The wildly-popular Bananas in Pajamas TV series appears in jeopardy. As a result of a management shake-up at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the actors who portray B1, B2 and the other members of the B in P cast are threatening to walk out.
For those of you who aren't up on popular children's culture (er, outside the states, that is... you can watch it in Canada if you like, and probably on cable somewhere), the two Bananas are (as far as I can figure) a happy gay couple who happen to have the physical characteristics of the afore-mentioned tropical fruits. They make a hobby of playing tricks on their friends and (as their name suggests) only rarely change out of their PJs. (Never mind "Tinky Winky": Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson would have a field day with these guys.)
Anyway, whatever your opinions of their living status, it's a cute show and Julian (for one) thinks it's great. Like a true cultist he has a Bananas in Pajamas place-mat and a few other B in P gewgaws.
The full story of B1 and B2's discontent can be found in the following article:
Best quote: "The biggest concern the performers have is that the ABC is not taking them seriously..."
The official site is at www.bananasinpyjamas.com.
Mad cows and Englishmen...
We were buying some groceries at Woolworths today and say a group of clerks taking food (sausages, lunch meats, soups) off the shelves and throwing them willy-nilly into large plastic bins. Tomorrow is the suggested deadline to clear grocery stores of any products containing European-sourced beef. Virtually all fresh beef here is domestic, but it seems there are a huge number of other products imported from elsewhere that contain beef products of one sort or another. And they are all being removed (voluntarily, at the request of the government) in response to the apparent spreading of bovine spongiform encephalitis, better known as Mad Cow disease.
Scary stuff, when you think about it; as it turns out it's not steaks and burgers that are likely to give you Creutzfeldt-Jakob (the human variant of Mad Cow), it's the thousands of other products (packaged, dried, canned and processed) that use beef by-products (in particular the non-muscle parts of the animals) as flavorings and thickeners. Given the nature of the global economy, who's to say whether (for example) that box of S&B curry mix (made in China and purchased at a Japanese grocery in San Jose) uses beef products sourced from Europe? In fact the news today is that Australia might also ban the import of cosmetics and skin care products that contain beef products (Japan has already done so).
Speaking of brain disorders, there's a guy here in Manly who's quite a character. He probably fits into the category of "eccentric" more than "wacko"... Julian and I first met him about a month ago when we walked over to an Indian restaurant to order some take-away food. He was seated at the small bar next to the cash register, dressed in a green velvet dinner jacket over a tie-dyed shirt and sporting a six-inch silver goatee. He appeared to be about my age, but wrinkled by too many years in the sun. He started talking to Julian, in a very polite British accent. At one point he pointed to a row of small wind-up toys on the bar and asked me, "May I give Julian a toy?"
For the next fifteen minutes Julian and this odd character tested every one of the dozens of dime-store trinkets that came tumbling out of a peruvian wool satchel. Yo-yos, jumping bugs, squirting flowers... finally Julian settled on a small green frog (made out of that slime-like material that sticks to anything you throw it at and oozes like warm snot... yuck).
Since then we've seen him here and there, in front of cafes in the morning, or dancing (alone) in the Corso when the street musicians play. Today when we drove back from the store we saw him standing on the beachfront path, dressed in a tiny bathing suit with a large hat decorated with flowers, swaying to the tunes blasting out of a cheap boom-box perched on one shoulder.
Today I drove once again to Bankstown for some more dual training. This time the goal was to get a constant speed prop endorsement added to my Special License so I can fly higher-performance aircraft.
Here's the Socata Tobago I flew twice today, once with Rohan and once with Mark (senior instructor):
It took a total of 2.2 hours of flight and 10 landings to really get the hang of the plane (it's relatively fast, with a high wing loading and correspondingly high stall speed) but it came pretty easily; the Tobago is quite docile when flown "by the numbers". It does have its quirks, though. Being a French airplane the headroom is a bit limited and some of the switches are, um, odd. And for no apparent reason the tachometer and manifold pressure gauges are reversed from their normal positions, which is a bit confusing at first. But the visibility is great and the interior layout is downright "sporty".
My biggest problem in the flying (with both Rohan and Mark) was with the aircraft identification, VH-BXJ, which is pronounced on the radio as "Bravo X-ray Juliet". For some reason this couldn't past my tongue without being scrambled. It came out variously as "Bruliet X-ray Juliet", "Brexray Juliet" and a couple of other similar verbal munges that must have highly amused the controllers. I've got to work on this radio stuff so I don't sound like a fool.
Julian the Tiger and Satomi on the front steps:
Last night after I got home Satomi and I went out to see a movie. We drove up to Neutral Bay (a somewhat expensive area halfway from here to downtown Sydney) and looked at the selection at the big theater there: Charlie's Angels (temptingly escapist, but started too late), Nutty Professor II (nope, no way, sorry...), The Dish (saw that already), Coyote Ugly (huh?) and a foreign film titled Himalaya. We picked the foreign film, and it was great. Really, if this is playing at some art house (Metro?) in Seattle, go see it. Outstanding scenery, terrific acting by the all-Nepalese cast, no Hollywood-ized plot (wherein some known actor -- or any non-ethnic person -- is inserted implausibly into the plot to give it some kind of anchor for a western audience). Gritty realism, classic epic plot. Good stuff.
Wow, three days and no posting. Must be post-holiday exhaustion.
Hitomi flew back to Seattle yesterday and Tamaki left last Saturday so the apartment is a bit less crowded. On Wednesday evening Hitomi, Satomi and I had a kid-free dinner at Blue Water, a sort of "last supper" for Hitomi before she goes back into the maelstrom of Microsoft.
Yesterday I sneaked out of work a bit early and we (including Chiemi and Yasna) drove over to Chatswood for another Thursday night shopping trip. And again Julian and I escaped the mall and wandered around the area (he wanted to take the train again, I distracted him with a plate of sashimi instead).
Chatswood is similar in many ways to Bellevue (Seattle suburb) in that it has many tall buildings (condos and offices), shopping malls, limited parking and too much noise. It differs a bit in that many of the businesses outside of the main mall (Chatswood Chase) are down-scale discount shops and outlets, many of them appearing to be quite temporary. In fact, many of the businesses in Chatswood are are operated by asian (mostly Chinese) immigrants, and it has the cluttered frenzy of (for example) certain districts of Vancouver, B.C.
Asian (and middle-eastern) immigration is highly apparent in Sydney, and the government is spending a lot of money in an attempt to change long-held conservative views and convince the public that diversity is one of Australia's major strengths. We watched some of the huge Federation Day events on television and two themes were being presented constantly: Diversity and Reconciliation.
Diversity took the form of Chinese-Australians, Vietnamese-Australians, Irish-Australians and Gay-Australians (to name just a few groups) marching in the same parade, presenting their particular group answers to the question "Who are we?", which was the theme of the parade. It was all rather over-the-top in terms of political correctness but nonetheless it was something I wish we could have in America: a sincere desire from the top (the political powers-that-be) to be inclusive and forward-thinking. Australian politicians are not monolithic in their thinking about these issues (and there are radio and newspaper pundits here who are just as fiery and right-wing as Rush Limbaugh to keep the pressure on them) but as a whole they do seem more enlightened than we Americans.
The other major theme, Reconciliation, is an initiative to create awareness of aboriginal culture and aboriginal issues. But this change in attitudes and in actual reality is apparently not coming as easy as the diversity initiative. True, aboriginal cultural (and religious/artistic) symbols have become mainstreamed in Australian cultural; it is now seen as something of a celebrity-enhancer to have Aboriginal roots (witness runner Cathy Freeman and actor Ernie Dingo, the latter having essentially replaced Paul Hogan as a sought-after figure in advertising), but aboriginal people themselves are notably absent in urban areas and middle-class suburbs. (I believe I've seen a total of two aboriginal families on the beach at Manly in nearly three months -- anyone else with darker skin was either a South Pacific Islander, an Indian or Pakistani or, very rarely, an African American on holiday. This is ironic given that Manly was named by an early settler who was impressed by the "manly" behavior of the local native population.)
Aboriginal people are still relegated to minor roles in society, they are not trusted with real work (actual quote: "They always go walkabout, you can't trust them with a job...") and they live, almost to a one, in communities either far from the major cities or in ghetto areas such as Redfern. Sound familiar? The problems faced by aboriginals here are virtually the same as faced by Native Americans (but are apparently much worse -- infant mortality rates among Australian aborginals is still shockingly high). The issues are complex, the solutions are not apparent, and the roots of these problems go back many generations. And for most of mainstream society it's easy to ignore them entirely, except as characters in ABC documentaries or as props in outback photographs.
I'm officially signed off now, and can fly in Australia (visual flight rules only, during daylight hours). Hooray!
Getting the sign-off required one more flight from Bankstown Airport with a senior instructor (Rohan is a "level one" instructor and can't do flight reviews). I flew a two hour navigation session with Mark Buttel, who explained that his only goal was to make sure I could fly the thing properly and not get lost. There were no air law questions, just a brief meeting on the ground to go over my flight preparations and review the Bankstown departure and arrival procedures, then we were off. The flight itself was uneventful (other than a couple of crummy crosswind landings at Wallongong) and Mark put a big endorsement stamp in my logbook.
Cowabunga!
New Year's Eve...
Julian and I left the apartment early (11:00 AM) to find a strategic location to park the car, intending to meet the others who would take a ferry into the city later on. (This was necessary because the ferries were going to stop running at 7:00 PM to clear the harbour for the fireworks display.) After parking near Chinatown we wandered around the central district for a bit. Hungry, we stopped and had lunch at a new place called "Sushi Train" just off George Street and close to Hyde Park. (Raw salmon and tuna with soy sauce is the only protein-rich meal Julian really likes to eat. I wanted him to have a good meal since this was going to be a long day, so we skipped the rice and instead just picked two big plates of sashimi.)
At Hyde Park there was a children's festival just starting, so we spent an hour there and Julian rode a few rides. I noticed that the carnival barkers here in Australia are pretty much the same as carnival barkers in America -- country hicks with crooked faces and gap-toothed grins, dark sunglasses under broad-brimmed hats, the same loud patter, but Australian-style: "Roll up, roll up, win the teddy, a prize for everyone, roll up!"
At mid-afternoon we met up with Satomi, Hitomi and Chiemi at Darling Harbour where we spent the rest of the afternoon and evening keeping ourselves entertained while waiting for the 9:00 fireworks show. There were multiple shows at various locations in the city. The biggest of these, the show at the Harbour Bridge, was at midnight and drew a crowd estimated at half a million people viewing from all sides of the harbor. Smaller shows were also held at 9:00 and 12:00 at Darling Harbour and at a few other locations.
From our vantage point on the boardwalk (front and center, with our toes hanging over the water) we had the best possible view of the smaller Darling Harbour show and of the impressive water ski demonstrations beforehand. And as a bonus we had a reasonably good view of one launching point for the much larger Harbour Bridge show further to the north. As we waited, camped out on our little strip of the boardwalk for two or more hours and eating marginally edible take-away food, it wasn't clear to me if it was worth all the hassle to be downtown for this. But after hearing Julian scream with excitement during the water ski show and during the fireworks (which were not very large but were right there), I changed my attitude completely; it was like being four years old again.
