The trip back from Australia went smoothly, after a night-before panic that nearly had us rescheduling the flight for a later day.
Julian began complaining of a stomachache right after returning from our final Sydney drive-around (back to Manly just in time to see a spectacular moonrise over the ocean). It must have hurt quite a lot, because he started crying and went to lie down on the couch. Within minutes of getting to the apartment he threw up (hot chocolate, mostly) all over the couch and the living room carpeting. Great, what a perfect time to get sick. We got him cleaned up and into the bath, then started working on the couch. We scrubbed the cushions with detergent until they were soggy, rinsed them, then tried to imagine how we could possibly get them dry before leaving in the morning. Finally I hit upon the idea of turning on the oven and propped the wettest one in front of the open door. I suppose there was a risk of it catching fire -- so much for Protel's damage deposit! -- but the scheme worked and the couch was good as new (unless you put your nose too close to it) by midnight.
Julian ate a few crackers for dinner, then went to bed early. While the cushions were cooking we continued packing and quickly found that we were going to be very tight for space. We had already given away a lot of stuff (kitchen things, incompatible appliances, etc.), had sent four bags of things back with Devi and Jennifer, and had shipped three other boxes of books and toys. But still we managed to fill six large bags. (All but two of them were overweight, but the counter person at Air New Zealand was nice about it and even allowed us to check a seventh bag for no extra charge.)
In the morning we woke at just past 5:00 AM and got the last things packed and the apartment cleaned out (totally filled the rubbish bins outside -- sorry!). Julian woke up at 5:30 with no prompting, totally healthy and saying he was "excited to go on the airplane to America" (it must have been the hot chocolate; bad milk perhaps).
Our flight was long (almost 13 hours to Los Angeles, plus the wait there and the flight to Seattle) and Satomi and I didn't sleep. But Julian was a good traveler, satisfied with playing cards and looking at his books, napping for a couple of hours on each flight. When we finally got home to Kirkland he was wide awake and happy. He soon disappeared across the street to play with his friends.
This was our last full day in Australia, so after spending the morning packing things up we took the car into Sydney for a final cruise around. First we drove to Double Bay, a district that could be described as the "Rodeo Drive" of Australia. Tom Cruise (or Nicole Kidman) keeps a house there, as do many of the moneyed elite of Sydney. Lots of high-end luxury cars, and plenty of expensive shoes.
We had lunch at a small cafe (not that great, really) then drove through Paddington and Kings Cross and finally back to Manly.
On the way through Mosman we stopped at a placed called "The Car Wash Cafe" to have the car cleaned before giving it back to the company. We sat sipping coffee (and hot chocolate) while freshly-washed cars rolled slowly past. (A cute concept, and very yuppie... they even gave us a beeper so we'd know when our car was done.)
Last night (Thursday) Satomi, Julian and I drove into Sydney to have dinner, to do some last minute browsing (stores remain open late on Thursdays) and to take some evening pictures.
This is the Old Town Hall, a classic sandstone building in the heart of the city:
Before leaving the apartment we asked Julian to tell us his favorite restaurant. The answer: "Sushi Train!"
Later in the evening we drove over to McQuaries Point, just outside the Royal Botanical Gardens to take some final pictures of the Opera House, Harbour Bridge and the Sydney skyline at night.
Fellow American expat Noko McKinney and her sons Larry and Henry came over for dinner last night. Devi made lasagna for everyone... mmm, delicious.
Three things we'll miss about Australia:
1. Good restaurants
2. Warm sunshine
3. The beach
Three things we won't miss:
1. Rude drivers
2. Noisy drunks
3. Cockroaches
Today we took the Rivercat ferry from Sydney up the river to Paramatta. The ride took just under an hour, a relaxing trip and good, cheap entertainment.
At Paramatta we looked at some historic buildings, did the mall (which claims to be the largest in the southern hemisphere), then caught the train back to Circular Quay and the ferry terminal. Dinner was pizza at the Wood and Stone restaurant in Manly.
After a short trip to the Taronga Zoo and lunch in nearby Mosman, we drove to the Sydney airport to drop off Jennifer and Roy.
The weather was good and we were on the south side of Sydney anyway, so we decided to go a little more south and see the waterfront town of Cronulla. As beach-front towns go, Cronulla was nice -- in an upscale La Jolla California sort of way.
Excerpt from a page one story in the Sydney Morning Herald:
...In possibly the most bizarre judiciary case ever, the National Rugby League tribunal imposed the heaviest ban in four seasons after hearing more than three hours of evidence about players grabbing opponents by "the nuts", "the stork" and "the arse" in order to intimidate them...
...In response to suggestions from Hopoate's counsel, Bernard Gross QC, that his client had been administering "a wedgie", Jones said: "It was in the anal area. I think I know the difference between a wedgie and someone putting their fingers up my bum."
What was I saying about Aussie sports?
Hobart, Tasmania...
I was so cold today (fever with chills) that I went out at lunchtime and bought a cheap sweater and a hot bowl of noodles. It wasn't enough; I was still shivering. After finishing up at the office I went back downstairs to the shopping area and found a lightweight jacket on sale. I put that on over the sweater and took a taxi to the airport.
The taxi driver going out to the airport was even more talkative than the earlier one. An Irishman (strong accent), he had come to Australia in the 1960s and worked as a taxi driver in Sydney for twenty years before coming to Hobart. "Now I don't reckon I'll ever go anywhere else," he said. "It's too bloody hot up there for me."
