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Wednesday/ arrival in Johannesburg 🌇

All went well with the flight to Johannesburg, and our Boeing 747-8 pulled up at the gate at Johannesburg’s Oliver Tambo International Airport at 9.20 am this morning.

Johannesburg— also known informally as Joburg, Jozi or Goudstad (Afr. for ‘The City of Gold’)—  is South Africa’s biggest city, and the capital of Gauteng province.

Frankfurt-Johannesburg is a 10h 35 m flight across the length of Africa.
The obligatory airplane engine picture, from my perch on the upper deck as we approached Oliver Tambo international airport. These are General Electric ‘GEnx’ engines.
In the distance, obscured by the haze, is downtown Johannesburg, the city that is the real El Dorado (the city that gold had built).
The main Witwatersrand gold reef, Earth’s largest known reserves of gold, was discovered in June 1884 on the farm Vogelstruisfontein by Jan Gerritse Bantjes, son of Jan Bantjes, and this triggered the Witwatersrand Gold Rush and the founding of Johannesburg in 1886.
The ‘Queen of the Skies’ at the gate at Johannesburg’s Oliver Tambo International Airport. This one was christened ‘Niedersachsen’ (Lower Saxony, a state in northern Germany).  
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Tuesday/ southbound ✈️

It’s Tuesday night here in Germany, and it is time to fly south, on the redeye flight to Johannesburg. It leaves at 10 pm and arrives at 9.30 am in the morning.

Our magnificent flying machine is a Boeing 747-8. Lufthansa has 19 of them, and 8 of the older Boeing 747-400.
I am sure I will sleep on the flight, because I had to check out of the hotel before I could take my afternoon nap of the last few days.

The streetcar on the No 17 line at the Festhalle/ Messe stop.
The check-in lounge at Frankfurt airport’s No 1 terminal.
The view to the outside is somewhat obstructed by the lines on the windows. I will try to to get a picture of our Boeing 747-8 as we board or after we have landed in Johannesburg. 
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Sunday/ arrival in Frankfurt 🏙

My flight went without incident, and I took a train and a tram to get to my hotel here in Frankfurt.

Just about an hour away from landing, somewhere over the British Isles. The Airbus A340-300 has FOUR main engines. The newer jets such as the A350 and Boeing 787 have only two. More efficient (less fuel) but more risk in the case of an engine failure?
On the tarmac at Frankfurt airport— the view from the bus that will take us to the terminal.
Here comes my train. The train station is underneath Frankfurt airport’s Terminal 1, and the S8 or S9 regional train will get one into the city.
Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof (Main Train Station).
Heading outside to catch the tram (streetcar) to the hotel.
A little later, after I had settled into the hotel, I went for a walk in a park called Senckenberganlage.  It got to 16 °C today (60°F) but will fall back to 10 °C (50°F) tomorrow.
The tower is the Messeturm, or Trade Fair Tower, 63 stories and  257 m (843 ft) tall.
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Saturday/ at the airport 🛫

It’s a cloudless afternoon here at Seattle-Tacoma airport, and I’m waiting for my flight to board.

I forgot to take a picture of the Lufthansa bird at the gate before coming up to the lounge, so for now an online image will have to suffice.

Lufthansa is the largest operator of the Airbus A340-300, with 17 in its fleet. The airplane was built from 1991–2012 and was replaced by the Airbus A350-900. (Boeing offers the 787-9 as an equivalent airplane).
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Friday/ my bags are packed ✈️

Flying northeast out of Seattle for some 10 hours and 5,100 miles, will get you to Frankfurt.

I am bound for Frankfurt on Lufthansa tomorrow afternoon— the stop on my way to Johannesburg, South Africa.
I will stay over for two nights in Frankfurt.

I double-checked, for Germany as well as for South Africa:
Travel is allowed;
Quarantine is not required;
Proof of a pre-departure COVID-19 test is not required;
Visa is not required for Germany nor for South Africa (US passport holders).

So I am just about ready to dislodge myself from the comforts of my home and go board the flying machine that will take me across Canada and Greenland to Europe.

