Category: Travel

These were taken on my walk back Sunday from the Sheraton Hotel .. the buildings decorated with music-themed graphics are only a block away from where my apartment is in Dameisha.   Very cool, the red microphone phone booth, is it not?

 

I go out to work on Monday morning
Tuesday I go off to honeymoon
I’ll be back again before it’s time for sunny down
I’ll be lazing on a Sunday afternoon
Bicycling on every Wednesday evening
Thursday I go waltzing to the zoo
I come from London town
I’m just an ordinary guy
Fridays I go painting in the Louvre
I’m bound to be proposing on a Saturday night
(There he goes again)
I’ll be lazing on a Sunday lazing on a Sunday
Lazing on a Sunday afternoon

From ‘A Night at the Opera’ (1975) by Queen

All the pictures are from the Sheraton Dameisha where we had an expensive Sunday lunch this afternoon in the Capri restaurant, which also allowed us to go outside onto the ocean-side deck and the private beach of the hotel.   A wedding ceremony was scheduled for later, as can be seen from the picture with the chairs on the beach.   (Note to self : the hotel has only 368 rooms, not the ‘more than a thousand’ I told my dad on the phone today).   The little fruit balloons I hold up in the last picture is part of my prize I won in a raffle contest : a free future Sunday brunch at the restaurant !

I made it to Bangkok at 6am local time this morning, and then on to Hong Kong.   There I paid $20 for a shower (completely worth it),  met a colleague from PwC Singapore and our driver took us across the border to mainland China, and to the office to work for 3 hrs.     So by this time – 9 pm China time,  Johannesburg lies very far behind me ! My apartment is in decent shape.   I had to throw out all the perishables in the fridge since the power went out or was turned out by the cleaners.

Pictures : Ndebele dolls from the ‘Out of Africa’ store at OR Tambo airport; World Cup 2010 paraphernalia are hanging in there – last call, I think; the Thai bird that brought us to Bangkok parked at the gate at JNB airport, and inside Bangkok airport making the connection to the flight to Hong Kong.

 

Back to work!   I’ll take the very short hotel shuttle to the Gautrain station which runs into O R Tambo airport here in Johannesburg, then ship out Hong Kong via Bang Kok on Thai Air.   Here is where I usually post a route map but below is the best I could do with the Thai Air website.   Note to Thai Air webmaster :  move Johannesburg down from Zimbabwe into South Africa on the map!  : )

 

A few pictures from today : my hotel is right across from the Johannesburg Stock Exchange;  Use only what you need exhorts Eskom the national electric utility; and since the hotel shuttle from the airport was pretty expensive  I had to go and do a test run on the new Gautrain.   The Sandton station is just around the block from the hotel and the airport is three stops away.   The system is set up the same way as in Seattle and Hong Kong : buy a magnetic card for a nominal fee, and top it up at any station’s ticketing machines.    Tap the turnstile reader with the card to register your departure point and tap the exit turnstile reader at the arrival station.   The fare is calculated and deducted from the card.   A one-way fare from Sandton Square to the airport is  R100 (US$15) : not cheap by South African standards, but a cab ride to the hotel will cost at least US$ 50 –  and besides, if you intend to fly for transport* you can definitely afford a $15 train fare!   The train’s inside is very nicely appointed in a gold, blue and cream color scheme and the seats are very comfortable.  The train hits 160 km/h (100 mph) for short stretches between the stations and runs very smoothly.     Very nice!   The last picture is a view of the old rail track from the elevated Rhodesfield station.

*which reminds me of my experience this morning at British Airways’ security check point at Cape Town this morning.  I only had to take out my notebook computer and my Blackberry.  Didn’t have to take my shoes off, nor take the bag of liquids out of my computer bag.   Walked through the metal detector, the bleep + red light went off, but I was just waved through by the attendant.  On top of all that I unintentionally smuggled in a 1/2 bottled water tucked into the side of my backpack that I was not called on either .. whoah !

The time has come to pack up again .. staying overnight in Johannesburg tomorrow night, then to Hong Kong via Bang Kok on Monday.  About the same time as from Seattle, but this time I fly west.

The Arizona Spur is one of a franchise, the South African equivalent of TGI Fridays, where we had dinner last night before the movie.   A few other South African artifacts : I love the GPS coordinates on my new Cape Town t-shirt, and the moo-vuzela that the cow uses to trumpet its cheese; and the hand-made African wire-and-bead reindeer looks a little lost.  Can you blame him – this far south with Christmas less than a month away?

Mooi berge means ‘beautiful mountains’ and is the name of a farm stall outside Stellenbosch known for its colorful scarecrows and metal artwork in and around its strawberry fields.   (Confession : the pictures are actually from Tuesday, when it was very windy).    The best time of year to visit the Cape Town area is well into the new year, as late as April.

My friend Marlien and I went to the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront,  situated in the heart of Cape Town’s working harbour with the dramatic backdrop of Table Mountain.   The red structure in the second picture is the Clock Tower.  (That is the Ocean Princess cruise liner from Princess Cruise Lines at the dock on the left behind it). The restored warehouse in the one below it is now filled with souvenir shops and art shops.  Finally, we found my favorite artwork mirrors of which I have one already.  I regret now that I forgot to look up and write down the name of the plate metal artist that made the frame.

My friend Marlien and I visited the Lanzerac Hotel on Sunday afternoon.   It is another example of Cape Dutch architecture that endures on a 300-year old country estate.  Back in the day when I was a student at the University of Stellenbosch nearby, we could come here and sit on the patio and get a little rowdy.  It seems to me that those days are over !