At the airport I was still chilly so I bought a souvenir hat (with the name of a local brewery on it... I have no idea if the beer is any good). Finally comfortable, I sat and waited for the flight while eating a scone and sipping (what was I thinking?) a cold ginger ale.
(Twenty minutes into the flight I was sweating and had to strip off the hat, coat and sweater.)
This cold I've got seems to be getting worse. I was fine at the office today, but any time I went outside I'd be shivering out of proportion to the actual temperature (which was around 18 degrees and sunny).
After work I walked a few blocks to Salamanca Place and had a good dinner of fish, couscous and local wine, then caught a cab back to the hotel and went immediately to bed, where I stayed for almost eleven hours (part of that watching some Nicolas Cage movie that featured an amazing number of car crashes).
I'm booked into in a hotel that's a little out of town (by Hobart standards, that is... I could walk to downtown in thirty minutes from here). There is some kind of convention in town and all the downtown lodgings are full. So instead I'm in the Wrest Point Casino, a large and ugly hotel built in the 1970s that has a complete monopoly on Vegas-style gambling in Tasmania. Entering the hotel is like entering a completely different world. Outside are the quiet streets, pretty views and old buildings of Hobart; inside is the noise of slot machines, garish neon and dark carpeting, shifty-looking staff and groups of pale old people shuffling about carrying plastic cups full of coins.
But the room was fine, and the view from the 9th floor was quite pretty in the morning:
I'm in Tasmania today, making a two-day trip to Protel's Library Development Centre in Hobart. The weather here is colder that I expected, and stupidly I forgot to bring a jacket (or even a long sleeve shirt). To make things worse I seem to be developing a cold (headache and chills).
I had an interesting conversation with the taxi driver on the ride in from the airport (taxi drivers in Hobart seem far more friendly and talkative than those in Sydney). He told me Hobart is finally being "discovered" by people outside of Australia, but that there are still very few American visitors... except when the US Navy comes to town. It seems Hobart is a routine port of call for ships rotating out of the Persian Gulf and (according to the taxi driver) the sailors are universally welcomed in Hobart for the money they bring in. "I'll tell you what," said the taxi driver, "Your sailors are a lot better behaved than ours are when they come here".
[I'm getting so behind with the journal writing... these comments were added four days after the fact...]
Devi and Jennifer arrived on Qantas Flight 12 on Saturday morning after an uneventful (but apparently sleepless) flight. As requested, they had packed light and didn't have much to wear (certainly nothing for the beach) so Satomi offered to take them to nearby Warringah Mall. (Satomi also had a low-level interest in seeing the Enya interview that was happening there; pictured in the previous posting.) Meanwhile Roy and I went with Julian to the Corso to find something to eat.
Somewhere halfway between buying our sandwiches and drinks and finding a place to sit, Julian tripped (new sandals) and fell forward while holding a bottle of Coke. Fortunately the glass bottle didn't break (it just sprayed half its contents onto my feet) but nonetheless Julian's right index finger got hurt pretty badly (a big chunk of skin scraped off of one side, and an ugly bruise on the other). I took him (crying) into a pharmacy and we bought a box of children's bandages (featuring The Wiggles) which made him feel better. (Later I wondered if the finger was broken, but it seems to be mending fast.)
Satomi, Devi and Jennifer got back from the mall soon after lunch. Rather than hang around the apartment the rest of the day we decided to hop on a ferry and give them a quick tour of the Circular Quay area and show them where the train station is. We explored The Rocks, then walked to the botanical gardens before getting back on the ferry. By the time we got home and ate a quick dinner they were exhausted and ready to climb in bed.
The nearby Warringah shopping mall hums with new-age excitement as that diva of Celtic elevator music Ms. E. Brennan (better known as Enya) makes her earthly appearance in the food court...
My father found this lurking in the "sport" section of this morning's Manly Daily:
The Northern Eagles are set to accommodate former Queensland hooker Jamie Goddard's bid to play first grade by releasing him to St George Illawarra...
I think we'll never understand aussie sports.
Walking back from dinner (Blue Water Cafe, where else?) on Monday night we came across the Olsons out for a walk:
I'm updating this entry a few days after the fact... my journal writing seems to be slipping again (maybe due to too much work-related stress?).
On Sunday we spent most of the morning on the beach. The weather was terrific, the waves were mild and we (my father, Julian and I) camped on the sand for about three hours. Julian joined the tail end of the Nippers class (the last one for the year, apparently), running a few of the races and bumming cookies and cake from their end-of-summer party.
Later in the day Satomi, Julian and I went to a going-away party for Henry Kunz, who had until recently been working in Protel's corporate center (as Chief Operations Officer, a job that was created for him after his European reseller company was acquired by Protel in 1998). Henry's contract is about to expire and he's going back to Switzerland. The party was held at the house that Protel has been renting for him for the past two years. It sits on a ridgetop overlooking Narrabeen Beach and Lagoon on one side (seen below) and Narrabeen Lake on the other side.
It was a nice house, though in need of a little sprucing up (old carpets, etc.). The views were fabulous, the fixtures up-scale (granite in the kitchen, tile on the floors and stairs, vaulted ceilings with exposed beams and a big fireplace...).