My phone is all set for international use (how did we ever travel with no phone?), my debit card for those foreign ATMs, and my credit card with its RFID chip.  I already have some Euros and South African Rands (paper money).
New for this trip to the set of gadgets & cables in my bag: a portable charger for my phone. Electricity is in short supply in South Africa (rolling blackouts).

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Thursday/ a shirt as a stamp 🚴🏻

Here’s the cool envelope that my vendor from Antwerp, Belgium, put the stamps in that I had bought.

The stamp was issued in 2021, and it depicts a cycling jersey.
The 2021 UCI Road World Championships was between 19 and 26 September 2021 in the Flanders region of Belgium.

VERENIGDE STATEN is Flemish for UNITED STATES.
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Wednesday/ hello daffodils 🟡

The daffodils are out here in my neighborhood.

Narcissus is a genus of predominantly spring flowering perennial plants of the amaryllis family, Amaryllidaceae.
Various common names including daffodil, narcissus, and jonquil are used to describe all or some members of the genus.
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Tuesday 3.14/ Happy Pi Day 🥧

No matter what size the pie (the circle) is, its circumference divided by its diameter is always pi*.

*The number pi (symbol π) is a mathematical constant and is a transcendental number (a number that is not algebraic—that is, not the root of a non-zero polynomial of finite degree with rational coefficients).
The value of pi is approximately 3.14159.
Pi appears in many formulas in mathematics and physics.

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Sunday/ stop changing the clock! 🕒

We changed over to Daylight Saving Time here in the USA last night.
The Sunday after changing the time forward— or back— always feel a little weird to me.
For the record, my opinion about changing the time on the clock twice a year: it’s STUPID.

Cartoon by Ellis Rosen for The New Yorker Magazine, for the Mon. Mar 13th, 2023 issue.
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Saturday/ Westlake & Lenora 🚋

Here are a few pictures from along Westlake Avenue and Lenora Street.

We still don’t know what will happen to the Cinerama movie theater, even though it’s been more than three years since Paul Allen had passed away.
The swank new apartment building on Lenora Street is The Modern.
Sample rents:
1 bed, 1 bath, 499 sq ft: $2,791 – $2,986.
3 beds, 2 baths, 1,666 sq ft – $8,830.

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Friday/ pitching in 🌧🎾

The Indian Wells Open (BNP Paribas Open) tennis tournament is underway in California.

Friendly fans pitched in to help dry the court tonight, after a burst of rain early in the evening. I like those spongy squeegees— they will come in handy for drying up the tennis courts here in Seattle.

It’s a team effort in Stadium 4 to get the courts dry. An official coaches some fans using the squeegee rollers.  The rain interrupted the match between Denis Shapovalov (age 24, Canada) and Ugo Humbert (23, France). In the end Shapovalov prevailed 7-5 6-4.
[Still from a video clip posted by Bailey Arredondo @BaileyKESQ on Twitter]
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Thursday/ war and peace ✌

This poster on a lamp post calls for Peace in Ukraine, a cause which we can all support— but when one takes a closer look, it quickly gets very complicated.
Yes, the US should not have invaded Iraq in March 2003.
Does that mean the US should also not supply weapons to Ukraine? Only food and shelter with heat, now that all the cities are getting destroyed by Russia’s invasion?
I don’t think so.

There’s a logo at the bottom of the poster that says ‘Party for Socialism and Liberation’. Is that an American political party? Yes.
Wikipedia: The Party for Socialism and Liberation is a communist party in the United States, established in 2004.
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Wednesday/ a geodesic dome 🗻

The New York Times posted pictures shared by their readers in California, of the snow there. I like this one.

A geodesic dome in the Santa Cruz mountains. The snowpack in the vast Sierra Nevada mountain range is the deepest it’s been in decades, exceeding 200% of the normal snowpack depth in some areas.
[Photo by Karrie Gaylord]
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Tuesday/ around the Sound ⛴

I tagged along with Bryan and Gary to Hansville on Kitsap Peninsula today.
We did the usual drive-around south of Puget Sound across the Tacoma-Narrows Bridge by Gig Harbor, and then came back across the Sound on the Kingston ferry.
The Space Needle picture was a telephoto lens shot (on my big camera, not the phone) from I-5 South, looking across Lake Union.

