became the hardest working retirees I’ve known. That said, they knew when it was time to wrap up the chores and sit down, pour one up, tell stories, enjoy a good meal, campfire and some quality leisure-time activities like hiking, fishing, frogging, four-wheeling, canoeing, games, gardening, sports, etc.

For me, I thanked Gram for the traits, memories (including the site of the family ghost story in England, hearing about the signs she was getting called above down the stretch), mindset and inspiration and said I looked forward to splitting the 1-1 tie we sat on in cribbage with her.

Grammie & Poppop
My grandparents Chuck & Beth, inspirations for TNTC + Apres Leisure

TNTC was officially formed right after my grandfather passed in 2015 (too early from Alzheimers as he, the former college QB, could still rope a spiral 50+ to me). It has served as a mission to team up, help and spend time with the right types of folks, and the 1st book came to help people find purpose. Both my grandfather and my grandmother were inspirations for starting Apres Leisure. They were grounded salt-of-the-earth folks but there was some special family lore told around the campfire. Leisure is not abstract. It is handed down through rituals, places, stories, and the ways people make room for one another.

Apres (technically “après” – we choose to make it a bit more approachable, sorry my French friends) is the moment after the effort: when the gear comes off, the noise drops, and the real living begins. You do not have to earn that moment by exhausting yourself first. I believe that “artifacts” can help queue that mindset – even if you’re stuck in tough spots in your first or second places (home and work). More to come on those in The Vault.

A different equation

Make a quiet space. Leave the house. Find your people. Learn something because it calls to you. Become a regular somewhere. Protect a ritual worth handing down.

The books gave me the framework. My grandmother gave it weight.

Leisure is not the leftover. It is where culture, connection, memory, and identity have room to form.

As we say:

The adventure changes. The feeling never does. Every day is Apres.

A question for you

What place, ritual, or person taught you how to make room for the part of life that does not appear on a timesheet?

Who do you transform to when you’re in your special third place(s)?

Join the LeisureVerse

Stories, field notes, practical ways to commemorate legends and make leisure part of a good life.

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"Camp" with Grammie and my siblings.
Camp in Maine growing up, a very special “third place” for the family back to 1954.

Source and review notes

  • Arthur Brooks, The Meaning of Your Life – Chip’s summer reading notes.
  • Neil Pasricha, The Happiness Equation – Chip’s summer reading notes.
  • Jennifer Wallace, Never Enough / mattering notes – Chip’s summer reading notes.

Singapore Sling to the Philippines

Our Southeast Asian travels continued, this time to Singapore then the Philippines. We got to experience manmade and natural wonders and cuisine, learning a lot about the cultures in the process.

Calabawan Falls

After the safari of a lifetime visiting Borneo’s unique species’, we shipped off from Sandakan to Singapore via Malaysia Air, connecting first in Kuala Lumpur (the only connection while in Southeast Asia for us). We quickly spent the last of our Ringgits on a bottle of wine and some duty-free candy and in just over an hour in the air, we were in the fascinating island city-state of Singapore.

Changi Airport is the top-rated airport in the world. It’s expansive, has so many designer stores, gardens, aquariums and fountains (including Jewel Changi with a waterfall) and entertainment. Asian airports have shown how efficient travel can be, not to mention the amenities.

Knowing Singapore is one of the most expensive places in the world, we went budget on accommodations. We ended up at Hotel Fuji in Geylang, once a thriving red-light district (Singapore’s stance on sex workers, like its stance on most in the non-super-wealthy demographic, is SUPER exploitative to say the least). We got a cuisine recommendation from our Uber driver, who speaks excellent English like most in Singapore. It was a seafood market lit up like a mini Vegas and the menu featured all kinds of interesting novelties. Frog leg porridge was a suggested favorite here. Crab is a top specialty of the Singapore dining scene, which has many curated, immersive, multi-course elaborate experiences. I ended up trying the grilled frogs legs and crispy short-ribs (I enjoyed the latter more, but fried makes everything taste better). The area was walkable but every we went into a bar, many of which had karaoke vibes, as the underground gambling dens and beauty shop discreet sex workers were pretty strictly getting squashed out (and it felt like they were still . Lots of funny looks and not so welcoming vibes.

Singapore is one of the most meticulously clean, landscaped and managed places you’ll find in the world. It is also known for the strictest laws to keep the place clean in all the ways it perceives it can. We had a mad scramble to finish our gum before arriving and learned a lot about the hundreds of laws from the local drivers (many of which are doing it was a second job because it’s so expensive to live there, the locals have subsidized shoebox houses and shop in nearby Malaysia). Not only is chewing and spitting out gum a crime that can lead to caning, but so jaywalking, staying out drinking past 10pm with 3+ people, being naked in your house, and so many more things. Most laws are designed to keep the locals in line without wavering, catering to the rich finance moguls, visitors and expats. Cameras are everywhere, and you can get arrested typically 4-6 hours after a violation and sent to prison. It felt very dystopian (remember reading The Giver?).