And driving home was surprisingly easy. Other than a few wrong turns finding the highway (and having to wait for hordes of people to cross the street before we could turn) it was a totally painless, traffic-free trip back to Manly.
After getting back to the apartment and getting Julian to bed, Satomi and I walked down the beachfront to the Manly Corso. It was mobbed with drunk revelers. Broken glass crunched under our feet as we jostled through the crowd, which seemed to have an average age of about 18. There was a terrible rock band playing just in front of the steps to the beach, and we saw two police officers pouring spiked bottles of Coke down the storm drain. The kebab and ice cream shops were doing a roaring business, the bars were packed. Midnight came with a slight increase in noise and a few sparklers and illegal fireworks. We didn't stay long, and were back at the apartment in time to catch the tail end of the big Harbour Bridge display on the TV.
Happy New Year!
The weather has cooled down considerably in the past few days, with broken clouds and temperatures in the lower 70s, some rain. Tonight looks to be less than perfect for the big fireworks extravaganza downtown.
Yesterday Julian headed out on our own again in the car. I wanted to go back to Bankstown airport to pick up a few charts, a navigation textbook and a protractor. We took a long route to get there, stopping at one point at a MacDonald's (blech) where Julian spent about an hour playing with some other kids while I studied some flying-related materials.
When we got back in the car and started it up, I noticed the exhaust was getting a bit loud. And as we drove the remaining five kilometers to the airport it got louder still until is sounded like an old truck, snorting and backfiring, and exhaust started coming in through the windows. (Your whole perspective about a car changes when this happens; what previously was a smooth, luxurious, almost magically efficient and modern conveyance is exposed for what it really is: a dirty, smelly machine that is really not much different than the dirty, smelly machines being built fifty years ago.)
At the airport I poked my head under the car and saw that the bolts holding two segments of the exhaust pipe together had loosened (one had fallen out) and the whole thing was in danger of falling out on the road, probably as a result of hitting too many high spots on that dirt road I'd taken the day before. Rather than deal with it immediately (I had no tools anyway) I took Julian in the pilot shop and hunted around for the things I needed. By the time we finished I had completely forgotten about the car problem and decided to drop in at Basair to say hello.
Julian skipped along beside me, taking constantly, as we walked over to Basair's small office. Coincidentally Rohan was just finishing up with a CPL student when we stepped in the door. And as it happened he was free for the rest of the day, and in fact Juliet Golf Romeo was sitting out there and it was a fine day to fly...
"Well, let's go!" I said. And off we went for a fifty minute flight over to Manly. Julian rode in the back seat, chattering all the time and taking pictures:
We were enroute back from Manly (after doing some steep turns just offshore at around 700 feet above the water) when suddenly a screw dropped out of the headliner and landed with a "plop" right in the middle of my chart. I looked at Rohan, and Rohan looked at me. We laughed and I said something flippant like, "Looks like the plane is falling apart, we'd better not scare the passengers."
A few minutes later, as we were approaching Bankstown to land, I noticed it had gotten rather quiet in the back seat. Rohan turned around to look and said, "he's crying."
Apparently Julian had taken my comment seriously. And to make matters worse the headset he was wearing was also falling apart. The microphone had come loose from its mount and the friction nut had falled behind the seat. It was only after we were safely on the ground and showed him the small screw that had fallen, and explained that it wasn't a problem, that he calmed down and was happy again.
Back at the car after the flight, I started the thing up and was confronted again with the awful noise and the smell. Damn.
I drove to the nearest service station and asked if they had any tools. No, the mechanics were gone for the day and the tools were locked up. But they did find a bolt that was just the right size, so I used a rag to keep from burning my hands, held the pipe up and put the bolt in finger-tight. Not much improvement in the sound, but at least it wouldn't fall apart right away.
A couple of kilometers down the road, in a scruffy part of Bankstown we passed a battered-looking car repair shop with an oddly appropriate Vietnamese name (Bangs Repair, I think it was) so I turned around and went back.
The mechanic (who I assume was Bang himself) looked under the car and said, "Just two bolt? I can do after this other car, cost you twenty-five dollar."
Less than fourteen bucks US sounded like a deal to me, so I parked the car and we waited for him to finish the brakes of an old Toyota. Bang had a number of thuggish (non-Asian) assistants, none of whom seemed to know what they were doing. But Bang was quick and efficient. The brake job was finished quickly, the Fairlane was put up on the lift and Bang took apart the exhaust. He extracted the rather scorched gasket, cleaned it off with a brush, applied some gasket compound then put the whole thing back together again with an impact wrench. I paid him thirty dollars and we drove off in smooth, quiet luxury.
After working for a few hours in the morning, I came home and picked up Julian and together we took a long drive out into the country to the west. (Satomi and the others wanted to go to an art museum, not a good destination for a four year old.)
We took the M2 motorway, then highway 40, until we finally got out of the suburbs and their endless housing developments and budget stores (including Home World, Caravan World and Battery World, to name a few) and into rural areas that I had flown over the week before when flying to Putty on my Christmas Eve nav.
We stopped in the town of Windsor for ice cream. Windsor is a nice little town with many well-preserved buildings from the early 1800s. The sandstone buildings, the brickwork and the metal roof overhangs look distinctively Australian:
Driving beyond Windsor we took a detour down a one-lane, very twisty dirt road that follows the Colo River roughly northward for about ten kilometers. The cicadas along this road were loud and constant, and the view was pretty. At one point we stopped (Julian was feeling a little carsick) and I noticed enormous numbers of large ants on the road. We sat on the car boot (rather than stand on the ground) while we had something to drink and a few crackers.
Along this stretch there were many farms, and many old houses similar to these:
At two points on the drive we crossed the Hawkesbury River by cable ferry. There are at least four of these ferries on the Hawkesbury, each taking about five minutes to cross the river and holding no more than 10 or 15 cars per crossing. (At the tiny Portland ferry we were the only car on the boat.)
After our walk last night Julian and I hopped a ferry into Sydney (everyone else was at the mall again... it's a Thursday night tradition). Seated across from us were a family of three who I at first assumed to be Indian. We got to talking (having a four-year-old kid often makes talking mandatory), and it turned out they were from Bangladesh. He (the father) was a partner in a leather tanning company and had flown his wife and son over for a quick vacation in Sydney before heading to Melbourne for business. With Julian's chatter it was hard to follow the whole trail of leather, but apparently there's big money worldwide in emu and crocodile hides. Tanning is (I was told) a complex process, and the hides are first processed in Melbourne, then finished in Bangladesh before being shipped elsewhere (including Japan, America, and Germany) for cutting and assembly into whatever authentic Australian products (boots and bags) are required. I wanted to hear more about it (global commerce is interesting, and global trade in animal hides seems a business full of shady characters) but the ferry landed and they were gone.
After returning from the flight (nearly an hour and half of driving through heavy traffic to travel the same distance we had gone -- including a big diversion to the north -- in twenty minutes by air) I took Julian for a walk along the beach (he on his bike, me on foot). We went around to Shelly Beach via the beachfront path, which was filled with strolling families. I noticed two Mormon missionaries, both looking palid and sweaty in their dress shirts, pants and ties, showing cartoons of Joseph Smith and the Angel Moroni to a pair of dotty-looking old women who were nodding absently, apparently enjoying the attention there were getting.
Coming back I noticed a large sign for "Iris Analysis" in front of a vitamin store. Last week Tamaki had mentioned this new fad ("Iridology") and had shown a photo taken of her own eyes and the resulting "diagnosis" and suggested treatment (vitamins, of course). I hadn't heard about this before (I'd seen the huge pictures of eyeballs outside health food stores in the states but had never stopped to read them) so I did a quick search on the web for Tamaki's benefit. If anyone reading this is considering wasting money on this psuedo-scientific blather, please visit the following:
A Quackwatch expose of Iridology, by Stephan Barrett, MD.
and...
The Skeptics Dictionary: Iridology
Also, if you start down this path, consider that many of these new-age health gimics are multi-level marketing schemes using tried-and-true tactics of salesmanship to extract money from hapless shills, whether through sales of useless (and potentially dangerous when mixed with other medications) herbs and vitamins or through expensive seminars, books and videos. I came across one web site featuring a beautific-looking couple who listed their various accomplishments (oh, how I wish they would also list what it cost them). What struck me as funniest was their completely middle-American looks (50-ish, puffy-cheeked, and respectively permed and balding) juxtaposed with their psuedo Native American necklaces and their bubbly descriptions of the wacky techniques they had learned. Of course the site featured the standard disclaimer: we do this for our own enlightment, we are not doctors, we do not suggest treatments (for doing so would be illegal)... but it's clear from the rest of the site that they believe they can treat any ailment with their eclectic mix of magical mumbo-jumbo and mind-body mysticism.
Touch for Health, Iridology, Wiccan Healing, Star of Brahman, Ohashiatsu, "The Path to Physical Enlightenment"... all of these (and a hundred more) are touted on the web, in the backs of natural health magazines and on the bulletin boards of health food co-ops. And there is a dangerous tendency for people to view them with a nearly religious lack of objectivity.
The problem here is not alternative health care (there are plenty of non-traditional treatments that have been proven to work: accupuncture, chiropractic, etc.) and even those techniques that are highly questionable in their basic understanding of human physiology (can someone explain to me again what a chakra is?) may have some value as simple meditation, relaxation or massage aids. The problem is that there is no widely-respected oversight organization. Practitioners of established (and apparently effective) methods like naturopathy, homeopathy, and chiropractic are so fearful of losing what they have gained in recent years (laws requiring insurance coverage in many states, for one thing) that they can't bring themselves to take a stand against what are clearly shams. And the many natural health oriented magazines are part of the problem. Open up any one of them: where are the critical articles and comparative studies? Given the enormous potential for fraud, where is the serious journalism? How do the consumers of this stuff become genuinely educated? It seems they don't, because that's not what they are seeking. Like new religious converts, they want someone else to do their thinking for them. They just want to be happy.
Bit of a rant, I know... but it bothers me to see people I care about get sucked into this. They'd be better off reading Mormon comic books.
I took Hitomi and Tamaki along today while I flew another short nav with Rohan at Basair. We departed from Bankstown Airport and flew north, over Parramatta and Pennant Hills to Patonga, a town about 12 miles due north of Manly, on Broken Bay. From there we turned south, crossing over Pittwater (which was filled with sailboats, many flying colorful spinnakers), then to the coast between Narrabeen and Dee Why, at a reporting point called Long Reef.
At Long Reef I called up Sydney Departure and requested airspace clearance for a tour of the harbour. We were cleared direct to the Harbour Bridge via Manly and got some excellent views while circling over the Opera House. This harbour circuit was the same route I had flown at the end of the previous trip. This time, however, rather than asking for clearance back to Bankstown, we departed the harbour to the east and dropped down to an altitude of just 500 feet above the waves to fly the "Victor One" scenic route along the southern beaches.
"Victor One" is a special air route set up for general aviation aircraft wishing to fly the coast for sightseeing purposes. Aircraft flying this route must maintain at or below 500 feet to stay out of the approach and departure corridor for Sydney International. In fact, flying this route brings you so close to Sydney International it's a bit spooky. One keeps a close eye on the altitude here.