I asked someone who was also at the party (and who lived nearby) what the house was probably worth. "About 800K" was his reply. That's in Australian dollars, which means the house is worth about $400,000 in "real" dollars. It occurred to me that if the same house were perched on a similar hill on, say, Mercer Island, it would be worth double that amount. Made me think twice...
...but no, we're going home!
Last night after getting home from the Hunter Valley (and sneaking away for a quick dinner) we picked up Julian, got him ready for bed then turned on a Japanese movie on SBS that Satomi wanted to see titled The Weatherwoman Returns. (The advertisements for it looked, um, interesting...)
Before leaving Rick and Lisa's apartment we mentioned it to them and they tuned it in. But back in our apartment, after a few minutes of the movie we were saying over and over to ourselves, "Wow, we hope Rick and Lisa aren't watching this movie!"
It was really, really bad.
Whoever at SBS decided to import it and subtitle it must have been deranged (and the guy doing the post-movie commentary even seemed a little embarrassed by it). It was one of the worst low-budget soft-core porn movies I've ever seen. (Well, I suppose Toxic Avenger was worse, but not by much... Grrr... as a side note, do not go to the official website for Troma Films or Toxic Avenger; they will take control of your browser and fill your screen with pop-up console ads and you will need to reboot your machine. The badmovies.org site is worth a visit, though...)
Japanese movies are usually a lot better than that. For anyone who was accidentally subjected to this utter waste of perfectly good broadcasting bandwidth, we suggest a strong dose of Juzo Itami... How about renting A Taxing Woman for starters?
Yesterday Julian spent the day with Rick and Lisa Olson and their kids (thank you, thank you!) while Satomi, Roy and I drove north to the Hunter Valley, a wine-making region two hours north of Sydney. We had a terrific and relaxing day driving around the backroads of the valley, checking out wineries (there must be a hundred of them, from the very large to the very small), buying bits of art from galleries, sampling the local cheeses and taking pictures. It was all very touristy, but all very fun.
The weather was mostly cloudy, sometimes rainy (during one downpour we sat under the steel roof overhang of McQuigin's winery and shared a big plate of cheese and bread), but in the afternoon it cleared a bit and gave us some nice views of the valley.
Julian attends the Kangaroo Street Preschool here in Manly twice a week, on Thursday and Friday. This week was Satomi's turn to volunteer at the school, and here are two pictures of Julian at work on a fine piece of haberdashery:
Speaking of school, two weeks ago I officially signed up for two distance learning classes at Seattle Community College. I'm not going to say precisely what classes they are, but suffice to say they are embarrassingly low in the scheme of things (above 100, but not by much).
I don't have a college degree, and in fact I barely got started toward one and it's been nearly twenty years since I took any college courses (other than a few quarters of fiction and non-fiction writing courses and two years of Japanese language extension courses, neither of which earned credit).
It's always bothered me not having a degree so I've decided I'll at least work toward one, however slowly. Distance learning courses seem a good way to balance work and school, and if I make a liberal arts degree the goal (history perhaps?) then it shouldn't be too difficult.
But then, how many other projects have I started and never finished?
Last night we noticed a sleek black Ferrari parked across the street from the apartment, in a "no standing" zone. We've seen expensive cars parked there before, but this one topped the list:
Hard to imagine what the driver was thinking. Perhaps he was too drunk (or stupid) to ponder the possible outcome of parking in this neighborhood on a Friday night. In any event we did notice in the morning that one mirror was bent back and there was a large, fresh scratch (hand-made, it appeared) decorating the driver-side door.
This evening we took a drive across the Harbour Bridge and to Macquarie Point to see the evening views of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge. The air was clear, the view pretty. Cockatoos squawked and large bats flew aerobatics above us while we shot pictures, hoping to get at least one 35mm slide good enough to enlarge and frame. Here's one nice picture from the digital camera:
And here's a pesky kid who kept jumping in front of us:
The weather finally seems to have broken for the better. The past three days have been mostly sunny, with just an occasional light sprinkle and a gentle breeze.
The news here is all about financial doom and gloom as the Australian dollar for the first time dips below fifty US cents. Australia seems to be plunging quickly into recession, for reasons that seem as much psychological as real. There is a deep concern about the US economy, a concern about Japan's economy, worries about competitiveness...
The dropping dollar impacts us in a number of ways. On the plus side, things are suddenly a lot less expensive. Going out to dinner here is a lot cheaper (in US dollars) than going out to dinner in the US, so we do it a lot. And most other goods are also cheaper (at least until the increased cost of imports catches up) so shopping is tempting (although we'll have to figure out how to bring it all home).
On the minus side, I have some shares in Protel and the value of that stock has been pummeled by the combination of a falling stock market and the weakened Australian dollar. In US dollars the value is about half of what it was one year ago, and there's nothing to suggest it will go back any time soon. (But I suppose I have nothing to complain about given the huge drop in other technology stocks... Frankly it serves us all right for being too greedy in the last two years.)
The weather for the past week has been hit and miss... mostly rain and wind, actually, and lots of it. There's flooding up north, the beach is a mess and the weather reports only hint at possible good weather to come.
Today was a rainy and rather muggy Sunday. Tired from our big day yesterday, we decided to head over to Blue Water for brunch with Roy, and with Bob, Mei and Andrew. The place was packed (everyone else seemed to have the same idea) but the staff managed to find room for the seven of us and we had an outstanding meal.