We set out to experience Singapore’s top sites, including Chinatown, Gardens by the Sea and Singapore Botanic Gardens. We saw another ornate temple requiring shoes off and conservative dress to enter. Just outside on the market street in Chinatown, we tried the famous Singapore Sling cocktail (all the Brits will point you to Raffles Hotel for the very expensive original). We meandered, watched some chess with an audience and looked through the vendor goodies. The Botanic Gardens was this magnificently catered park curated with so many different species and garden zones with science labs cloning species in the middle of it all. We met a few pretty birds and nice big monitors and skink lizards while enjoying the beautiful curated surroundings.

The Gardens by the Bay was a paid attraction with electric towers lined with plants, and we paid to take in two top attractions: Cloud Forest and Flower Dome. Flower Dome was an indoor garden with plant species from all over the world organized in different zones made to feel like you were globe-trotting.

Cloud Forest was another indoor garden and jungle Jurassic Park animatronic immersive experience. These domed areas with clear glass provided views of the harbor and a lot of lessons about the various featured species. We especially enjoyed this experience, loving dinosaurs, the movies and nature like we do.

We capped it off in the largest skewered meat market imaginable and trying to catch a light show on the harbor (later realizing it was only at the ship in the sky-looking Marina Bay Sands Singapore hotel). They tried to charge $90 for 2 cocktails at this rooftop bar, luckily I talked them down a bit on that!

36 hours after arriving, we were happy to be taking off on Singapore Air (another amazing regional airline) for our last big leg. Just about four hours later we made it to Cebu in the Philippines. The Philippines are home to 7,641 islands, and only about 2,000 of which are inhabited. This reefy, volcanic splash of paradise hit me when flying in as I watched the islands stack up.

My grandfather fought in the 503rd/101st Airborne Infantry, the only regiment in the Pacific for World War II. My cousin’s husband (also on my dad’s side) Stephen Greene was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam in the same regiment and recently shared his newsletters about the stories.

“Grandpa” shared very little to my dad or us about those days, although famously would not eat monkey again and hated rice. We were told he was shot in the butt and that he won a Purple Heart and Silver Star and later learned he had some notable machismo adventures while based in Australia (ie. nighttime non-sanctioned jumps, fights with the Marines). I read about the battles he fighted in Leyte, nextdoor to Cebu, Mindano and Corregidor. Corregidor sits in Manilla Bay (near the Japanese taken Manila base), is known as “the Rock” and hosted one of the most infamous battles in American war history based on being the most difficult technical landing of a parachute troop drop historically, the casualty rates and multi-day siege that took place.

Connecting with my grandfather’s story resonated as we dropped into Cebu City the main city in the Central Visayas (3.4 million inhabitants span the 167 islands included in this central Philippine zone known for the greatest biodiversity, hence our visit). We were warned about civil wars ongoing in Mindanao and heard that Manila is very dirty and overpopulated, so they were avoided.

We stayed in Lapu-Lapu City nearby at the Blue Maribago Beach Resort, 15 minutes from the airport where a local opportunistic man picked us up in place of a Grab, ended up paying him in cash (a bit more than the going rate to help with his family mentioned as he was very nice, opportunistic and accommodating).

It didn’t take long before the Philippine spirit shined through via most of the people we met. Our room was upgraded to beachside by the staff, all of which would smile, put hand on heart and say good morning, afternoon or evening when walking by. The villa overlooked the sandbar island and lagoon beach in front of us. The room was spectacular and spacious, we were a within a short walk from hammocks, this amazing exotic seafood buffet and restaurant, another with a bar on the water, and beach-themed lagoon pools. There was live music, a thrilling fire-dancing show and beach service to the canopies. Food specialties were noodles or rice as a base, steamed veggies, all types of seafood, served all kinds of different ways, fried chicken and crispy pork dishes, along with different tropical fruits and veggies.

Our 3am departure and full-day tour was both of our top highlight of the entire trip. A driver brought us hours away to the southwest coast of the island to Oslob. We geared up and got herded out to the water, where the locals were attracting whale sharks with treats, the largest species of shark (harmless spotted filter-feeders). Soon, we were in the water getting brushed by these massive gentle giants (the rules were no sunscreen as it negatively affects them and don’t touch). While many were juveniles, the sheer beauty and magnificence of these ~25 foot wonders was incredible first-hand underwater, and I was lucky to capture our moments together on my GoPro.

Calabawan Falls awaited us, a jungle paradise and hike into a series of waterfalls. Rain closed another epic set of falls for flooding, and made the hike slippery – luckily we had the most attentive, happy, strong, agile barefooted young 5 foot tall local guide and photographer. The cliff diving and abseiling down waterfalls was incredible, as was the sheer beauty of the dense jungle surroundings. We capped it off with a fresh, hot meal on the coast, seeing the ruins from the latest cyclone two years removed.

