Four of us had a great seafood dinner at the Century City mall outside of Cape Town.
As we walked outside, we caught this view of beautiful twilight colors over Table Mountain.
Monday/ stopping and shopping, here and there 🐆
Here are a few pictures from today.
The Seattle Coffee Co. franchise has been around a lot longer. The first store opened its doors in Cavendish Square, Cape Town in November 1997.
Do you have any postage stamps to sell to me? I inquired. I came away with this sheet of woodpeckers (issued 2020), one of the last sets of stamps issued by the South African Post Office. No new issues appeared after 2020. 😱
Beer and hard liquor are only sold in dedicated liquor stores in South Africa. Wine may be sold at grocery stores as well as at liquor stores.
The “YOU HAVE REACHED THE SOUTH POLE” is just a little joke, indicating that the walk-in refrigerated room with chilled beers is right there below the sign.
Sunday/ in the dry dock 🚢
I stopped briefly at the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront today, to use one of the parking garages there.
This is the Robinson Dry Dock in the so-called Alfred Basin in the Waterfront, and it is the oldest operating dry dock of its kind in the world. It dates back to 1882. The foundation stone for the dock was laid by Prince Alfred, second son of Queen Victoria. Named after Governor Sir Hercules Robinson, it was used to repair over 300 ships during World War II.
Ships are typically dry-docked every five years for a special survey, but may also be dry-docked for inspections, maintenance, and repairs, in between.
Saturday/ at the mall 🏪
There is a little Christmas market in the Tyger Valley Shopping Centre, still open for a final few days.
It’s good that it is indoors: day-time highs here were 35°C and 34°C (95°F and 93°F) on Wednesday and Thursday, and 30°C (86°F today).
From espncricinfo.com:
“The first Test match at Centurion is tantalisingly poised after Pakistan took three wickets in nine overs to leave South Africa wobbling at 27 for 3, still 121 runs away from the 147-run target that seals a win, as well as a place in the 2023-25 World Test Championship [WTC] final.
After South Africa had bowled Pakistan out for 237, they needed a fairly comfortable 148 to secure victory, but an unerring spell of accurate medium-fast bowling from Mohammad Abbas and Khurram Shahzad was well rewarded. Aside from Aiden Markram, the South Africa batters were somewhat timid in their approach to the last few overs of the day, while Abbas and Shahzad targeted the pads. Abbas brought one to jag back in sharply into Tony de Zorzi for the first breakthrough.”
Update Sun 12/29 [From espncricinfo.com] “South Africa have qualified for the World Test Championship (WTC) final after beating Pakistan by two wickets in a high-drama encounter at SuperSport Park. Set a modest but challenging target of 148 to win, they were 99 for 8 just before lunch and it was left to Kagiso Rabada and Marco Jansen to score the remaining 51 runs in a tense ninth-wicket stand against a Pakistan attack with their tails up.”
Friday/ Pringle Bay beach 🏖️
Happy Friday, the last one for 2024!
These photos are from yesterday, from a little trip I made with my family to Pringle Bay.
Pringle Bay is a small, coastal village in the Overberg region of the Western Cape, in South Africa. It is situated at the foot of Hangklip, on the opposite side of False Bay from Cape Point. The town and surrounds are part of the Kogelberg Biosphere Reserve, a UNESCO Heritage Site. [Wikipedia]
(Seals or sea lions? These are sea lions: brown, bark loudly, “walk” on land using their large flippers and have visible ear flaps. Seals have small flippers, wriggle on their bellies on land, and lack visible ear flaps. – Source: noaa.gov).
*Fynbos: fine-leaved shrubland or heathland vegetation found in the Western and Eastern Cape provinces of South Africa.
Thursday/ Bloubergstrand beach 🌞
Sunset at Bloubergstrand beach.
The blue mountain (Afr. “Blouberg”) with its flat top is Cape Town’s iconic Table Mountain, of course.
Merry Christmas 🎅🏻
[Image generated with Apple’s Image Playground app with text descriptions as input].
Tuesday morning/ arrival into Cape Town ✈️
Here is our flight path south on Monday night and into Tuesday morning. We were directly over Tunis (capital of Tunisia) after crossing the Mediterranean Sea. Later on we were at 39,000 ft (the plane’s cruising altitude) over Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of the Congo) and Windhoek (Namibia).
We landed at Cape Town International at 7.30 am local time (it’s an Airbus A350-900) and were bused into the terminal.
The shark tank dive billboard 😱 is from the pedestrian underpass to the rental car companies at the airport.
Monday night/ to Munich, and south ✈️
A few weeks ago Lufthansa cancelled the direct Frankfurt to Cape Town flight I had reserved. They rebooked all of us on a short hop to Munich, to catch the Munich to Cape Town flight from there.