Satomi and Mei drove to Chatswood, Andrew entertained Julian for most of the day and Bob, Roy and I all escaped into our respective books (emerging once in the afternoon to forage for pizza and soft drinks on the Corso, and again briefly to visit Rick and Lisa upstairs).
I'm reading William Dalrymple's The Age of Kali. This book is a real surprise; I hadn't even heard of the author until I read (on Amazon.com) a rather poisonous reader's review of Jason Elliot's Afghanistan book (An Unexpected Light) that included a statement like, "He's no Dalrymple..." (In fact that review, which was the only bad one out of a number of five-start reviews, was so angrily written that I have to wonder if the person writing it, who claimed to have "worked in Afghanistan", was one of the foreign press people that Elliot had pilloried in his book.)
Dalrymple's travels in India are masterfully recorded. In the early part of the book (as far as I've gotten) he investigates the subcontinent's increasingly corrupt political system and the resulting rise of the ultra-nationalist BJP, whose members often use language eerily similar to that of the Nazis in the 1930s, inciting violence and murder while attacking the Muslim minority. Given that India now has a domestic nuclear weapons program (unlike Pakistan's externally-acquired technology) the emergence of the BJP is downright scary.
India has an increasingly powerful role to play in world affairs, and a growing middle class of technology-literate citizens. But it seems also to be collapsing under the weight of it's own history. Democracy, it seems, has run amok as a semi-literate (and rightfully angry) lower-caste majority has fallen for the rhetoric of the Hindu right wing...
...But none of that seems important here. Satomi and Mei return with bag of groceries, a fine meal is prepared and we enjoy an evening together in the apartment. Julian falls asleep quickly:
Today Satomi, Julian and I went with Bob, Mei and Andrew to downtown Sydney for a day of sightseeing. We packed quite a lot into one day, including seeing the Rocks, Darling Harbour, Chinatown (including dinner), Hyde Park (with a side trip for Bob and I into the nearby cathedral of St. Mary's... wow!), the botanical gardens (where the fruit bats were swarming)... A full day to say the least. We were all exhausted by the time we got back to Manly (and I still had to hop in the car and drive to the airport to pick up my father...)
When we arrived at Darling Harbour (after walking from the Rocks) we noticed that there were a number of large sailboats tied up in front of the Maritime Museum. It took me a while to realize that these were the BT Challenge boats, recently arrived from the latest leg of their round-the-world race.
As it happened I had recently read a big article in an Australian yachting magazine about the BT Challenge, which bills itself as the world's toughest yacht race, a description that is probably accurate; it's unlike any other race.
The BT Challenge is a competition between ten identically designed, identically built 70+ foot sailboats, all with the same sail and navigational equipment and with seasoned skippers but amateur crews. The boats depart England, then sail west around the world via the southern ocean (against the prevailing winds) in a series of legs with a total time at sea of around 180 days, or half a year. (With layovers between legs the race consumes ten months.)
Bob and I talked for a while with a crew member of the Quadstone.com boat (all the boats are sponsored by various corporations) who told us that the amateurs, himself included, had paid as much as $40,000 US dollars to crew on the boats. That sounds like a lot of money, but this crew member (who was the navigator) explained that from his perspective he was getting the equivalent of three years of intensive sail training. By the time the race was over he would be more than qualified to captain any large bluewater sailboat, in any ocean. (It sounds like a once in a lifetime experience... there were 250 applications for the 16 crew positions available on Quadstone.)
What is amazing about this race is that even on the longest legs (over 40 days of constant, day and night racing through the most horrendous and frightful seas on earth) the lead boats come across the finish line within just a few hours of each other. In fact, after 6000 miles of sailing, the number one and two boats in the race (BP and LG FLATRON) were so close they could have been competing in an hour-long regatta when they came across the finish line.
Before we got on the Jet-Cat for the ride back to Manly, Satomi stopped and took this fine picture of the harbour bridge at night:
Last night Julian and I drove back to the airport and picked up Bob, Mei and Andrew, friends from Colorado. We took with us David Warren (Protel Executive Director) who was coincidentally flying out the same time and needed a lift. (Warren said, "Good, we can talk on the way..." but, ha ha, not with Julian in the car... it was a thirty minute ordeal of backseat driving and four-year-old knock-knock jokes... Warren made a bee-line for the airport bar as soon as we arrived.)
After getting Bob and Mei settled in their hotel (and suggesting that Andrew stay with us) we all went out for dinner. Blue Water was packed, so we went to In Situ and had a terrific dinner. (If you ever go to Manly, go to In Situ for dinner... it's undiscovered, uncrowded and the food is really good.)
When I went out this morning for a run I found the beach completely re-sculpted from two days of unusually large surf. Where there had previously been soft and gently sloping sand there were now abrupt and crenelated cliffs, humps of wet seaweed and, in places, great long streches of sea-foam and flotsom (disposable lighters, screw-on bottle tops, old sandals, film cases, toothbrushes and hair combs, drinking straws, broken spoons and other odd bits of plastic). The weather is roaring in from the southern ocean, bring with it large swells and cool air.
Even in the morning the breakers were huge, sometimes splashing all the way up to the stone wall that supports the beachfront promenade; running along the water without getting swamped by a rogue wave was a challenge.
At lunchtime I left work and drove back to Manly, picked up Julian and went for a walk along the beach, then to lunch at a cafe. (It was In Situ, his choice: "Let's try this place with the raspberry vanilla drink"... Julian has a good memory for food; he had only eaten there once, at least three months before.)