We had a self-care day to make the missus happy, featuring facials, mani-pedis and a new hair-styling – all at less than the cost of one premium service here. We got to wander around locally, amidst the locals and their markets out of their houses, little stores, rickshaws, basketball courts and motobikes and scooters (2nd world feel to the place). The locals talked of the government corruption, which left road construction projects constant, slow and under-resourced. Our last night brought a wicked tropical thunderstorm, which was quite an experience.

I grabbed a Philippino-pained long ukulele to think back to my days looking at the sky-blue water and green island foliage of the islands. Sadly, soon after we got back, Cebu got hit by a 6.9 earthquake and cyclones, killing over 70 with massive impact on the locals. This volcanic hotbed can’t rest from tectonic movements.

Overall, this was the most inexpensive place we visited (felt it to be ~20% what we’re used to paying financially). The people were also the most happy, genuine, friendly, service-oriented wonderful folks. We would highly encourage others to visit, support the people and see what it’s all about. We will be back and our minds stay relaxed picturing the Filipino landscapes and mindset when in a peaceful state.

After a Taipei night for stop-over, we were riding the jet stream winds on a 10 (down from 14) hour flight back stateside to Seattle, asked a few Customs questions about my guitar (not a gun) and were officially back stateside. Back to the wild ride of emotions, big box stores and Americana, and still thinking about prospects of living and traveling around these wonders of Southeast Asia.

These majestic creatures are peaceful and very special
Swimming with whale sharks

Malaysian Wonders

This blog reflects on the wonders of Malaysia, sleeping giant, Muslim mecca with thick jungles, temples and 20% of the world’s species. It details our adventures exploring these wonders and getting to know the creatures.

After about 52 hours in Taiwan, we caught a midnight five hour Air Asia flight across the South China Sea to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Like Taiwan, Malaysia is an energy, resource-rich hotbed for wildlife that is affordable and another expat favorite for so many reasons.

AirAsia is on the economy side, but it was comfortable enough and who’s site and app were notably easy to use, even with flight changes. Uber isn’t currently in Malaysia, but there’s a few others that are similar, Grab being one I latched onto for rides for this trip. I learned the hard way from a driver that you have to match baggages with ride option and once I upgraded, it was a long hour+ drive to the central commercial zone of KL.

We got to our “hotel” and were greeting by armed guards in stand out front that gruffly let us through when we showed authorization of staying at The Manor KLCC. We went up a floor to a small hotel check-in place, realizing this place was more like executive residences than a true hotel. We paid a fee to check-in early and luckily could collapse in our unit, which felt like a luxury 1B condo overlooking the expansively growing skyline of KL, including Merkeda Tower (2nd tallest building in the world) and Petronas Towers (largest dual-connected towers in the world).

After a few hours of sleep, I set out to get a few essentials including an outlet converter as Malaysia has a different plug than ours unlike Taiwan. Malaysia is a highly Muslim country, which is evident by all the birkas on the flight, middle-eastern / conservatives appearances walking around, and the dichotomy of old world and all this new, modern construction and high fashion was fascinating.

Downtown KL has a ton of shopping and malls and the nearest grocery store was about a 25 minute hike away, past other executive residences.
I hit a food court in the mall and was lost trying to figure out breakfast options, went with what looked like the most similar and found myself trying to figure out what I got handed a hot water heater for boiling eggs with my toast and sandwich. I was able to finally figure out how to get a few staples, electric plug converter included to save the day. We learned that Malaysian food is like an Indian / Thai / Middle-Eastern collaboration, often quite spicy and there are markets dispersed for it around town. We tiptoed around it with some Thai and shwarma-like middle-eastern options.

The WOW moment downtown came at our rooftop pool – a stunning, relaxing experience to take in the sights all around.

After a day of adjusting, where we ordered in, our tour adventures continued starting with a visit to the legendary Batu Caves. We met our first Asian monkeys, who were very socialized and used to the many tourists, often opportunistically stealing bags for food jackpots and waters. We walked past the golden Lord Murugan Statue and up the stairs, where Alli was shift-grabbed by a monkey while trying to take a selfie. At the bottom and into the caves were these picturesque, colorful holy temples. Breathtaking to take it in and we had to grab a few souvenir gifts.

We stopped at a hand-painted shirt factory en route up north an hour and a half into the dense jungle for an epic elephant sanctuary visit. When offered the chance to bathe and feed young elephants as part of a private tour, we took it and didn’t regret getting soaked for the experience. Gandah, the only sanctuary-born elephant of the 40 in residence was a sweetheart. All of the gentle giants were there for injury or infringement on town areas and relocated for protection. We got to pet, feed and get to know about 8 elephants, who were eager for treats.