Pictures:
I ran into several more billboard pictures of “Venus” in Terminal A. Would you like to see all of them? (Of course you do. The “merivaglia” in the slogan “Open to merivaglia” is an Italian word that means “a wonder” or “beauty”).
That’s a Boeing 787-9 at the gate at Terminal A that took us to Munich. It’s a 45-minute flight due east.
Sunday/ in Frankfurt 🏙️
Here are a few pictures from today, as well as a few clippings from the Sunday newspapers.
“Ich spreche nur ein wenig Deutsch” (I speak only a little German), I said. It was a little noisy to carry on a conversation, anyway. As I got up, she pointed to my phone and said “Dein Handy” (your cell phone). Cute word— and appropriate— that handy thing called a “Handy” in German.
“WELL, ONE CAN SPOT THEM EASILY, BIG AS THEY ARE .. “
” .. BUT THEY CAN STILL BE ASTONISHINGLY DIFFICULT TO FIND”
[Cartoon by Naomi Feam for newspaper Tagesspiegel]
Christmas can be a pretty stressful time. We have baked cookies, made the Christmas wreath, drunk mulled wine at overcrowded Christmas markets— and what now? Now the time has come. The extended family is about to arrive. Or: you find yourself in a crowded train traveling across the country and have to split your time between Christmas Eve and Christmas Holiday because your parents are separated. Grandma Inge wants to see you again, and Uncle Bert and his new girlfriend have invited you to dinner. Once you have managed all of that, New Years Eve follows. You should be totally festive here, as well— but now with sparklers and a glass of champagne in hand. And heaven forbid it’s not a great party! In short, December is a seemingly endless series of social, personal and societal expectations and gatherings that could send you straight into end-of-the-year burnout. How the hell is one supposed to survive all of that?
“Are these all returns? Rejected by the electorate? And what is inside yours?”
“Candidates for chancellor”.
[Cartoon by Stuttmann for Tagesspiegel newspaper]
Saturday/ the Christmas market 🎄
Hey, on this winter solstice day I made it to the Christmas market at Römerberg. It was cold and raining, though, and I did not stay very long.
(It did seem that the inclement weather increased the glühwein sales volumes!)
Pictures:
Entrance hall to Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof (main train station). There was a strong of police presence at the station. Hauptbahnhof station looked a little more ragged and rundown from the last time I saw it— especially the floors leading to the U4 & U5 subway lines’ platforms.
Poster for Messe Frankfurt (exhibition center) close by Hauptbahnhof station.
It’s two stops on the U5 subway line (turquoise train car) from Hauptbahnhof station to Römer/ Dom station to where the Christmas market is. The U5 is getting a 2.7 km (1.7 mi) extension that will open in 2027.
Last picture: the S9 regional train (red train car) arriving to take me back from Hauptbahnhof station to Flughafen (airport) station where my hotel is, a 14-minute ride.
Friday/ to Frankfurt ✈️
We took off from Seattle-Tacoma Airport’s South Terminal almost an hour after the scheduled departure time. (The inbound flight from Frankfurt was late). The flight went without incident, though— always a good thing— and we made up the lost hour on the way.
Recognize the woman on the Italian tourism billboard? She must be Venus from Sandro Botticelli’s famous painting called The Birth of Venus.
Thursday/ my bags are packed 🧳
My bags are packed for my trip to South Africa, with two-night stayover in Frankfurt, Germany.
That way I can check in on the Christmas market, at the historical Römerberg market square in Frankfort.
(I bought this wallet in Hong Kong in August 2011 at the Sogo department store. Just the day before, my leather wallet was stolen out of my backpack ON MY BACK, and while I was on the escalator in an upscale shopping mall. One pickpocket distracted me by ‘bumping’ into me, and at the same time, his accomplice must have zipped open the pocket in the backpack to steal the wallet. I believe they watched me withdraw cash from an ATM just ten minutes before, and saw me put the wallet in my backpack. By the time I could notify American Express, the thieves had already gone on a shopping spree and spent some $7,000 on luxury items. American Express immediately cancelled all the transactions on the card. Several lessons here, of course, and all well-known: keep out an eagle eye when drawing money from an ATM anywhere; don’t let strangers in get too close to you; don’t carry your wallet in an easily accessible place.)
Wednesday/ another rate cut 📉
Fed Cuts Rates, but Projects Fewer Reductions Next Year
Federal Reserve officials projected just two rate cuts in 2025. Markets shuddered at the assessment, with the dollar soaring and stocks plummeting.
– Headlines from the New York Times
Inflation has eased notably, but remains above the Fed’s 2% target rate (2.7% as of November, up slightly from 2.6% in October).
Unemployment is at 4.1%, relatively low. Mortgage rates are going to stay in the 6 to 7% range through 2025, say most analysts.