Last night Satomi and I went out for a date in Mosman. We had dinner at a small cafe (featuring astonishingly large sandwiches), then went to see the movie Chocolat. We rated it two thumbs up, though it was a bit too much like the movie Like Water for Chocolate... Yet another food-themed date movie for a middle-aged audience... egads, that would be us!
Although we missed seeing the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras in person, we did catch a bit of the delayed (and edited?) coverage on television the next day. It was quite a party from the look of it, and the parade itself featured some of the strangest commentary (you'll just have to use your imagination as to the visuals, which were rated M for Mature Audience):
"Well, Diane, I dare say that float has the most feathers of any we've seen tonight, and look at that gold lame!"
"Yes, Trevor, and the sequins on that g-string are exquisite... According to the program, the theme of this float is 'Catholic transgendering, a twelve-step program'. What do you think?"
"Terrific, Diane, just terrific... but here comes (if you don't mind the pun) my favorite float..."
"Is that Thomas the Tank Engine and friends?"
"Well, the face on the front does look familiar but that's no locomotive, Diane, that's..."
"Oh my, that's the biggest penis we've seen tonight, to be sure!"
"Indeed, and the five blokes riding it seem to be having a good time!"
"Oh look, here comes another group of nuns!"
"I suppose one could say they're making a habit of cross-dressing!"
"Ha ha, indeed!"
Today we had reserved a Cessna 172 in the afternoon in hopes of getting some nice pictures of downtown Sydney. I had filed a flight plan requesting airways clearance to the Harbour Bridge, and had chosen the C-172 over a Tobago because the Cessna would allow us to open the windows for some clear camera shots.
But on arrival at Bankstown airport we found that the airplane we had reserved (Juliet Golf Romeo, which I had flown in December) was stuck in Alice Springs due to weather. We were offered a Tobago, but for picture-taking that's not a good choice; a low wing plus sunshine (plus old, scratched plexiglass that's never protected from that sunshine) equals lots of glare. Finally we decided to take a Cessna Cardinal (with instructor Tim along for the ride because I'm not checked out in that particular aircraft yet). The Cardinal makes a pretty good photo platform (high wing, and no wing strut) but regrettably the windows don't open. Satomi spent a few minutes cleaning the windows before we took off and that seemed to help.
We flew first up to the Pittwater region and had nice views of Barrenjoey Head and the northern beaches. While flying south along the cliffs and beaches I called up Sydney Terminal on the radio and requested my airways clearance. They couldn't find my flight plan (hastily refiled just before our departure due to the aircraft change, so that was no surprise) so I had to circle above Long Reef while waiting. Finally they gave me a squawk code and clearance to enter the airspace via Manly. On the way Satomi took a fine shot of our apartment (it's the smaller one with the shiny roof in the middle of the picture, across from the beach):
We did some orbits north of the Opera House (none of the digital camera pictures were worth seeing, but we hope some of the other photos turn out) before heading back out via South Head to the Victor One scenic route along the southern beaches. Satomi snapped a nice picture of Manly and the northern beaches as we left Sydney Harbour:
After getting clearance to descend into Victor One (a very narrow band of airspace that must be flown at just 500 feet above the surface) we flew south past Bondi Beach and Botany Bay, then inland to Appin and then back to Bankstown, with a total time in flight of 1.3 hours.
Hey Bjorn, these Cardinals handle pretty nice ;-)
Last night was Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras in downtown Sydney, with a huge parade and 400,000 spectators. Satomi and I were planning to go down and check it out, but it was raining (which apparently had little impact other than a slightly reduced crowd size) and Satomi wasn't feeling well in any case (bad headache).
The roots of this parade and festival apparently go back to the mid-1970s, a time when a lot of things were changing in Australia. Things like aboriginal rights movements, feminism, immigration policies... Australia was rather backward (certainly behind Europe) in terms of civil rights until that time, but it seems to have made great strides since.
On Friday I was getting a ride to the office from an older fellow (retirement age) who works at Titan Ford, a nearby car dealer where I had left the Fairlane for service (it had been running rough for a week). As we drove the subject of conversation turned to the Mardi Gras. His comments were interesting, in effect: "It takes all kinds of people to make a world, I'd guess... Hard to understand those people, pants with the butts cut out or whatever, but they bring in a lot of money... I'd kind of like to go down and see it, but I don't know how I'd tell that to my wife... Yeah, it takes all kinds."
Today (Saturday) we drove north to the Reptile Park, a privately-run zoo (and anti-venom research center) near Gosford. The weather was good (not too hot) and the crowds were light.
Tonight Satomi and I went by ferry over to the Sydney Opera House to see Ibrahim Ferrer and the Buena Vista Social Club.
What a show!
Ibrahim Ferrer, Omara Portuondo, Ruben Gonzales and others put out an amazing amount of energy... It was astonishing to see 74 year-old Ferrer jumping and strutting around the stage like Mick Jagger and belting out songs with a strong voice. Fellow senior citizen Portuondo danced and swayed like a torch singer while raising the crowd to a frenzy.
Perhaps most impressive was Ruben Gonzales, a very old man who is (so we guessed) nearly blind and barely able to walk. He was led slowly to the piano bench, and occasionally seemed to lose track of where he was in a piece. (At these times the band leader would walk over and help him get started by tapping a tempo on his arm or playing the first few notes of a riff...). But when he got going, his fingers seemed to remember and he would play the most incredible music.