Off we left to fly out from there from the western peninsula to the island of Borneo, home to Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysian territory. At the KL airport, we had to pay to upgrade bag coverage past the tiny allowance. The domestic flight terminal was tight and cramped and I felt bad for the quiet, unassuming line of 15 short Muslim girls who got jumped by many others to get through the gate. Between there and the pool, where they could dip feet in only, the gender disparity gap seemed pretty wide and unfair, but not my place to judge.

We arrived in Sandakan in the state of Sabah on the northeast corner of Malaysian Borneo, caught some quick winks and were picked up for our all-included tour to experience the heart of where 20% of the world’s species reside. First stop nearby was the Orangutan Conservation & Rehabilitation Center. Orangutans are down in numbers to just over 100k and live on two islands, here and Sumatra. In this swampy, sticky jungle, organutans are fed and the sick cared for. They are free to go and the food is not what they’d consider top shelf, and they often have to fight off the local macaque clans to get it, which was fascinating to watch, along with the mom with baby and other cute, flexible, swinging relatives.

Nextdoor was a Sun Bear Conservatory, another fascinating animal nearing endangerment, who are secretive without much known about them. These guys are the smallest and most vulnerable of the bear species. We saw these little around 8 of these brown-faced critters munching on vegetation shared happily, including sitting up knawing on carrots. We saw a resource fight between two, which featured high-pitched squeals and screams and some chasing that felt more akin to badgers than bears.

From there, we drove to Sim Sim Jetty, a Chinese coastal neighborhood in the community, which featured some large Amazon pet fish and all kinds of beautiful potted plants lining this dock. Off we went staring at the mountains that fed into this coastal community with a scenic mountain island and speedboat ride sending us ripping our way an hour and a half into rivers with thick mangroves and trees lining the shore. En route, we spotted a large ~13 foot saltwater croc sunning on shore (the first I have seen!).

Our first river lodge (Kinabitu ?) had a lot of character, cozy cabins with AC and a fan, which helped in the sticky humidity. I appreciated getting to walk the labeled boardwalks trying to spot creatures, including at night with a headlamp, seeing tree frogs, spiders a lantern bug and more. At dawn and near dusk, we set out on our skiff to seek out wildlife near the shore at peak times to catch there. Our guide Lat knew so much about the species and both he and the driver were able to spot animals while moving fast, while also coordinating with other tour guides. The government protects the area with the help of tourist taxes, and it shows as the animals show little worry about nearby gawkers.

We quickly spotted Borneo-specific harems of Proboscis Monkeys, featuring an alpha and the mates and offspring. The pot-belied males feature the giant, long floppy noses and despite their figure, can launch themselves from tree to tree. The females have smaller, pointy noses. Reading Ancestor’s Tale, it details the divergence of humans down the line of primates and the Probiscus are a nearer relative not far off from the split from orangutans ~13 million years ago. Easy to see the resemblance, really started at you and sat there picking and eating leaves and you could confuse with people without too much imagination. We enjoyed watching babies doing acrobatics and bachelor groups as well.

Easy to enjoy the beauty of the river and sunsets, river inlets and quiet lakes off the main river and at dusk, the fireflies lighting up around a few trees and calls of the wild all around.

The lodge offered great fresh-cooked delicious meals featuring steamed veggies, rice, noodles, fish, shrimp, fried wontons, and delicious local fruits and tasty deserts. There was a special night that we all wore the native Sarongs and enjoyed a meal with local women old and young playing soothing music with their instruments.

At this point, we were seeing a number of sub-species of Horned Bills, one of the few species that picks and stays with a partner for life. We saw a pair of grey langurs, one grooming the other. In a palm tree at the second lodge, a staffer pointed to a flying lemur that was probably nearly 4 feet long, waiting for the chance to soar when night fell. We were seeing so many macaques that they were becoming pedestrian. At the second lodge, they gave us sticks to beat them off as they are known to go after bags for food. Alli stayed in the pool when everyone else went to lunch and the pack jumped right in, partying like it was spring break – hilarious!

On the reptile front, there was an emerald green pit viper sitting in the same spot daily near the kitchen with a lump of a catch from recently, fascinating to see it sitting in the bush like a stick a few feet away. We saw numerous skinks and geckos and were lucky enough to watch another nearly 10 foot croc from close before he spooked, snapped and leapt in the water.

What really made this incredible experience all the more special was that on the way back, the 1st lodge reported an orgunutan visiting, and we were able to zip back and watch him in the canopy near our breakfast spot the previous day. Part of the group instead followed a pygmy elephant, who came to the riverbank. As we waived at the staff sending us off and zipped past the floating bottles with fish flying off the wake, looking at the islands of the coast, we just smiled having experienced a truly incredible part of the world. I hope gets the protection it needs to stay that way.