Traveling south, we passed Bondi Beach and the southern cliffs (which were themselves nearly 500 feet high), past Maraoubra, Botany Bay and Port Hacking. Rohan pointed out some little-known beaches, as long and sandy as Bondi but virtually empty of people. Passing by the cliffs south of Wattamolla we saw dozens of hang gliders, some of them soaring well above our own altitude. We diverted south for a mile to avoid one glider in particular, then turned inland and climbed to 2000 feet for the return to Bankstown via the town of Appin.
The trip was thoroughly enjoyable and I finally felt confident with the radio work (ten or more frequency changes over the course of an hour and a half with an above-average number of clearance read-backs). My landing at Bankstown was a bit hard, but it was acceptable. (A Cessna 172 is not really a four-seat airplane, no matter how many seatbelts it may have. With every seat occupied and with full long-range tanks it handles like a pig).
I spent a few hours in the office today (pretty lonely there, as everyone else in the Corporate Centre was out on vacation), then went back to Manly for another surfing lesson. This time we went out into deeper water. There were bluebottles (or "stingers" as the surfers call them) all over the place, but they were easy to spot, floating like blue air-filled baggies on the surface. I was also wearing a full wetsuit (provided by the surf school) so I wasn't too concerned about being stung. (One guy in our class was wearing only shorts and a light short. He got a stinger on the arm and yelped in surprise and pain. Didn't stop him from surfing, though.)
The waves were fine and I became more confident on the board, but I caught only three waves in an hour and a half. It seems I need more arm and shoulder strength to be a surfer, and that's something I'm not likely to develop in a few lessons (or perhaps ever). Oh well, at least I've tried.
While I was playing in the surf, Satomi and the others were at Taronga Zoo in Sydney. Here are two pictures from their trip...
Hitomi and Tamaki:
Julian the tiger stalks his prey:
I can't believe I forgot about it...
Today is Boxing Day, the day-after-Christmas holiday celebrated in most of the British Commonwealth and its various progeny including Australia. Boxing Day is traditionally the day when the presents are put away ("boxed") and the house cleaned up for the new year.
But here in Sydney Boxing Day means something else also: the start of the week-long Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race.
The boats (huge, expensive blue water racers and smaller cruising vessels -- those that have the necessary safety equipment that is) leave Sydney Harbour in the morning for the long run to Hobart, Tasmania through some of the most treacherous and unpredictable waters anywhere, the Tasman Sea.
The start of the race is a big event in Sydney; thousands of people (and seemingly every seaworthy craft in the state) converge on the harbour to see them off.
And I forgot about it.
It would have been a simple matter to walk to the ferry wharf in the morning for the 15 minute ride over on the Jet-Cat. But it wasn't until we were installed on the beach well after noon and I saw the banner-towing airplanes overhead that I remembered the race. I dashed back the apartment and turned on the tube, but it was obvious the boats were already at sea, and even driving out to North Head (the exit of the harbor just ten minutes away) would be a waste of time, there would be nothing to see.
Oh, well. It's just a yacht race. (Sniff...)
For race details (and details of its tragic recent history) click here.
Boxing Day, 2000, another hot day from the feel of it.
Here are two pictures from a walk this morning down to Shelly Beach (just south of Manly).
This is Shelly Beach:
And this is a view from the Shelly Beach headlands looking back toward Manly:
Our apartment is right in the center of this picture (behind the pine trees and not really visible).
On the way back from the walk I found Tamaki and Hitomi having coffee at a waterfront cafe. I stopped and had a cappuccino with them and we talked a bit about Australia and how it differs from (or is similar to) America and Japan: ahead is some ways, behind in others. I offered the opinion that Sydney (which doesn't really represent Australia as a whole) is similar to Boston. The city is about the same age and size, has the same feel of too-small streets and too-fast traffic, and the people (huge generalization here) have many similar traits, ranging from the way people drive (generally too fast and badly) to the way they dress (more urbane than, say, Seattle) and the way they entertain themselves ("clubbing" and drunken brawls on the street, but high culture as well with many museums, fine restaurants and bookshops). And in physical appearance the Sydney-siders are also similar to the citizens of Boston, New York or (even more so) Toronto: they tend to be thinner that people in, say, the western U.S.
And small things also... again, I don't want to paint a picture of a whole society based on a few individuals and a few isolated episodes, but I think Bill Bryson (In a Sunburned Country) missed quite a lot of the negative aspects of Australian society. For example, we've had a number of problems here related to the apartment that seem exactly the sort of problem one would have on the east coast. We're told a problem will be fixed, or that someone will be "right over" or "no worries, we'll call the builder right now"...
The initial impression (like in New York or Boston) is that the people are fast to act: they exude confidence. But then we'll find later that we've been flatly lied to. Another example (again, it's dangerous to judge a society by anecdotes): Satomi has been short-changed four or five times (small amounts, usually a dollar). I thought perhaps this was because she looked like a Japanese tourist and was buying small things in tourist areas. But then it happened to me, and the technique was telling: I was with Julian in the central business district (not a tourist area) and we had ordered a sandwich and a drink at a take-away counter. The total was around seven dollars. I had only a fifty-dollar bill and the place was quite busy. The guy behind the counter quickly put the sandwich and drink up, accepted the fifty dollar bill and pulled two bills out of the till and three coins. There were other people in line behind me so things were a bit rushed. I stuffed the money into my wallet, not thinking right away to count it. But then I noticed that he had a ten dollar bill in his hand, and he was saying something (barely audible) like, "Did I give you?... No worries mate..." while quickly (too quickly) crumpling the bill into his palm and out of sight. I opened my wallet again and found a twenty and a ten, not two twenties as I'd expected. I told the guy (loudly) that he'd short-changed me and he quickly passed me a fresh bill (not the crumpled one he had hidden), and then went on to the next customer as though nothing had happened (episode over, I had become a non-person to him).
I know; this could happen anywhere. But it was so smooth, so practiced. This is exactly the sort of thing that New York, Boston, Philadelphia and other large East Coast cities are famous for. We'll see over the next four months if my opinion changes but it doesn't seem likely (and most probably this an urban Sydney phenomenon, or a symptom of large cities in general...).
In the meantime, we'll be counting our change and following a course of assuming honesty, but verifying everything.
Christmas Day, Manly Beach...
The weather today was cooler than the past two days, and there was a good breeze off the water. And the surf was low (good for boogie boarding). Really a perfect day for being at the beach and doing nothing much else...
...so we spent most of today just lazing on the beach. In place of a more traditional meal we ate a take-away lunch of chicken kebab and two pieces of pizza. The kebab and ice cream shops on the Corso were doing a brisk business (Christmas or not, they would be crazy not to stay open).
The beach was crowded, and not entirely with tourists and ex-pats. Quite a few families were set up for the day with their Eskies (coolers) full of beer and soft drinks. We saw at least one Christmas tree propped up in the sand, and in another case a large inflatable palm tree served as a stand-in.
Happy Holidays!
The temperature today hit 36 degrees (96F?). Kind of hot for a Christmas, we think.
In the morning I drove to Bankstown airport for some more dual time. With Rohan in the right seat I flew a two and half hour nav with six different legs, including a segment within controlled airspace right over downtown Sydney.
Rohan wanted to see if I still remembered how to dead reckon so he had me obtain a forecast (winds aloft of 15 to 25 knots) and plan a number of time/speed segments to arrive over a very small town in the foothills of the mountains (a place with the odd name of Putty) with a precise estimate of time of arrival for each segment. I found the town easily enough, then he had me do an immediate diversion from the flight plan to a new destination. This required in-flight use of the protractor and the E6-B (which I was never very good at) but I did alright and we arrived at the next checkpoint within a few minutes of my ad-hoc estimate.
The only trouble was the touch-and-go he asked me to do at Cessnock airport (in the Hunter Valley north of Sydney). I botched the approach and was too high to make it. But Rohan didn't seem concerned and said I was ready for the flight check with a senior instructor. I was less sure so I asked for more dual time (with a couple of sightseeing passengers) next week.
Here are some pictures from today's flight (Rohan drove the camera while I drove the airplane):
Other pictures from today:
Two pictures from the Powerhouse Museum (a fabulous place filled with machines of all kinds, technology-related exhibits, musical instruments, and more):
I left work early today (around 11:30) got on some beach duds and went for a surfing lesson at Manly Surf School. It was a lark: for an hour and a half I and six others (mostly men about my age, and two women) did battle with three- and four foot high breakers. It was exhausting, but I did manage to ride a few waves with some level of control. Mostly, though, I would catch a wave and lose my balance, falling off into the surf or (worse) catch the leading edge of the board in front of the wave and go submarining toward the bottom with a wave crashing on top of me.
I paid in advance for three lessons, so once I can move (every muscle hurts) I'll be out there again. Cowabunga!
Yesterday was Thursday, which as I've said before is shopping day; the stores and malls remain open until 9:00PM (normally shops close at around 6:00 or 7:00). So Satomi, Julian, Tamaki, Hitomi and I all piled in the car and drove over to Chatswood, a large suburban center just north of Sydney.
Julian and I had no interest in hanging around a shopping mall, so after we parked the car he and I made our escape and walked to the nearby train station. Tickets were cheap ($3.20 AUS for a round trip) so we boarded a train and headed across the harbour bridge and into downtown Sydney. We ate dinner at a small cafe on George Street, then wandered around, past the huge fake Christmas tree (where a police band was playing "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas") and finally into a large hobby shop. Julian spent half an hour looking at the train displays while I poked around the model airplane section.
Riding back to Chatswood on the train, Julian talked non-stop. Sample dialogue:
J: "Is this train a Max?"
D: "No, the Max is a Japanese train."
J: "Why is Max a Japanese train?"
D: "That's where it is, in Japan."
J: "What's this train called?"
D: "I don't know.. look, there's a number on the wall.."
J: "Is this train called D1518?"
D: "I think that's the car number."
J: "Why is it a car number?"
D: "So they know what car this is."
J: "Is this the same car we rode on?"
D: "I don't know, it could be."
J: "But our car had three steps, this car has five steps." (The train had double-decker cars.)
D: "I guess it's a different car then."
J: "Why is it a different car?"
And on, and on, and on...
This morning I woke early (too hot to sleep, and there's a bothersome noise coming from the rear of the apartment, apparently an over-stressed car-park ventilation fan). I intended to run on the beach, but already at 7:30 it was too sticky hot to get motivated, plus I was feeling more than a bit tired (up too late last night after a busy day). So instead I installed myself in a waterfront cafe and ate a meandering breakfast while browsing the newspaper. Here are a few of today's domestic news headlines from the Morning Herald:
Local high schools fall from HSC honour roll. (The subtext of this article is that private schools are quickly pulling away from public schools, there is a drain of good students and money away from the public school system... sound familiar?)
Cosgrove forced to keep the flag flying in Liberal seat. (This article describes a classic case of pork-barrel politics, whereby a military base that was to be closed will now be kept open as part of a back-room deal to retain Liberal Party power in some district. Or something like that.)