From Devi:
Crazy, the roof was flexing. It was really surprising how quiet it was. We had to shut off the furnace and the gloryhole as a precaution. we didn't have any aftershocks. It was actually pretty uneventful at Bill's shop, but I guess Cliffy's gallery was trashed, as well as a number of other galleries in town. they declared Seattle in a state of emergency! He he pretty funny how the whole city freaks out over the "big quake"... You should have seen how the news whipped out this elaborate news coverage including the "Disaster" music and everything. They had people call in to the station and describe how the quake felt. They all said the same thing of course, "oh, i was sitting in my house and all of a sudden it was shaking! a couple of books fell of of the shelf and some of my precious glass plates broke."
Too funny. We only lost three pieces of glass off our shelves at Bill's and that was it.
We heard about the Seattle earthquake a few hours after it happened. No damage to our place, it seems, and Tracy reports no damage (other than the loss of one of Devi's vases) there either. Jennifer reported being in the library (reading an email from me) when it hit:
AGH! I was just reading your emails in the library and there was a super big earthquake. Big enough for everyone to freak out and huddle under the tables. That was kind of crazy...
...ok....I'm a little freaked out now.
Found lurking in the Sydney Morning Herald (Stay in Touch column):
"The clever folk at the Northern Territory's tourism arm have a wonderful solution to this pesky problem of three strikes and you're out legislation and Aboriginal kids turning up dead in jails: pretend they're not there. In our possession is a four-page glossy brochure, 'The Territory: A Land of Myth'. Purporting to tell you all the wonderful things you can find in the Territory, it talks about markets and beaches, food and sunsets, helicopter rides and casinos, mountains and rivers. However, there isn't one mention of Aboriginal culture or Aborigines. Sure, there is a reference to a trip to the Territory being 'spiritual', but you could be forgiven for thinking that is spiritual as in Bundy and Coke. There are also eight photos but not a black face in sight - not even serving a white boss man a cold beer. Still, there are some lovely ironic moments such as the 'myth' that the Territory isn't a good place to take the kids. 'In fact it's fantastic for the kids. Unless of course they don't like crocodile farms, swimming rock pools, riding camels...' or pinch some pens and pencils! As they say up north, you'll never never know there are Aborigines up here if you never never mention them."
"Computer Error Blamed" was one headline this morning. The Collaroy smacked into the rocks southeast of the wharf under full power, with no announcement over the PA warning the passengers of the impending crash. It seems clear that the crew was asleep at the switch (or busy watching cricket) while the autopilot drove them into the front yard of the Addison apartments.
"Computer error" indeed.
I happened to check the news on-line in the afternoon and read that a Manly ferry had run aground 600 meters from the Manly wharf after an apparent mechanical failure. It was a perfect excuse to leave work an hour early:
Julian and I (and a few hundred other gawkers) hiked around Manly point to get a closer look. It was low tide when we got there and the ferry's bow was clear of the water, propped up on a shelf of sandstone. A tugboat was standing by, waiting for the 11:30 high tide before attempting to pull the stuck vessel off the rocks.
This morning Julian joined the North Steyne Surf Life Saving Club's "Little Nippers" class for some fun on the beach:
It must have been a particularly wild night on the Corso; the casualties left sprawled on the beach in the early morning were plentiful:
Today we all got up early (actually I slept in, but everybody else got up early -- thirty minutes later than me...), packed up our cameras and maps and drove up to the Blue Mountains, a range of rocky hills two hours east of Sydney.
There's a lot to do in the Blue Mountains, and we managed to pack a few days of tourist "must do's" into one long day. First we drove to the town of Lithgow where we enjoyed the view from Hassan's Cliff and rode the Zig Zag Railroad, which is a restored steam engine with original coaches that makes its way by zigzagging and shunting down a steep cliff. Julian was excited to see a real steam engine (British style, no less, with big round buffers just like those "Thomas" engines) and watch how they were coupled and uncoupled as the train was turned around at each switchback.
Later in the day we drove from Lithgow to Jenolan caves (an hour drive), arriving just time to see the start of a classical concert being held in the large, drive-through cavern at the entrance (our timing was lucky... the entrance road was closed soon after we went through it, and didn't open again until about twenty minutes after our tour of the caves was finished).
More lucky timing: it was another hour of driving to get from Jenolan Caves to the town of Katoomba (tourist center of the Blue Mountains) but we got there within minutes of a spectacular sunset. As the sun went down behind the cliffs to the west, the Three Sisters were drenched in golden light:
It took us another two hours of driving to get back to Manly. By the end of the day we had driven our way through a whole tank of petrol, had witnessed the death of one stray cat (didn't quite make it in front of the white Toyota in front of us) and one kookaburra (flew in an explosion of feathers into the front rack of a large Nissan Patrol, also driving in front of us), and spotted one recently-demised wombat, lying in a peaceful-looking pile on the side of the road. (After all seeing all these road kills I started paying more attention to the kangaroo and wombat crossing signs.)
Nearly a week without a significant thing to say... I'll try to get back into the swing of this soon.
As you can see from recent pictures the weather has been "fine" (as they say on the reports here). We've been on the beach after work a few times, and today (Friday) I took my body board down and caught a few nice waves before going to dinner with Satomi and Wade.