While spending money here I have to divide by 7, since there are 7 South African Rand in one US Dollar.   I remember on my first trip to the USA in 1990 that I had to multiply by 2.5 – that’s how dramatically the exchange rate has changed.  (But the rand is actually too ‘strong’, it is hampering exports and job growth in South Africa).   The Rand takes its name from the Witwatersrand (Eng. White-waters-ridge), the ridge upon which Johannesburg  is built and where most of South Africa’s gold deposits were found.  The rand has the symbol “R” and is subdivided into 100 cents, symbol “c”.   The Rand notes denotes the so-called Big Five, a reference to five of Africa’s greatest wild animals – some people say the five most difficult animals in Africa to hunt on foot.  (Of course they are protected today but poaching is a stubborn problem).   Which are they?  The rhino, the African elephant, the lion, the African buffalo and the leopard.

 

These pictures were all taken around Die Braak (Eng ‘Fallow Land’), the Stellenbosch village town square dating back to the late 1700s.  The buildings are good examples of Cape Dutch architecture.   In the first picture there are slave bells on visible on the right (yes, the Dutch had slaves in The Cape.  It was finally abolished in 1834 after revolts from the slave-owners).    I stand in front of  Die Kruithuis (Eng. The Ammunition House), and the church is St Mary’s Cathedral.

Here is the British Airways jet that took us to Cape Town today. (This is at OR Tambo Airport  in Johannesburg).   The ‘Go fans’ is left over  from the 2010 World Cup.   Our trip was a little bumpy at first but later at sunset we were rewarded with spectacular close-up views of pink cumulus clouds up in the air.  Right now  I’m in Stellenbosch and I will post some pictures of the beautiful surroundings here the next few days.  No more airplanes and airports!

Since it’s my last night in Johannesburg we went to Nelson Mandela Square, a shopping mall in Sandton.  Formerly known as Sandton Square, it was renamed on 31 March 2004 after a 6m (18ft) statue of Nelson Mandela was installed on the Square to honor the famous South African statesman.

I love the Boabab Christmas tree.   Get this : the Boabab tree lives for thousands of years and inspired many African legends.  The tree is not indestructable, though, and not resistant to long periods of drought.   When it dies it collapses into a fibrous mass until a high wind blows away the remains of a tree that may have been a landmark for centuries.

 

 

 

Many South Africans work in Johannesburg in the week and travel back to Cape Town for the weekend, and this weekend I am one of them. 

Pictures :  Bilboard at JNB airport for the Gauteng province’s commuter train dubbed Gautrain to connect Johannesburg to its surroundings has started up its first section (see www.gautrain.co.za) ;  got a fire-arm or weapon to check in? this way  : ) and I liked the big Marmite kitchen clock in one of the souvenir stores (but a little too overwhelming, as much as I love my Marmite).

(This is very early Thu morning in my hotel in Johannesburg!).   I arrived Wed at 11.30am at Cape Town airport, got picked up by my mom and dad for a quick trip to Stellenbosch to go have lunch and repack my bags, and then back to the airport at 4pm.  The shortest visit they have ever had from someone from as far away as the USA, quipped my dad.  (I will come back to Stellenbosch Friday night).   It was 2 hr flight up to Johannesburg to go and do some work – for a possible project where Pricewaterhouse* will be the system integrator.

*PwC as we now call ourselves

I arrived this morning at 9.30am here in Frankfurt on the Airbus A330-300.    Due to my lengthy layover,  I left the airport to check into the Airport Holiday Inn to get some sleep.    It was totally worth it;  at first I thought I could take the train to the city for a few hours of sightseeing, but this way I dodged the rain, and hey, the hotel was free of the bedbugs shown on the Yahoo Deutschland homepage).    It’s now 8.30pm and my flight leaves in a few hours.

I’m at Seattle airport.  The hardest thing to do when I travel is to get out of the house.   This morning I had to consult the internet on how to pack a suit in a suitcase*.  (Turn the one arm and half inside out, fold in half, stuff the shoulders with a sock or two, put some t-shirts in the middle and roll it up in a tight bundle).

* Never had to pack a suit for my trips to China, but I will need one in South Africa. 

At the check-in counter Lufthanza swiped my carry-on bag (limit is only 8 kg!) which I was not happy with.   Airport security spared us having to walk through the full body scanner even though there were ones installed.  Maybe they’re still gearing up to full use.    ‘It’s for your Safety’ it says.  Yes, but the latest research shows the cumulative effect of exposure to X-rays is bad.   There’s really no safe dosage.  By the way – it’s the 115th anniversay of the discovery of X-rays per Google’s homepage (an odd anniversary for Google to feature on their homepage, is it not?) 

I’m leaving in the morning for South Africa.  I’m traveling on a Lufthanza flight to Frankfurt, then due south to Cape Town.  (I changed my flight from KLM to Lufthanza).  There is a long layover in Frankfurt – 10 hours.   There are ‘day hotels’ for travelers at the airport that open for check-in at 9am, with a 6pm check-out.  I may try that out !

I bought my ticket to go to South Africa in November today.   I will go from Seattle to Amsterdam and then to Cape Town.   The picture is of a KLM luggage label circa 1938.  There is a store in Hong Kong that sell these old labels from all over the world – for airlines, hotels, cruise lines.   I wanted to buy them all and ended up getting none! : (.

I’m home!   The flights to San Francisco and to Seattle went fine.  It’s a perfect fall day with blue skies and golden sunlight in Seattle.  (72 °F is 22 °C; 52 °F is 11 °C).

The other picture is of Hong Kong International airport’s Terminal 1 entrance this morning.