I'll hold my tongue, says Governor. (Subtext: New South Wales has its first ever woman Governor. The Governor is primarily a ceremonial position here. Since Australia is still not an independent Federal Republic, each state has a Governor who is appointed by the Premier, and this Governor serves as the local representative of the Queen of England. The new governor, a Dr. Bashir, has apparently been quite outspoken about issues of Australia's sovereign status and its tainted history under the monarchy, and in particular of aboriginal and immigration issues. She is not only a woman, but she is also ethnic Lebanese in a country that until the 1970s had quite draconian, essentially "whites only" immigration policies.)
Journey of a Nation will end in Rupert Murdoch's pocket. (Now here's an interesting tirade: The 100 year celebration of Australia's Federation is coming up, and it seems media mogul Rupert Murdoch has bought exclusive rights to publish photographs of the event. This has raised the hackles of other news organizations who point out that taxpayers are primarily the ones who are footing the bill for the extravaganza, which is called Journey of a Nation and will involve a parade of 6,500 performers and 100 floats. The fact that Murdoch traded his Australian citizenship for an American passport -- clearly to avoid paying taxes here -- has given the Herald even more reason to cry "foul!")
Tonight Satomi and I went to dinner with two visitors from Japan (Someya-san and Shimazaki-san) who are here visiting Protel. Someya-san and I have had irregular contacts for over four years and now I'm trying to create a business relationship between his company and Protel. Their product is somewhat revolutionary but it's not clear they can successfully bring it to market unless they have the help of a larger company, or at least work with of a U. S. based representative. I don't know at this point if our companies can work together (the business goals are not completely compatible even if the technology is a perfect match), but in any event we had a good two days of meetings culminating in a quite enjoyable meal (on Protel's account, naturally) at a fine Chinese restaurant on the waterfront, just across the harbor from the Opera House.
It's always good to bring Satomi along to meetings like this; she's a good judge of character and in this case echoed my thoughts that Someya is a "good guy", honest and sincere. (In fact, I'm impressed enough with him and his company that if Protel passes it up I might just propose something to him myself... er, after my non-compete agreement expires that is.)
Anyway, riding back on the Jet-Cat (on the open top deck, as it was a warm night) I tried making sense of the navigation aids on the harbor. It's a confusing place, full of bouys, daymarks, mid-channel markers and inscrutable flashing shore lights. When I was here in August I took a short sailboat cruise on the harbor and asked the skipper (an expat Kiwi named Jack) why the markers are reversed from the US and Canada. He had sailed in Canada and knew of the difference (in the americas red bouys indicate the right side of a channel entering the harbor, but in Australia, Asia and Europe it is exactly reversed) but couldn't explain why. My coastal navigation instructor (in September) also had no answer. but did offer the information that the world is divided into two navigation "areas" with different rules.
Then finally I came across an answer: it seems in the war against the British the American navy attempted to confuse the attacking fleet by switching the bouys: right became left and left became right. The system was never put back, and "red right returning" became the law of the Americas.
Pictures from a trip to Sydney today (just Julian and me).
This is Hyde Park (Julian took this picture):
And here is Julian at the Australian Museum, an excellent (really!) natural history museum next to Hyde Park:
Yesterday was hot and sunny, so it was "hit the beach" day. Our friend Hitomi Kuno arrived from Seattle in the morning, and after returning from the airport we loaded our arms with beach toys and found ourselves a patch of sand. We now have sunburns in every spot we missed with the sunscreen (the sun is brutal here). For me that includes (ahem...) the top of my head. Ouch.
This morning I ran on the beach again and saw a new collection of washed up jellyfish. Usually (when they are present) I find either bluebottles (Portuguese man-o-wars) or little round transparent ones. But these jellyfish were a sort of pink or rose color, and so numerous I needed to be careful not to step on them.
There are a number of terribly poisonous "jellies" in Australia, although apparently the nastiest of them don't appear in Sydney very often. Here's a page that describes some of them. The box jellyfish (also called a "sea wasp") in particular sounds like a critter you don't want to mess with. Its sting is often fatal, and the pain has been described as being so severe that the victim may go into uncontrollable screaming spasms before expiring (of heart and respiratory failure) five minutes after being stung. Ouch.
Last night Satomi escaped again to a local shopping area, so Julian and I went for a walk to find some dinner. First we ate a bowl of ramen at a japanese noodle house, then (after poking around in a few shops) went to a different cafe for more food. Fries and catsup ("chips and tomato sauce") for him, a rocket and parmesan salad for me.
We shared a raspberry smoothie, then walked up the Corso. The weather was warm and humid, the palm trees were waving and there, in the middle of it all (surfers with bare feet, tourists with sunburns) was a brass band playing "Jingle Bells". It was getting dark, and soon there were candles being passed around, carols being sung. A fresh-faced couple (Donny and Marie clones) got up on a little stage and started signing along with a karaoke-type soundtrack, but then the rain started (humidity hit 100%) and the people began dispersing.
I can't get used to the idea of Christmas being in the middle of summer. It just doesn't seem natural so (fair warning) if we get the ambition to send cards in time it will be a surprise to me.
Here's another funny taxi story. Recall (from an earlier posting) that we ended up with two irate taxi drivers, both claiming that they were called to take us to our visa-related medical examinations in Sydney. Simon, another American here for a temporary stay (he also sold his company to Protel) had a slightly different tale to tell about his trip downtown for the same medical exam.
According to Simon, his taxi driver arrived on time but was in a foul mood. Halfway downtown he told Simon that he had been "out with the mates" all night and was "real tired". When they arrived downtown at the medical building, though, the guy perked up a bit and said, "Hey, some mates of mine live right across the street. If you need a ride back I'll be over there."
Simon's appointment took a couple of hours (mostly waiting in the reception area), and when he came out of the building he noticed a taxi (he couldn't be sure it was the same one) parked across the street, outside a small apartment building. Simon waited on the street for a while, trying to flag another taxi, then finally gave up and crossed to the other side. As soon as he got there, out from the building walked (or rather, staggered) his taxi driver, completely blotto.
"Oh, man," the driver said before Simon could speak, "I don't know about going back... I'm real tired."
Simon took the ferry to Manly.
I went to the doctor this afternoon, got the ear problem fixed (I'll spare you the details), got my blood pressure checked again (down to a more reasonable number, but still a bit high) and discussed the results of a cholesterol test (on the high end of normal).
Total bill for the visit: about $20 US. There was no hidden subsidy (I don't have a medical card here). Again, can somebody explain to me why US health care is so absurdly expensive? Our health statistics don't seem to indicate that Americans are getting more for their money, so what am I missing here?
I woke this morning with a plugged ear and a back ache.
I'm not sure why, but my body always seems to fall apart with multiple ailments at once. My back went out (with a loud "pop") when I picked up Julian too quickly last night. Satomi, Chiemi and two neighbors were going to the mall for "provisions" and I was getting ready to take Julian out for some food (sushi, of course). He was being slow, I was impatient and I bent over to pick him up, intending to deliver him bodily to the bathroom for one last job before we left the apartment. Oooh, the pain... it will take a few days to recover.
The ear thing is something else. I had this problem just before we left to come here, but it cleared up (fortunately) before we made the flight. Then it started again, but milder, a couple weeks later. (I mentioned it to the doctor at my flight physical who suggested drops.) Now it's back with a vengeance and my hearing is almost gone in the right ear. I have an appointment this afternoon to have it looked at.
Crumbling health aside, everything is fine here. The weather has been warm (a bit too warm) for the past week, the beach is getting more crowded and (in a few days) so will our apartment.
I've been listening to a terrific public ("community") radio station here. The station, 2SER is a bit like Seattle's KCMU was back when they had more editorial freedom and (as a result) more public affairs programming. Like other progressive media (The Nation, etc.) 2SER is sometimes embarrassingly slanted (and charmingly inept), but there is so much money behind outlets that tilt the other way that it's refreshing to hear the kind of biting satire and to-the-point debates that they air.
And the music ain't bad either. For a left-leaning Australian perspective on the world, check it out via streaming audio at www.2ser.com.
Here are some snapshots from today's Protel boat cruise (summer party):
And here are two snapshots from Manly on a Sunday afternoon...
The first picture is the Corso, a pedestrian avenue that goes from the ferry wharf to the ocean-front. This picture is looking toward the ocean (east). Notice the old building fronts:
And this is Manly Beach on a warm weekend day. Quite crowded:
(This picture was taken at random with the camera held up over my head. But notice the Japanese guy in the lower-right looking at the camera... he could be the identical twin brother of a friend of ours in Osaka. It was rather a surprise later to see "him" appear in the picture.)
After returning from Sydney last night, Satomi and I got a bit dressed up and went to a wedding reception being given by the software group manager at Protel, a french guy named Marc Depret. We had a bit of trouble finding it. My recollection (from an email) was that it was at the "Dee Why Beach Club". There was no such club, of course. So we first went to the Dee Why Lifesaving Club, then the Collaroy Beach Club, then finally I called someone and found out it was at the Curl Curl Lifesaving Club (which is near Dee Why on the beach).
Confusion aside, it was a fun party with a Brazilian band, plenty of food and a diverse collection of people.
Here are some pictures from a day-trip into Sydney yesterday:
Satomi and Chiemi pushing Yasna:
This is Sydney Observatory:
The observatory was built by the British in the mid-1800s in order to observe a transit of Venus across the sun. This was in the era of "big science" for Britain. The goal for this one specific measurement was to determine (using some fancy math) the distance of the earth from the sun. The observatory now contains many old telescopes and other scientific instruments from the 1800s, plus a variety of multimedia exhibits. Quite an interesting place to visit, and we (Julian and I) stumbled across it by accident.
Here are two pictures taken from the ferry on the return trip to Manly:
Yesterday Satomi and I went to dinner in Sydney with a couple who are here from Poland. He (Maciek) is a simulator expert Protel is trying to recruit away from a competitor. His wife (Joana) is a neurologist. (In fact Maciek was also a doctor before switching to software. Apparently there isn't much money in the doctor business in Poland.)
We dined at a randomly selected (and somewhat expensive) restaurant at Circular Quay, with a good view of the opera house. The food was good, other than the bruscetta appetizer we had to send back when a large bug crawled out of it.
Today I went out at lunch to pick something up at Warringah Mall (needed to buy a small gift for the "secret santa" exchange at work). Yikes, what a parking nightmare that was. I should have just given up, but finally after about twenty minutes of parking lot cruising I found a spot in an obscure corner of the lot.
Thursday is a big shopping day here (the stores stay open later than usual) and Christmas is coming soon. The mall was packed; I got my gift (a book of classic email jokes), had a chicken sandwich and fought my way back out.
Last night Satomi and went out after dinner (leaving Julian with Chiemi) for a quiet evening. First we walked over to the Manly Cinema (a small theater with two screens) and watched The Dish, an excellent movie set in 1969 about the Apollo 11 mission and the impact it had on the small farm town of Parkes, New South Wales. Parkes was (and still is) the location of the large radio telescope that was used to relay television images from the first moon landing.
Before going back to the apartment we stopped at a cafe (In Situ) to share a slice of cake and a coffee. A fine date.
On Tuesday morning I went into Protel's Hobart office to meet the staff and give them a short presentation on the new products. Protel was founded in Hobart, then moved briefly to California (to become established in the US market) before settling finally in Sydney. The office in Hobart now serves as a small development center with about 15 employees doing component library development work.