Today (Sunday) was a day for doing nothing of any importance, but doing it on Manly Beach in the sunshine. The weather could not have been better: not too hot, a cool sea breeze, small puffy clouds dotting an otherwise clear sky, no jellyfish, gentle waves for playing in...
Rick and Lisa (and Anna, Laura and Rebekka) from upstairs were there (along with other neighbors from our little American ghetto) and Julian spent more time in the water than ever before, even after being totally dumped and nearly drowned (or so he thought) by a large wave early in the day. Lunch was take-way kebab and pizza washed down with Fanta.
In the afternoon I got a call on my mobile phone from a visitor to Protel who had just arrived from Minneapolis. I gave him instructions for how to find us on the beach and Wade Peterson eventually showed up, pale-skinned and culture-shocked (having just the day before been shoveling two feet of snow from his driveway). Satomi and I left Julian with her parents and we went with Wade for a seafood dinner to give him a warm welcome.
Saturday was a busy day of sightseeing. Aya, who's been with us for three weeks, hadn't had much opportunity to explore Sydney (she was attending an English school in Manly) and there were some areas of the city we hadn't yet seen ourselves.
We started in the early afternoon by driving across the Harbour Bridge and into Paddington. Paddington is an interesting historical district with old row houses, ornate ironwork and big, leafy trees. Paddington's biggest tourist draw is the Paddington Market, a funky open air market that happens every weekend throughout the year. There were booths selling art (some quite good, some quite bad), clothing, incense, kitchen wares and gadgets, and a whole section seemingly dedicated to Tarot readers. We enjoyed the market, but more than that we enjoyed seeing the classy old houses on the quiet side streets.
After two hours in Paddington we continued east to Bondi Beach. Bondi is the Sydney's most famous strip of sand, but upon arriving there we really couldn't see the appeal: Manly Beach is longer and much prettier, and with the JetCat ferry service is actually just as easy for Sydney-siders to get to (on foot) as Bondi. We did wander around the area for a bit and had an excellent dinner at a small cafe, but we probably won't find a reason to go back there.
After leaving Bondi we continued driving east and north toward South Head, the penninsula of land that, along with Manly's North Head, frames the opening to Sydney Harbour from the sea. We were there in time to catch a spectacular sunset over downtown Sydney before finally driving to the airport with Aya.
Another lively Saturday at Manly Beach...
Last night Satomi and I went out alone (we're making a habit of this) to that little cafe on Pittwater Road. The place is called "Candy's", and again we spent over an hour (I noticed we were sitting on an old church pew covered with pillows), slowly munching a chicken burrito (one plate, two forks) and sipping a fruit drink. Satomi read old Architectural Digest and Interiors magazines while I read a sailing magazine that happened to be in the pile. A not-very-good folk singer with a guitar made her way through some Tracy Chapman tunes across the small room (I'm not really being fair... she did a fine job with a small number of chords and her voice wasn't bad at all), adding to the funky atmosphere.
There was an article in the sailing magazine about a couple who, in the early eighties, quit their jobs and started a nine-year journey by motorcycle around the world. They put 200,000 miles on their Honda CX500 (an amazing feat in itself) before deciding in Cypress that the only thing to do to get out (the Gulf War was in full swing and they were running out of money) was to find a boat. They happened upon an old 34-foot wooden sailboat and spent the next couple of years rebuilding it, then took off across the Atlantic (with the motorcycle dismantled and stuffed into the forepeak). All this was done with essentially no sailing or boatbuilding experience. After taking another four years to get to Florida (the Carribean got in their way) they rebuilt the now-rusted bike and took off for another year on wheels. Amazing.
While I was slaving away in the office ("nobody feels my pain") Satomi and the rest of the family went to Taronga Zoo for the day:
It being Valentine's Day, Satomi and I went out for dinner at a good pizza place, then for dessert at a great little cafe Chiemi had pointed out a couple of months back. The cafe is on Pittwater Road, in a section of Manly we don't usually walk through (too much traffic). It's a funky sort of place with wierd art of the walls, shelves overflowing with hundreds of books, board games to borrow and year-old magazines to flip through, and an interesting (and cheap) menu. We had milkshakes and hung out for a while.
No interesting thoughts today (not that I ever have any); I'm feeling worn out this week, maybe due to lingering jet lag or just the last two weeks catching up with me.
Yesterday I sneaked out of work early, around 2:30, and took Julian to the beach. We ate take-away pizza and risked the bluebottles (there were warnings posted further down the beach) to play with our boogie boards. We dug holes in the sand, we ran and splashed, we drank Fanta Orange. I tried not to feel too guilty about leaving work.
Satomi found us eventually and took Julian for ice cream while I went out to find deeper water and bigger waves. After tiring myself out (that didn't take long) I came back to lie in the sand and almost fell asleep.
Just as I was drifting off in the warm sunshine I heard screaming from the water and looked up to see what it was. A somewhat chubby little boy, around seven years old, was flailing his arms in waist-high water and yelling (in a terrified voice), "Get it off me!". His mother ran out and rescued him, but he was still screaming for a few minutes. As they walked past me I could see the sting, swollen and red and wrapped all the way around his middle, from his belly to his back. Ouch.
It was a beautiful day today (or so I was told; I was at the office all day). Not too hot, a good breeze and sunshine...
This morning we drove down to the airport to pick up a visitor from Japan, Ayako Go. Unfortunately her plane was grounded in Narita due to a snowstorm and her mother was unable to contact us (hmmm, maybe because we spend too much time on the net...).