[Graphic from CNBC]
Tuesday/ rain ☔
It has rained all day in Rain City.
It will rain on and off all week here, in the run-up to winter solstice.
Monday/ holiday cheers🎄
The five amigos went to the Irish pub called The Chieftain on 12th Avenue for a beer and a bite tonight, but found it closed for the night.
We ended up right next door, at the German beer hall-and-restaurant Rhein Haus Seattle, where we found this cheerful Christmas tree.
Sunday/ school’s out 🏫
Here is today’s cartoon from South Africa’s Sunday newspaper Rapport.
The summer school holidays are underway in South Africa, and with it the exodus of the binnelanders* to the coast.
*Afrikaans word for those that live ‘inside’ the country— far away from the coast.
“I want to look up those words that dad will use on the road.”
About the car’s license plate: VAALIES = Old South Africa (pre-1994) nickname for inhabitants of Transvaal province, home to Johannesburg, and which is now called Gauteng (GP) province.
[Cartoon by Dr Jack for Rapport newspaper]
Saturday/ elements on stamps ⚛️
Here are stamps issued by South Africa that would be candidates for a themed collection of elements on stamps.
Given South Africa’s large mining industry, it is somewhat surprising that relatively few stamps with a mining theme have been issued.
1961 First Definitive Issue
Issued May 31, 1961
Perf. 14 | Photogravure | Wmk Coat of Arms
201 113 2c Ultramarine and yellow | Pouring gold
[Source: Stanley Gibbons Stamp Catalogue Part 1, British Commonwealth 1997]
Steel is primarily composed of iron, with most types containing around 98% to 99.5% iron, with the remaining percentage typically made up of carbon and trace elements depending on the specific steel grade.
1978 50th Anniversary of ISCOR* (South African Iron and Steel Industrial Corporation)
Issued Jun. 5, 1978
Perf. 12 | Design: Hein Botha | Litho. | No Wmk
441 225 15c Multicolored | Steel rail
*In the early 2000s, Iscor was sold by Thabo Mbeki’s government as his administration sought to run a tight ship and right the country’s finances. The name Iscor disappeared for good in March 2005.
[Source: Stanley Gibbons Stamp Catalogue Part 1, British Commonwealth 1997]
1980 World Diamond Congress, Johannesburg
Issued May 12, 1980
Perf. 14 |Design: A.H. Barrett |Litho. |No Wmk
478 20c Multicolored | Cullinan II diamond*
*Yes, a diamond is nothing but a lump of carbon. The Cullinan II is a 317.4 carat cushion-cut diamond that is the second-largest cut from the original Cullinan diamond. It is also known as the Second Star of Africa and is the most valuable stone in the Imperial State Crown in the Tower of London.
The Cullinan Diamond is the largest gem-quality rough diamond ever found, weighing 3,106 carats (621.20 g), discovered at the Premier No.2 mine in Cullinan, South Africa, on 26 January 1905.
[Source: Stanley Gibbons Stamp Catalogue Part 1, British Commonwealth 1997]
Titanium (22)
Vanadium (23)
Chromium (24)
Manganese (25)
1984 Strategic Minerals
Issued Jun. 8, 1984
Perf. 14 x 14¼ | Design: Hein Botha | Litho. | No Wmk
558 11c Multicolored | Manganese
559 20c Multicolored | Chromium
560 25c Multicolored | Vanadium
561 30c Multicolored | Titanium
[Source: Stanley Gibbons Stamp Catalogue Part 1, British Commonwealth 1997]
1986 Centenary of Johannesburg
Issued Sep. 25, 1986
Perf. 14 | Design: J. van Niekerk | Litho. | No Wmk
607 30c Multicolored | Gold bars
[Source: Stanley Gibbons Stamp Catalogue Part 1, British Commonwealth 1997]
Friday/ rainy and dark ☔
Happy Friday the Thirteenth.
It was rainy and dark all day outside (but not quite as dark as in the forest from The Nutcracker in the picture below).
A ballerina from Pacific Northwest Ballet performs “George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker” on Wednesday evening at McCaw Hall in Seattle. [Photo by Kevin Clark / The Seattle Times]
Thursday/ high school is done 😃
The second major update to Apple’s iOS 18 for the iPhone is out (iOS 18.2), and with it, the first Apple Intelligence image generation features, ChatGPT integration with Siri, and a few other changes and bug fixes.
I experimented with Image Playground a little today. (Image Playground came bundled with iOS 18.2 and is an app for creating stylized images based on prompts, and images of you and your friends).
The original photo was black and white, so the image generator had to guess my hair color (actual color: light brown), the color of the school blazer (actual color: also green, great guess), and tie (actual color: green).
The source photo had a blank background and I added a ‘Party’ effect stipulation before generating the image.