After finishing at the office I returned to the Warren house where Satomi was just finishing packing our bags. We said our goodbyes, then drove back into Hobart for a final lookaround.
Hobart is a city that it is very easy to like. Consider this: for less than 100,000 US dollars you can buy a modest waterfront home, or perhaps one up on a hill with a commanding view, just a short drive from the center of the city. There is no traffic to speak of (the population of the greater Hobart area is under 200,000), the air and water are quite possibly the cleanest on the planet, the schools are good, food is cheap and there are vast areas of natural wilderness all around (20 percent of Tasmania is a World Heritage area). The weather in summer is excellent (very much like Seattle or Portland), while the winters are comfortable (it never freezes). There is an occasional storm that blows in from the "roaring forties", but these never last more than a day. Hobart is the second-driest state capital in Australia. And the city itself is a gem: great sandstone buildings and small colonial homes preserved from 150 years ago, fabulous gardens (including a world-class botanical garden), cafes and bookshops... In a lot of ways Hobart reminds me of Portland, Oregon (particular in its love of books and the arts) but the good weather, the surrouding natural areas and the well-preserved European-style buildings are in a class by themselves. People from Sydney and Melbourne seem to think that Tasmanians are backward and unsophisticated, but it seemed to us they live extremely rich lives. Hobart is a university town as well as a state capital, and the number of bookstores per capita must exceed Sydney's by a large margin. And if you really need a big, noisy city and huge shopping malls, Melbourne (shopping capital of the nation, so we're told) is just a 50 minute flight away.
Just before going to the airport we stopped for a walk through the extensive Botanical Gardens. Absolutely terrific.
This is a picture of the entrance to the japanese garden...
...but there's much more to see and we couldn't see it all in the hour we had to spare.
Here is some offical Tasmania and Hobart information to explore: Tasmanian Tourism Board
Monday morning found us sleeping in again. Satomi swam in the pool, I read more of the "Eccentrics" book (finally someone suggested I take it with me), then Dave announced he had a plane reserved out at the airport. Remembering the Friday fiasco I asked if Satomi and Julian could ride along. Dave called Tasair and talked with the senior instructor. (Mentioning that I would be in the right seat might have helped, as Dave does not yet have his full Private License. He can legally take passengers, but only in the training area and only with an instructor approving each flight.)
We took separate cars and went out to the airport. Dave pre-flighted the plane, we all got in and he went through the starting checklist. When he got to the part where it says "turn the key" the engine made a sick, groaning noise and the propeller went one quarter turn before stopping. A mechanic was called over, the battery was declared dead, and we were assigned a new plane. This one started fine and we took off uneventfully for another nice flight. We circled over downtown Hobart (and the nearby International Cataramans factory), took some pictures, cruised out over the water toward Eaglehawk Neck and had quite a smooth flight, aside from a bit of low-level turbulence near the ocean beaches, where we found the small beach where we had first dropped anchor the day before:
Dave's landing was excellent and he was quite happy when we got back and shut down the engine.
After flying, Satomi, Julian and I got into the rental car and drove south to Port Arthur. We had read very little about the place and were surprised by the large Georgian sandstone buildings (it was one of the first British penal colonies) and the beautiful surroundings. We didn't have much time (we had stopped on the way to visit the Tasmanian Devil Park, which was a bit dissappointing) but the late afternoon light was nice and we shot at least two rolls of film.
When leaving we noticed a memorial with pictures of three young park employees at the visitor center. Later we asked Dave Warren about this and he reminded us of the 1996 massacre. We had heard about this already but had failed to connect it to Port Arthur. The 1996 massacre (carried out by an insane person with a hunting rifle) has the horrifying distinction of being the most people killed in any one shooting rampage. In a short period, one man with one gun killed 35 people and wounded dozens more. (Postscript: soon after typing this I learned that the guy who sits in the office next to mine -- a guy who moved here from Hobart with Protel -- knew the killer in high school, and in fact was with him the first time he fired a hunting rifle.)
On Sunday everyone slept in; I was up early and started reading a book I found on a shelf: "Eccentrics", by David Joseph Weeks. It's an interesting book, and very fun to read as it alternates between scholarly discources on the nature of eccentric behavior and dozens of examples of real eccentrics, some quite famous (Albert Einstein, Howard Hughes, Emily Dickenson) and others who live obscure but often bizarre lives (like a certain native american who always walks backwards, or another who builds wierd contraptions out of other people's trash).
Satomi took a swim in the pool, I took a short walk. At around 11:00 we all headed off to the boat (moored just down the street) for a day of sailing. This was the first day (other than the brief trip on Friday) that it had been out since being rebuilt and Dave was excited about the new feel (and the extra knot of speed) of the boat. We sailed downwind under genoa to a small beach across the water and south from Hobart, where we dropped the anchor for lunch. But almost as soon as the hook was down Michelle noticed that the wind was "too calm" and that there was a patch of rough water heading toward us from the west. Sure enough, within minutes we were being blasted by 25 knot winds. We quickly fired up the diesel and pulled up the anchor (we were on a lee shore) then motored across, into the wind, to a more protected anchorage where there were a dozen or so other boats achored. There we spent a lazy afternoon playing on the beach, eating sandwiches and (in my case) getting a bit over-cooked in the Tasmanian sun before sailing back to Hobart.
On Friday morning Dave drove me out to Cambridge and introduced me to the guys at Tasair. Tasair is a low-key operation, with a shared facility for scheduled and chartered flights and flight training. Lynn, the instructor, had me sit and chart out a VFR nav with four legs (all of them short). I put the E6B to work and got the wind angles and ETEs figured out. It came back pretty quickly; I've been studying coastal navigation lately and the techniques are similar (the biggest difference is that winds corrections are generally worked out using true headings on a mechanical or electronic flight computer, while current corrections are worked out from magnetic headings using the chart and a parallel ruler). He seemed satisfied with that work, gave me a quick briefing on the departure procedures (the Cambridge traffic, including ground traffic, is under the control of nearby Hobart tower) and we took off in a bright yellow C-172, "Juliet Oscar Kilo":
The Cessna was much more familiar to me than the Warrior I flew in Bankstown and we had a fine flight over spectacular scenery. The coast around Hobart looks quite a lot like the San Juan Islands: islands and bays with cliffs, small deserted beaches and clear water, lots of trees. We landed once at a dirt strip on Bruney Island (I was very happy with the approach and landing, but my short field takeoff procedure was botched... if there had been trees at the end we would have been in them). In total we were in the air 1.5 hours and I enjoyed every minute of it.
Back at the Tasair office the phone rang and Dave Warren was on the line. He asked me to call a taxi and meet him at a certain address, "The girls know what's going on..."
The secretary at Tasair called a cab and I gave the address. Twenty minutes later I was at a boatyard on the north side of the large bridge spanning the harbour, where Dave's boat, a 35-foot center cockpit sloop, was just being cleaned up after a month-long refit. All the interior wood had been re-varnished, the steering gear rebuilt, the engine remounted and other work done. It was a perfect afternoon, and we sailed south under the bridge to the marina, where Michelle was waiting to pick us up.
Satomi was justifiably unhappy (angry is a better word) that I had been gone all day; I decided to cancel the flying for the next day to help patch things up.
On Saturday morning we went to the Hobart Salamanca Market. The market stretched for three blocks along the waterfront, directly in front of the historic old warehouse buildings that now house shops and cafes. It was like a University District street fair, but it's held every Saturday, year-round. We spent nearly three hours exploring the booths, buying a few items along the way. Julian had ice cream (it's become a bad habit, some days he gets two or three by the time the day is over) and we ate noodles and teriyaki beef.
On the way to the market we had arranged to pick up a rental car. After getting lost at the market (lost track of the Warren's, which was probably fine with them anyway) we drove up to Mt. Wellington, a 1600 meter peak that looms over the harbor. The view from the top was expansive; all of Hobart stretched below us and we could look in all directions, seeing (it seemed) most of Tasmania. I could easily identify the route I had flown the previous day (the mountain was higher than we had climbed in the plane). Quite beautiful, although it got a bit chilly when the sun went behind a cloud.
In the evening we left Julian with the two boys (Tim is 13) and went to dinner at the waterfront with Dave and Michelle in the evening. A full day, but nice.
We're in Tasmania now. Thursday we drove to the airport through an apocalyptic thunder storm. There was an astounding amount of rain coming down, and great bolts of lightning. Traffic was pretty snarled up in the Mosman area, but fortunately we had left quite early in order to have a "low stress" drive to the airport. Some flights out of Sydney were delayed or canceled, but ours was just forty minutes late departing and the storm had blown itself out by the time we took off.
We were met in Hobart by Dave Warren, a Protel Director and native Tasmanian (and a very nice guy to top it off). Dave was one of three major shareholders in Protel prior to its going public, and the IPO has made him (as he likes to put it, usually while laughing) "buckets of money". Dave Warren's interesting history is chronicled in an alumni magazine published this month by the University of Tasmania. Read it here.
Dave picked us up in his new ("three hours old") BMW 330ci convertible and we drive into town, taking a few scenic detours before arriving at their home in Sandy Bay. We were given a guest room and a bathroom and some introductions. Michelle, his wife, was just seeing off some friends she had taken a six-day hike with. The two boys, Tim and Mike, were just being dragged away from their respective computers and sent off to bed.
In the morning we got our first real look at the house, and at the city of Hobart. This is the front of the Warren's house:
And here is a view from the inner courtyard, looking back toward the wing containing the indoor pool:
The house was built around 90 years ago, then subsequently remodeled and added onto over the course of the century. As a result it now sprawls around in a U-shape and has around 8000 square feet of living space, plus small but nice gardens on two sides. Many of the windows and locks are original (small leaded glass panes in wood frames, brass locks with old-style keys) and the house has many antiques.
The plan for the weekend (evolving) is for me to get some dual time out at Cambridge airport (at Tasair), then go up with the senior instructor tomorrow (Saturday) for a flight review. Dave wants to squeeze a day of sailing in as well... it will be a busy weekend.
It was another fine morning today. I was up and on the beach around 6:30 and did some more running. I've never been a runner (too lazy and it hurts too much), but it's amazing how fast endurance builds. I've been doing this for two weeks (every other day or so) and it's getting a lot easier.
It's getting more humid here. Yesterday when we were downtown it was warm and sticky, then finally the air got saturated and it started to rain in fat drops while we walking through chinatown (the health office was near there and we were hungry).
Regarding yesterday, here's a funny taxi story: Protel said they would pay for it, so we decided to take a taxi downtown rather than take the ferry and walk from the wharf (I was short on time anyway). So in the morning I called Manly Cabs to reserve a taxi for 11:10 with a pick up in front of the apartment. When I came home from work in the morning before the appointed time, our neighbor Lisa was visiting and she told us her experience of being late for their visa medical appointment because the taxi showed up an hour late. This got me worried so I looked up the number for Manly Cabs again and called to make sure they would be there on time.
"Are you ready to go now?", the dispatcher asked.
"Yes," I said, then mentioned again that I already had a booking for 11:10, just wanted to make sure that it would be there.
"No worries," said the dispatcher, and I hung up.
A few minutes later I noticed a taxi waiting out front. We grabbed our things and went out to meet it. When we got there (it was around the corner) we noticed another cab parked in front of it. As we approached both drivers got out and said, in unison, "Pellerin?".
