Ginger Cheesecake with Pear Topping

I got my first spring form pan a few months ago and have been dying to test it out! But since there's only two of us here, I figured I probably shouldn't make a whole cheesecake just for us to eat. So when we had a church activity coming up and they were looking for people to bring desserts, I knew exactly what I wanted to make! Cheesecake! It probably was a little risky to do this in retrospect since I've never made a cheesecake before and since I ended up making my own recipe on top of that. If it hadn't turned out well we would have just picked something up to bring instead. It ended up being really good though! Not exactly where I want it to be, I'll be testing out some tweaks to make to this recipe later, but in the meantime I wanted to get this written down so I know what to go off of.

Crust:
36 crisp gingersnap cookies
2 T sugar
7 T melted butter

Filling:
3 8 oz packages Neufchatel, softened
1/2 c sugar
1/2 c honey
Zest of 1 lemon
Juice of 1 lemon
1/2 tsp vanilla
4 eggs
2 T candied ginger, chopped very finely

Topping:
1 T butter
2 Bartlett pears, peeled and chopped into bite size pieces
1 T candied ginger, chopped very finely
1/4 c honey or more to taste
1/2 c salted almonds, chopped

Grease a 10-inch spring form pan and wrap the outside of it securely with 2 layers of foil. Heat oven to 325.
For the crust, put cookies in food processor and pulse 7-8 times to break cookies up. Add sugar and mix until cookies are broken into fine crumbs. Drizzle the butter with the food processor running on low. Stop mixing as soon as the mixture resembles wet sand. Press the crumbs into a greased spring form pan in an even layer, and gently press up the sides as well. Set aside.
Beat the Neufchatel until fluffy. Slowly add the honey with the mixer running. Add the sugar and mix until combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add lemon zest, lemon juice, and vanilla. Mix well. Add eggs, one at a time. Mix well. Add candied ginger and stir by hand to combine. Pour into the spring form pan. Place pan into a larger pan and carefully add hot water to the larger pan until it goes about 1 inch up the spring form pan. Bake for 1 1/2-1 3/4 hours. Remove from oven and from water bath. Let cool for 10 minutes on a wire rack and then remove the foil. Cool for 1 hour and then refrigerate over night.
Make the topping while the cheesecake is baking. In a large skillet, melt the butter. Add the pears and cook for just about 1 minute over medium heat, stirring well to coat the pears in the butter. Add the honey and stir well. Add the almonds and the ginger and remove from heat. Let cool over night in the fridge. Serve on the side or top the cheesecake with it.