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Monday/ not too late for a worm 🪱

‘Early bird catches the worm’
– Proverbial saying first recorded in English in 1605

Mr Robin* found an earthworm on my front lawn this afternoon, and promptly made a meal of it.
Robins can actually eat as many as a dozen earthworms in a single day.

*American robin (Turdus migratorius)

 

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Sunday/ downtown 🏢

I took the No 10 bus to downtown, and here are a few pictures.

On the No 10 bus and Approaching the stop at Pine At & 9th Ave.
Hello to the red Tesla Model 3 (it’s a 2022 model).
John Mellencamp (he’s 71) is coming to the Paramount Theatre. It made me look up and play ‘Hurt So Good’ on YouTube. 😁
We now have our own Uniqlo* clothing store here in downtown Seattle, in the Macy’s building (there have long been Uniqlo stores in Southcenter Mall and in Bellevue Square).
*Japanese casual wear designer, manufacturer and retailer.
The Terminal Sales Building on 1st Avenue is an 11-story historical landmark designed in a terra cotta and brick Gothic-inspired mode by architect Henry Birman.
Built in 1923 in an open loft format, it served as a sales and display warehouse that serviced department stores in Seattle’s retail core for decades.
[From website historylink.tours]
Here’s the windows of the Patagonia store (outdoor clothing and gear). Hanford is a site in southeast Washington State where 9 nuclear reactors had been built during World War II and the Cold War to produce plutonium for the nation’s nuclear weapons program. To date 6 of the 9 reactors have been cocooned (sealed off). Cocooning lasts for 75 years, and allows radiation levels to decay to a safer level for future dismantling and disposal. Leaks of radioactive material have already occurred, though. Every now and then there seems to be another exposé on King5 TV about the challenges with the cleanup of Hanford. During the World War II and Cold War years, the site’s focus was on plutonium production. Now, efforts are geared at cleanup of one of the most contaminated nuclear sites in the world.
The corner of Virginia St and 1st Avenue is the site of a bistro and full bar today.
I see on Google Maps that the State Route 99 tunnel’s route happens to run by right below it.
Here’s Second Avenue between Pike & Pine. The brown building on the left is going to demolished at some point not too far into the future to make way for a 46-story, 531-unit apartment building with retail stores.
The State Hotel building on Second Avenue was constructed in 1904 by the Eitel brothers David and Fred, and called the Eitel building. It was renovated in 2017-19 at a cost of $16 million.
I had dawdled too long on Second Avenue, and here comes my No 10 bus rushing by— the one that was supposed to take me home. I ended up walking back to Capitol Hill !
Welp. The sun’s gone again, and it’s getting cold. Time to go home.
The site of the erstwhile Starbucks on Olive Way now has fencing and barbed wire to keep the riffraff out.
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Saturday/ a locomotive 🚂

Yesterday’s envelope with my stamps had this 1987 stamp on the outside.

In 1839, a big locomotive was ordered by the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, with the specification that the engine burn anthracite coal in a horizontal boiler. The result was the Gowan & Marx, one of the most famous locomotives ever built. Extraordinary tractive power was generated by the 42-inch driving wheels.
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Friday/ the Big Five 🦏🐃 🦁 🐆 🐘

It was dark by the time the mailman came today, but he dropped an envelope with a bunch of stamps I had ordered from a seller in California.
So it was all worth the wait.

The Big Five* (Rhinoceros, Buffalo, Lion, Leopard and Elephant) is a very popular and recurring theme on South African stamps and barely a year or two goes by, before yet another set of stamps with The Big Five on them is issued. The strip of Big Five animal stamps at the top of the picture is from 1996, and the ones in the foreground are from 1998.
*Must-see animals to spot when going on safari in southern Africa