The drivers then proceeded to get into a heated argument about whose fare it was, both saying, "you can look right here on the computer". Finally I broke in with, "Look, I'll call a third cab if you can't figure it out". We eventually got into the first one I'd seen, and as we got in I looked up and noticed Lisa standing on her balcony laughing.
After talking to the driver I figured out that the number I called the second time was not Manly Cabs, but another company. For some reason (that the driver couldn't explain) the old toll-free number for Manly Cabs (published in whatever directory I had used) was now the number for other company. Go figure.
(Julian was getting concerned: as Satomi says he is "sensitive". After we got in the taxi he asked quietly, "What would happen if we got in the other taxi?")
Exhausting day... I was up at 5:00 AM (after getting to bed late) and drove to the airport to pick up Chiemi and Yasna, who are visiting from New York. After dropping them off at the apartment it was off to work for a few hours, then back to the apartment to get ready for our appointment with the Australian Health Services (in downtown Sydney) for visa-related medical exams. For Satomi and me that just meant chest x-rays, and for Julian a quick once-over by a doctor (for the first time he cooperated fully and even said "that was easy" when it was done). Then back to work in the afternoon, with an important conference call (Poland on the other end) scheduled for 6:30PM. Long day, I'm bushed.
Julian was quite excited to see Yasna ("Ya-chan") and Chiemi. He was still asleep when they arrived, but he woke up when Yasna came in the bedroom and bounced a ball on his head. She is a year and a half old now, walking, and Julian seems happy that they're here. (We have mixed feelings about them staying for two months, but we plan to take advantage of the situation and go see some movies, have some quiet dinners and leave Julian at home with Chiemi...)
Today I drove back down to Bankstown Airport for my first appointment with Basair to get checked out for flying here. Bankstown Airport is a busy place (most operations per year in all of Australia) but today it looked pretty quiet. Rohan (my instructor) followed me through the preflight, pointing out small things I might have missed and giving me a standard checklist to use. Although I only had three prior hours in a PA-28 (the venerable Piper Cherokee) the airplane was simple enough that there were no real surprises (other than my inability to find the static ports... and Rohan didn't seem to know where they were either).
Climbing into the cockpit (which was sweltering hot) we went through the pre-start checklist, reviewed the departure procedures (a bit complex due to the proximity of Sydney International) and fired up the engine. The taxi, runup and takeoff were uneventful and we headed southeast toward the local training area. Rohan had me do a bit of slow flight, some steep and climbing turns and some other air work. I did fine on all that, then he suggested we head back for some "circuits" (touch and goes). My radio procedures were a bit rusty (accidentally called Sydney Enroute for a landing clearance, then told Bankstown tower the wrong aircraft ID, giving them the ATIS identifier "Foxtrot" instead of the last letter of the aircraft call sign).
Then came the landings. On attempt #1, I didn't correct for the 15 knot crosswind at pattern altitude and ended up on a looong base and final (not having recalibrated the directional gyro didn't help), then did a roller-coaster flare to a "barely tolerable" crosswind touchdown. Attempt #2 was a better approach, but I came in a bit hot (thank you, asphalt pavers!). On attempt #3 (this was a no-flap approach) we caught some latent wake turbulence and I had to recover from an unexpected bank on short final, otherwise very sweet, wheels just kissed in nicely. On attempt #4 Rohan said "We'll request a glide for this one", then yanked the power off. I flew it in without touching the power and made the field just fine (although I had to fly the final at a nearly 45 degree angle to the runway due to overextending the downwind leg and again forgetting to consider the crosswind).
Rohan seemed satisfied that I could fly (after so many years that was a relief). But in order to fly out of Bankstown I'll need another session (a "nav") to make sure I understand the local procedures and can either stay out of the CTA (that's a TCA in the states) or request proper clearances to enter it. I'm eager to do this because there is a spectacular-looking scenic route (published as "Victor One") that snakes around and under the CTA (and enters it at one point if clearance is granted) to get a view of the northern and southern beaches, Sydney harbour and the opera house. At one point the route requires that the pilot remain at or below 500 feet (to stay clear of Sydney jet traffic), which is not much higher than the cliff-tops the route follows.
I may also get some dual complex time next time I fly. (There's this sexy-looking Socata Tobago parked next to the Cherokee.)
Here's the Cherokee:
And here's Rohan (the instructor):
So we survived. That's 1.1 hours dual toward an Australian "license to fly".
Today, Saturday, we took a drive north, over the "Brooklyn Bridge" (the town of Brooklyn was so named by a group of American railway engineers who were building a train bridge across the Hawksberry River) to Gosford. There we visited the Australia Reptile Park, a small wildlife park with lots of nasty-looking creatures (not all of them reptiles). Here's a picture of the alligators being fed (yes, alligators are native to America, not Australia, but apparently its too cold here in the winter for a large pool of crocs):
(That's a dead rat he was holding, but it looked to me like the gator was going for his whole arm. A rather unpleasant thing to watch, actually...)
And here's a Tasmanian Devil:
After the Reptile Park we drove over the the beach town of Terrigal. Terrigal seemed a bit lower-key than Manly, although there was one large hotel on the beach that has a Florida-themed ourdoor bar with a cuban band playing loud samba music. The beach was uncrowded (but quite long, with nice sand) and at one end there were fishing boats and pelicans, and just off the beach there was a cricket ground where we stopped and watched part of a game (the rules of which are utterly baffling to me).
Back in Manly we decided to go for Japanese food. Once again Julian plowed through enormous quanties of raw salmon and tuna (didn't want the rice, just the fish). Satomi pointed out a "story in progress" across the room: there, seated around a table, were four people in an obviously uncomfortable situation. On one side sat a twenty-something local with surfer shoulders (south pacific islander in looks but with a straight Australian accent). Next to him sat a Japanese girl, looking quite pregnant, no wedding ring. Across from them sat an older japanese couple. Nervous chatter, some short laughs, a phrasebook...
It's Friday the 24th, which means it's Thursday the 23rd, Thanksgiving, back home. Here's the weather report for Seattle:
Today...rain developing this morning. Highs 45 to 50. South wind 10 to 20 mph.
Sounds like a normal Thanksgiving day. We have to admit we miss sitting in front of the fire on a rainy day...
Here it was warm and sunny in the morning (good for a 7:30 run on the beach) but it's likely to rain sometime during the day. It's quite humid with the temperature in the high 70s at mid-morning. If the weather holds for a few hours I'll leave the office and we'll have lunch (turkey sandwiches?) on the beach.
Yesterday I drove from work down to Bankstown airport, southwest of Sydney. I made the mistake of going through downtown to get there (rather than taking a longer but faster route to the west) so it was a long, tedious drive through seemingly endless urban districts. (I did stop for a sandwich in one district and it was a sandwich "to die for" with chicken breast, olive paste, avocado, "rocket" greens and sharp cheese, all on Turkish bread. It cost me $3 US.)
There are no freeways here as we know them, so there is often no good way to get from one place to another. Driving through Sydney often feels like driving on an endless Aurora Avenue, with stoplights, bad drivers and truck exhaust. (This is not necessarily a bad thing in my opinion, as it tends to keep cars out of downtown. The transit system here is quite good so that's absolutely the better method of getting into the city.)
Anyway, I managed to find the airport (had to stop and ask once) and visited the CASA office to apply for a Special License. They copied my logbook, had me fill out a form listing my experience, looked at my medical certificate and signed me off to fly (subject to a flight review, as I'm out of date for that). It was an easy process, save for the driving.
This morning the weather really broke for the better, with a warm wind blowing off the sea and deep blue skies with just a few puffy white clouds. I left the apartment at 7:00 in shorts, shirt and bare feet and spent an hour alternately walking and jogging in the sand before getting properly dressed and ready for work.
Later in the day, at lunch, I drove back to the apartment to have something to eat. There were four workers there, replacing the rather flimsy locks on the sliding doors (we have three) with more substantial security locks. This was apparently being done as a response to the garage break-in, although we hadn't asked for it. (And yes, that seemed like quite a lot of workers for a few locks, even if they did the whole building. Satomi said one of them read Julian a book.)
My general sense is that Australia is relatively safe as these things go (for one thing, the guy who breaks into your house won't have a gun), but we're in a somewhat vulnerable spot. We're in a brand new, somewhat glitzy looking ground floor apartment less than a block off the beach, in a part of town otherwise filled with low-rent apartments, old resort hotels and backpacker hostels. Manly has been gentrified in recent years (the doctor I met with Monday said only finance and software guys could afford to live there -- I noticed that he didn't say doctors) but aside from a few well-dressed people walking to and from the ferry in the morning and evening it still has a feeling of raggedness (you feel out of place if your shoes have uppers).
Manly is a fine place to spend a summer, but if we lived here longer-term we would look elsewhere.
This morning I had an appointment for an aviation flight physical. The reason for this? We've been invited down to Tasmania by one of the Protel directors and he (being a relatively new and excited pilot) has encouraged me to get my license up-to-date and go flying while we're down there.
The process is pretty easy: since I already have a US private pilot's license and an instrument rating, all I need is to get a "Special License" from CASA, the Civil Aviation Safety Authority, get an updated medical (my US medical expired six years ago), and take the equivalent of a biennial flight review (a checkout flight and an oral examination). There's an airport with training facilities just south of Sydney so I'll head down there sometime in the next two weeks for an initial recurrenty training flight. The BFR itself I'll probably do in Tasmania since they'll want to check me out anyway.
The physical went fine, although the doctor expressed some concern about my blood pressure. (It's time to start getting in shape. This office job and the good restaurant food we keep eating aren't doing me any good.)
And here's another thing to consider: the total bill for the examination was about $38 US. The exact same flight physical in the US would cost me around $200, and I would most likely see the doctor for no more than ten minutes (a nurse would do most of it), rather than for the full thirty minutes that this doctor spent with me.
Granted, the office was small and sparse, in an older building. But the doctor had the requisite certificates on the wall, the right set of well-thumbed books on the shelf, and he asked what seemed like the right questions with an air of confidence and concern. How has medical care in the US become so expensive?
Friday night we had a break-in at the apartment, down in the underground parking garage.
We heard the noise sometime during the night. But this being a somewhat roudy neighborhood (there are surfer hostels all around us) we figured it was just something being thrown down the back stairwell, or maybe a trash can being tipped over. But in the morning, when we went downstairs to take the car for a drive we noticed that the heavy walk-through security door, which is normally locked, was hanging open a few inches. Looking closer it was obvious the door had been forced open. The strike plate was torn out, the lock destroyed. Checking the car we could see that it had been gone through (papers and maps scattered around) but fortunately I hadn't locked it so there was no damage, just a few missing coins. (My collection of 70+ CDs was in the car, but I had stashed the binder under the passenger seat and thankfully they missed it. The CDs won't be staying in the car overnight any longer.)
We called in a police report, reported the broken lock to the management and tried to forget it, but the whole day was spoiled by the episode (and a fifth day of dismal weather didn't help). When our moods get a bit foul Julian picks up on it and his mood gets foul as well ("Just stop talking!", he yells with an ugly face). Finally I suggested Satomi go do some shopping downtown and I took Julian to the auto show in downtown Sydney.
The show was good fun, quite huge and quite crowded (not much else to do on a rainy Saturday, it seems). We looked at everything from Maseratis and Aston Martins to cute little Daihatsu sub-sub-compacts from Japan.
And there were motorcycles. I couldn't help noticing the prices of BMWs and Ducatis are a lot lower than in the US. I grabbed a glossy flyer for an R1150GS and started fantasizing.
The rain is coming down even harder today. News reports say that all of New South Wales is being drenched and that emergency services are being kept busy with flash floods and accidents. So much for the promised semi-tropical paradise.
Heard this morning on the local public radio (community radio) station:
Pundit 1: "What do you suppose would happen if Australia had only a fifty percent voter turnout?"
Pundit 2: "It'd be a disaster. Probably it would be just the people who have an immediate financial interest in the election."
Pundit 3: "Yeah, that's what's happened over there alright."
Last night and today it's been pouring down rain, with strong winds. A low pressure system seems to have stalled over the east coast of the continent...
...causing heavy rains and some flooding. I went out for lunch to a small shopping mall near work and had to park in five inches of water. Fortunately the parking spot was next to a sort of railing so I could climb out of the car without getting my feet wet. Inside the mall it was an obstacle course of buckets, with every shop having sprung multiple leaks.
This evening I got to talking with the neighbors (Rick and Lisa) and we compared notes about the people living upstairs from us and across the hall from them. I've concluded they are Russian mobsters (at least it's fun to speculate). Lisa said they told her once that they "come here to buy some businesses", whatever that means. They leave at odd hours, and there are apparently a variety of young women who also come and go. And there is one woman with a taste for loud flamenco music who seems to live there more or less permanently.
Unfortunately for us (well, depending on your perspective) the master bedroom upstairs is immediately above our master bedroom. Let's just say that this woman (whoever she is) has quite an amazing vocal range. And her suitor (whoever he is) has amazing stamina. The first time was entertaining, but after a week of this we're ready to strike back, but how? They are mobsters after all...
At lunchtime today I drove back the apartment to check the mail. This is the first opportunity, as until today we didn't have a key to the maibox (grrr... did I mention it takes longer to get things done here?). Plenty of junk mail, plus our first official bill as residents (the gas bill, as it turned out).
Before I returned to the office Satomi, Julian and I went out for a quick bite to eat at a local kebab shop. Kebab shops here are as common as burger joints in America... perhaps more common. There is one on just about every corner, serving the Turkish version of what we know of in America as a gyro (which is the greek name for the same food, grilled chicken or lamb folded into flat bread). The kebab shops typically offer kebabs along with pizza by the slice (usually quite good) and pide, which are like skinny versions of italian calzones, usually filled with kebab meats, cheeses and various vegetables. As fast food goes, the kebab shops are better than average, and they're cheap: a kebab will fill you up (Satomi can only eat half) for less than the equivalent of three US dollars.
Today I took Julian up to St. Ives where we went to a gathering of Norton motorcycle enthusiasts. There was no particular reason for going, it just sounded like fun and we like looking at bikes together. There were a hundred or so machines and it was interesting to see that the australian old bike sub-culture is pretty much the same as in the states. Most of the guys admiring each other's bikes were a bit scattered-seeming (too many petrol fumes?). The music blaring out of a portable stereo was seventies-era british rock (at an american Harley gathering it would be Bruce Springstein, here it was Joe Cocker) but for the most part no difference. The same black T-shirts, leather vests with badges, pin-encrusted hats and graying pony tails.
After leaving the bike meet we drove to West Head and Akuna Bay in Ku-ring-gai National Park. Nice views... we saw a wallaby munching at one viewpoint. Julian impressed a group of Japanese girls (traveling students?) from Fukuoka with his four-year-old Japanese chatter, then fell asleep in the car. I drove back via Chatswood, picking up Satomi (at the mall) on the way.
After I took Julian for a brief walk yesterday we all piled in the Fairlane and drove west, with the intent of seeing the site of the Olympics at Homebush Bay.
We had only a general sort of map but the route looked reasonably easy. Nonetheless we got lost in a labyrinth of streets in an upscale neighborhood across the river from downtown, unsure where route 10 was. Finally, exasperated, I pulled down a side street (and got honked at for driving on the wrong side of the road) to ask a couple of guys who were unloading a moving van.
"We're a little lost," I said, "Can you tell me how to get to Homebush Bay?"
One of the guys spoke up: "Going to Olympic Park are you?"
"Yes, trying to."
"No worries, you're headed the right direction. What you'll be needin' to do is go back up there and turn left onto, eh..." (looking at the other guy)..."what's 'at street?"
A guy standing on the lift-gate of the truck spoke up in an inscrutable dialect, something like, "Thadbe burnbee. Leftgoin den bictor down til davale rood till seein over dere onahill..."
The first guy looked at the second guy for a moment, then said, "I'll get the booky." He went to the front of the truck and came back with something that looked like a Thomas Guide. The route became clear (left on Burns Bay, the exit left and under to Victoria Street, then across a bridge...", and we were not far off course.
The Olympics site was a bit disappointing given the time spent driving there. It was nearly deserted, just a few construction crews taking down temporary structures and a few busloads of tourists standing around trying to find something other than Stadium Australia worth photographing. The scale of the place is such that without crowds of people if feels oppressively open. Very few trees, too much brick and concrete, not enough color. Adding to the wierd abandoned feeling was a soundtrack emenating from small speakers placed in the light poles around the stadium. Probably intended as some kind of multimedia art, the disconnected voices (in unrecognizable languages) and noises coming from the speakers made the place feel haunted. The only real activity (other than small tour groups paying to go into the stadium) was at the McDonalds Express nearby. I took Julian over for some fries and a shake while the others took a few pictures.
Coming back we stopped at Chatswood, a crowded business and shopping district. Julian and I again split off and found some ice cream. I bought a motorcycling magazine and a coffee and we sat for a bit. The driving had worn me out.
Later that night, after a quick dinner at the apartment, we drove Makoto, Yumi and Masaya back to the airport where they boarded a Quantas flight to Japan.
Took a walk this morning with Julian on the beach. It's warm today, somewhat cloudy but pleasant.
Apparently the bluebottle jellyfish like the warmer water today... there were thousands of them washed up on the shore, and the warning signs were up. But the surfers seem not to care, and there are even a few swimmers in the water:
Here's Julian barefoot in the sand:
Today Satomi, Julian, Makoto, Yumi and Masaya went to Sydney for a tour of the Opera House and a trip to the aquarium. Here's a cool picture from the aquarium:
And here's a neat picture of the Opera House taken from the ferry that runs between Darling Harbour and Circular Quay:
After I came home from dinner we all piled in the car and drove 30 minutes north, to a place called Palm Beach, to check out the huge homes and see the sun set over Pittwater (the protected waterway I mentioned a few posts ago). Here's a picture of that sunset:
Today at lunch I drove down to Dee Why (the local equivalent of Lynnwood... not a pretty place) to fill out a rental agreement for a Roland digital piano for Satomi. The price is reasonable (around $40 per month) and aside from having a piano to practice with she wants to give Julian something to do other than computer games. (If it was me I'd spend my spare time on the beach but to be fair the wind is still a bit chilly; summer isn't quite here yet.)
This evening Satomi and I left Julian with Makoto and Yumi and went out for a drive, intending to have dinner somewhere. We meandered through the beach towns of Holborn (stopped to check out a vegetable market), Curl Curl, Dee Why, Collaroy, Narrabeen, and finally up to Newport, where the pennisula squeezes down until the distance from the open ocean and crashing surf to the protected waters of Pittwater is barely a mile. The area reminded us of Mercer Island: winding roads, trees, expensive-looking houses perched on steep bluffs above the water. Nice place to live if you can afford it.
Somehow (lack of energy) we ended at the Warringah mall. Thursday night is the only night of the week that stores stay open beyond 6:00 PM and we had a few things to pick up. Eventually we used all our allotted "date" time and went back to the apartment, still not having eaten. Satomi decided she would eat the lasagna left over from the others' meal, and she suggested I go out and find something for myself. I grabbed my current book ("Inside the Sky" by William Langewiesche) and headed off to In Situ, my favorite cafe for "being left alone". I had a fabulous light meal of salmon rissoto and rocket with parmessan salad. I was sorry not to have remembered to bring a little wine (BYOB, as it's an unlicensed restaurant), but enjoyed the quiet time and the reading.
While (or "whilst", I should say whilst living down here) I was at work watching the horse race (three and one half minutes during which the entire country shut down), Satomi, Julian, Makoto and Yumi (and Masaya of course) went to the Taronga Zoo by ferry and had a very fine time. Here is a snapshot taken at the entrance:
Satomi reports that the zoo is outstanding, with the cleanest and best-kept animals she has seen. And the view, it seems, is incredible. The zoo is located on a bluff directly across the harbor from the Sydney Opera House. A ferry runs directly there from downtown (Circular Quay) and there is a cable car that takes visitors up the hill so the entire Zoo visit can be a gentle downhill walk. They spent over three hours and didn't see everything.
The weather was nice this morning, lots of sun and puffy clouds, so I took the camera along on my walk. Here are some images taken from the cliffs just south of Shelly beach. First a shot of the cliffs from above:
And here is a panorama stitched together (not very professionally) in Photoshop from three snapshots:
Click here for a bigger picture.
In the panorama, you can see a large blue building near the beach in the center left of the picture. Our apartment is a bit to the right of that building, across the road from the beach. Here's a picture of the apartment itself:
(Before you're too impressed, consider that we are in the back, on the ground floor.)
Today is Melbourne Cup day. Apparently this is a defacto national holiday, sort of a mid-week Superbowl Sunday on steroids. With over 80% of the population having bet money on the race (most in office pools), there is little chance of much work getting done. In fact, many companies (not including Protel) give their employees the day off, knowing that productivity will be non-existent (and half the staff will have called in a "sicky" day anyway).
I tuned in a few radio stations on the way in and no matter the genre (classical stations, rock stations, whatever) the chatter was all about horses and who was favored to win. (Interesting tidbit: at last year's Melbourne Cup Carnival -- the race-day festival -- there were 278,000 cans of Victoria Bitter and 61,000 bottles of champagne consumed.)
What's happening in Australian politics? It seems the government is on the verge of collapse, apparently because some cabinet minister's son rang up a bunch of phone charges on his daddy's government phone card. Or something like that. Anyway, small potatoes scandals, cries of "coverup", denials then admissions, calls for resignation, a sex scandal... Same story, different side of the world.
Yesterday morning there was nobody stirring in the apartment (typical) so I went for a long walk along Manly Beach, around the point to Shelly Beach, then up various trails and rock steps to the cliff-tops south of Manly. The view from there was spectacular. Looking left (to the north) I could see the beaches of Manly, Freshwater and Curl Curl. The sun was out and the red tile roofs really stood out against the blue water, the green trees and the sand. Below, in the water to the east, there were a few fishing boats, a group kayakers, and the incoming swells.
Following the trails (which were meandering and often-forking), I went generally north and west, coming eventually to an old stone wall with a body-sized hole knocked through it. A beat-up sign said something like "Entering Sydney Harbour National Park. No defined tracks within this area. Caution, steep cliffs."
I kept going, using the sound of the breakers as a direction aid. It became clear why Australians call hiking "bush walking". The trails were often tunnels through low, scrubby trees. Sometimes I would come out on a rocky platform and have a view, but for the most part I was lost. Finally, after crossing a road and going around a sewage treatment plant, I found myself on the top of a very high cliff on the southern-most tip of the peninsula, at a place called North Head. The view here was also spectacular, but also a bit vertigo inducing so I didn't stay long. I found a different route back, also through the bush (carrying a large stick in front of me to fend off spiders) but then down quiet residential streets and into the Manly Wharf area, where the Sunday cafe scene was in full operation. Back at the apartment after my two hour walk, I found everyone else just getting finished with breakfast.
Later in the day we (Satomi, Julian, Makoto, Yumi, baby Masaya, and I) took the Jet-Cat into Sydney for some sightseeing. Other than the quick trip into the Rocks and Botanical Gardens area, this was the first time since arriving that we had been into the downtown area. We walked up George street, saw the shopping districts, rode the Monorail around its full circuit, then spent some time at Darling Harbour. Julian ate three pieces of salmon sushi at the food court, rode a paddleboat with Makoto and generally had a fine time. The rest of just enjoyed the views and the people-watching.
Here are two pictures of our guests...
Satomi's brother Makoto and his wife Yumi arrived last night (with their infant son Masaya) after a long trip from Kagoshima. Their Quantas flight from Tokyo was canceled, meaning they needed to spend a night at a hotel and were delayed by half a day.
Today we'll probably do a bit of sightseeing, perhaps to some of the northern beaches or the Koala Park to the west. Or perhaps we'll hop the ferry to see downtown Sydney.
This morning I left the apartment at 7:00, intending to take a nice long walk. But instead I bumped into another Protel employee/expat named Greg (he from England) and we had breakfast at the Blue Water. The basil eggs (they say "bahsil" instead of "baysil" here) were terrific, as was the coffee. I've decided I really like the coffee drink they call a "flat white". It's like a latte, but has more coffee and a lot less steamed milk.
Later today we drove about twenty minutes north and west to the Duffy Forest Area. This is where the Japanese International school is, and is also the location of Waratah Park, which is a small zoo/compound where there are a variety of Australian (and other) animals. We had quite a nice time looking at the kangaroos, wallabies, koalas, emus, wombats and tasmanian devils. Here are some pictures of Julian and Satomi feeding the `roos...
After the zoo we found ourselves in a large garden center (similar to Molbaks) where we picked up some pots and some plants to make the outside patio feel more like home (and help screen the view from outside). It turned out rather nice, but we'll have to take the plants down on weekend nights; it gets pretty wild out there with all the surfer hostels around us.
Last night we had a completely enjoyable dinner (a "barbie") at the home of Steve and Afsaneh Martin, both of whom have worked for Protel for a few years. Steve is originally from the UK, and Asaneh is from Iran (came here in the late 1970s along with many other Iranian Bahais at the time of the revolution).
Along with Nancy Eastman and Noko McKinney, we spent hours laughing over Australian vs. American slang. It was particularly funny having two people at the table (Afsaneh and Satomi) who had learned american english as a second language (Afsaneh had been in the Phillipines before coming to Australia). Afsaneh's example: soon after arriving she was invited to a party, and was asked to bring a "plate". Someone had to tell her that didn't mean bring her own dinnerware. Australian slang tends to shorten words, and many words seem to get "ie" for an ending, as in "breakie" for "breakfast" or "barbie" for barbeque. (Noko wondered if the term "swirlie" had caught on here as a dorm prank, but someone pointed out that Australian toilets don't swirl anyway...)
Small differences, but good for a laugh.
Before arriving at the Martin's we took a long, winding drive through the Pittwater area and through Ku-ring-gai National park. Pittwater is a region of protected waterways (rather like Puget sound on a smaller scale), dramatic cliffs and jaw-dropping views of the ocean. It's a highly sought-after area, remote-feeling in places but never more than a 30-minute drive from downtown. The protected bays and inlets are full of boats (many of them larger sailboats) moored to bouys. The Sydney area is boat-crazy, and it seems there are so many boats the concept of having them all in slips is absurd, and not necessary anyway (the weather is never severe).
Here's a picture of our apartment in Manly:
And here's the kitchen:
This is Manly Beach, which is across the street from us:
This view is looking from the south toward the north. We are located right about the middle of this picture, a few blocks south of the North Steyne Surf Lifesaving Club.
On Tuesday (Halloween) Satomi and I went to dinner with Yukio Jono of the Protel Japan office and Nancy Eastman of the Protel US office. Julian stayed with Lisa and Rick Olson (who live upstairs and have three daughters). They had a small party with pizza and costumes, and Julian came home happy and wound up. As for us, we had a fine dinner at a somewhat upscale restaurant (Rimini's) on the waterfront. Jono-san had crocodile (which we all sampled: looked like cod but tasted more like pork, and was slightly rubbery). The rest of us opted for more standard fare.
Yesterday (Wednesday) we finally got our phone line installed. According to Satomi it was a frustrating experience. The two technicians showed up late, then could not find the phone hookup (the terminus of the existing wiring). They said they were going to leave ("you'll have to call the builder and reschedule") but Satomi demanded they stay while she went up to ask Lisa where their wiring was. It was in a closet (in plain sight), but still the two complained endlessly about its location, about the fact that the front door could not be kept open (security system), about how thirsty they were (drank most of our orange juice).
I've said nothing negative about Australia so far, but as our Danish friend said, getting things done here is not always easy. And here's another thing: what masochist decided that shopping carts are easier to maneuver if all four wheels caster? I challenge the guy to push one of these things laden with fifty pounds of groceries through an obstacle course...
Yesterday I had a phone message from Preston, who arrived in Sydney on Saturday with the Harlem Gospel Choir. They are on a lengthy tour that has already covered three cities in New Zealand and more then 20(!) in Australia. Preston came over on the ferry and we had dinner in the apartment. The next day I noticed that directly across the Corso from where I had arranged to meet him there was an enormous construction crane (or lifting beam) with the name "PRESTON" painted on it in huge letters. Odd.
This was our first weekend in Sydney. On Saturday we visited with Rick and Lisa Olson. Rick also works for Protel, is visiting from Colorado for one year and by coincidence they live one floor up from us. They have three girls and an apartment full of toys.
Most of the day we spent roaming the Rocks area of Sydney and walking through the botanical gardens. We took the Jet-cat from Manly Wharf to Circular Quay. There was a substantial swell coming into the exposed section of the harbor so the ferry (a high-speed catamaran) was launching off the wave tops and crashing down into the troughs, quite a fun ride.
While walking through the botanical garden we met (or rather, Julian introduced us to) a couple with a small baby. He was from Denmark, she from Taegu in Korea. As we were walking, I mentioned how noisy the birds were in one section of trees. Michiel said, "Those aren't birds" and pointed up. We looked and were amazed to see hundreds of great huge fruit bats hanging from the trees and flying in circles.
Dinner once again was out, this time at the Blue Water cafe on Manly's waterfront. So far this is our favorite spot, but we've only scratched the surface...
I just realized that the log is still set to use Seattle dates and times. So the message I posted this morning (Friday) appears in the log as a posting for Thursday afternoon... I've fixed that now.
This morning, as I said, I went for a long walk on the beach, stopping at the grocery store to pick up eggs, milk and syrup for Julian's french toast. The sun was already warm at 7:00 AM, and the light was filtered by the sea-air, quite pretty. Perhaps tomorrow I'll take a camera along and post some pictures. The coast here is rather spectacular: the water is a deep blue and the rocks (sandstone) are a burnt gold hue. Combine this with the dark greens of the pine and eucalypt trees, the ivory sand beaches and the red roof tiles and you have a nice scene indeed, particularly when the sun is low.
Driving into work today I put a minor scrape (scratch, really) on the left rear quarter-panel of the car. It's a Ford Fairlane, rather long and wide and I'm not yet used to having the bulk of the car to my left (rather than to my right). Backing into the parking space I misjudged a bit and ran it along the side of a concrete post. Oops!
Last night found us at the Waringah Mall, loading up on basic housewares. We bought (among other things) a vacuum cleaner, a blender, towels and sheets, clothes hangers, cleaning products, two frying pans...
After that exhausting task we drive back into Manly and had a fine dinner at a small Japanese restaurant across from the Sydney ferry wharf. Julian lasted just long enough to slurp some udon, then fell asleep. I carried him the six blocks back to the apartment.
This morning I took a nice walk on the beach. The sun comes up a bit before six, and at daybreak there are already surfers in the water and people jogging or exercising on the sand. The cafes generally don't open until 7 or 8, but they serve great breakfasts and outstanding coffees. (One needs to get used to the the coffee lingo here: "short black", "flat white". But the coffee is far better and cheaper than we get at home, strong and aromatic.)
I realize in these notes that I keep babbling on about the food. But it really is outstanding, and makes me realize how bland the cuisine is at home. And sitting at a beachfront cafe nibbling at something exquisite just adds to the experience.
Yesterday (Wednesday) we checked out of our hotel in the morning and moved into a three bedroom apartment right across the road from Manly beach, just a short walk from the Manly Corso (pedestrian mall). Manly will be a fine place to spend six months. It's a funky beach community with a reputation for great food, interesting people (lots of expats from everywhere here) and a fabulous beach.
Our apartment is a great find. Newer apartments are very hard to find in Manly, but this one is just about brand new (less than a year old). It's quite a high-end place, with lots of granite and marble, two+ bathrooms and secure parking. There are only six units in the building. As is typical in Manly, we are surrounded by small backpacking hostels, cheap hotels, and other higher-end units. A constant parade of surfers (wetsuits on and surfboards under their arms) goes by the window on their way to the beach.
Last night we ate at a small cafe called "In Situ". The food was cheap but indescribably good. I had a rosemary spiced chicken with risotto, satomi had a "rocket" salad with mandarin orange and asparagus. Julian had chips (fries) with ketchup and a "smoothie" that was more like an Indian lahsi, made with yogurt.
We made it to Sydney yesterday, and it was a smooth trip. Julian is a good traveler and slept most of the way across. (When not sleeping he talked constantly. I did have time to teach him to play "Go Fish", though... he needs to work on strategy but understands the rules just fine.)
Upon arrival at Sydney (six in the morning local time) we moved quickly through customs and were met by a driver (with a Holden-badged Chevy Suburban) who took us through Sydney, across the Harbor Bridge and around to the Radisson at Manly Beach. Our room is large (an ocean-front suite) although a little scruffy.
In the evening we had a fabulous dinner at a waterfront cafe in Manly, and this is typical of what can be had here: for Satomi (and Julian, who shared), a large slab of grilled salmon laid over a bed of pesto-infused rice, topped with mild salsa and various greens. For me, four big chunks of sirloin skewered with an iron spike, bathed in chili sauce and dangling from an 18 inch tall frame suspended over a bowl of salad greens with chips (meaning fries) on the side, and a bottle of Victoria Bitter. Total cost with tax and tip: the equivalent of $26 US.
I spent two hours at the office, got my company car (Ford Fairlane), my office and my cell phone. Starting today I'll have to work for this stuff.