Anyway, on the way back we spent a little time in Neutral Bay. Satomi went into a Japanese bookstore and I looked for place to get a haircut. I was lucky to find a place open on a Sunday morning, and luckier still that the guy wielding the shears was competent.
I'd been planning to get a haircut all week (looking pretty shaggy and a trip coming up) but just hadn't found the time. As a result, this minor "to do" had lodged in my mind somewhere and before getting out of bed this morning (after a bad night of noise from Surf Carnival drunks across the street) I'd fallen into a wierd, half awake dream in which I experienced the "haircut from hell". In this dream, a mentally deficient barber kept taking whacks at my head but only ever got a few hairs at a time. At some point I leapt out of the chair and started screaming at him, a chase ensued... I woke up in a fury, pounding the pillow.
Anyway, so there I was a few hours later planting myself into the chair of an unknown stylist. It was a small place, just the one guy (the owner of the shop) and thankfully it turned out fine. In fact he was an interesting character with plenty of good quips and some fascinating history to relate...
We were making comparisons between Australia and America (from his accent it was clear he was also from elsewhere, but I couldn't tell from where until he told me he was born in Jerusalem), talking about living conditions and crime rates. He was telling me specifically about some "wackos" who had committed various heinous crimes in the Sydney area in recent years (including one murderer who kept his victim's head in a refrigerator and brought it out every few days for some solo soccer practice).
"Yeah, a lot of psychos here," he was saying, and at that moment he picked up a huge straight razor and started at the back of my neck.
"Careful with that thing," I said.
"No worries mate, I was in the military... I know how to use one of these."
Remembering he'd said he was from "Jerusalem via Lebanon", and that he'd mentioned being in Australia over thirty years, I asked him: "So which army were you with?"
He paused a moment, laughed and said: "Actually, I was on both sides of the same war, in '67. First I fought with the Jordanians in the six day war -- King Hussein was my hero -- but then within a few hours they'd lost the territory that was my home. So I had to join the Isreali army, otherwise they would drag me out of bed at night and probably shoot me. But it was the Palestinians who finally got me out... they were the ones really in control."
He laughed again and said: "Now I have three passports, I can sleep at night and I have an American girlfriend. I'll never go back there."
I just can't get a decent copilot... this one keeps falling asleep:
That's the nicest-looking of the three Tobagos at Basair (though, like the others, it's a little scruffy inside). They really are pretty airplanes.
I wanted to get in the air at least once for some practice circuits (at the less congested airport at Wollongong, on the coast south of Sydney) before leaving so it wouldn't be a full month between flying. So I took Julian with me on a somewhat overcast Saturday afternoon and we took off together after a quick weather briefing.
At first the flight was fine. We climbed out to the east from runway 11L, gaining altitude much faster than in my earlier flights in the Tobago (the previous flight was with four people on board and 100 degree temperatures; this time it was just Julian and I, and the temperature was more like 80... what a difference that makes!). I had requested a downwind departure so we turned back to the west, crossed over the Olympics velodrome and leveled off at 1500 feet as per procedure. So far, so good, although I noticed at this point I had neglected to turn on the transponder when taking off (checklists, checklists!).
Flying west away from the airport, however, the visibility was getting a bit poor. Clouds were lower than forecast (down as low as 2000 feet and scattered rather than 3500 as reported). The poor visibility (there was haze as well as the overcast) made it a bit difficult to pick out landmarks and within a few minutes I was visually unsure of my exact position. In most places this isn't a problem (there are plenty of radio aids, the controllers have you on radar and the sky really is a big place), but in this particular location there are other aircraft potentially arriving (inbound to Bankstown, at 1500 feet) from the north and south, there are two smaller airports nearby (including one with a control zone), and the Sydney CTA wraps around the whole area like a big puzzle piece. I knew approximately where I was, but that wasn't good enough here; being a mile or two off course can easily mean busting someone's controlled airspace.
I was just tuning the ADF (direction finder) to get a fix on Camden (a secondary airport that I normally would have a clear view of and that I knew I absolutely, positively had to avoid because of the control zone) when I happed to glance out the window to the left and noticed, almost directly below me, a paved runway. I made a loud burbling sound while surpressing an expletive (Julian looked over at me in surprise) then almost immediately realized it couldn't possibly be Camden down there (we hadn't traveled far enough), but was instead a much smaller, uncontrolled field well to the east. And there it was, on the chart in plain sight -- once I moved my finger out of the way.
No problem; I was close to where I should have been (nowhere near Camden), but still I kicked myself for the lack of planning. It's easy to just hop in an airplane, point the nose somewhere and dawdle around. But if the visibility is poor and you're not intimately familiar with the area it's too easy to lose track of position. What I should have done before leaving (even on a local flight) was to plan each segment of the flight and chart it, with headings and times, just like a cross country flight. I should have known exactly where I was going, rather than think, "I'll just fly south to Wollongong," figuring I'd just use pilotage and pick up navaids along the way (after all, I'd flown there before so what was the problem?).
We never did get to Wollongong; after flying south for a ways (with more careful attention to the chart and the radios), it became clear that the weather was deteriorating. So I did a U-turn over Appin (looking to the right I saw that Julian had fallen asleep) and retreated back to Bankstown after only fifty minutes in the air.
Today is the Manly Surf Carnival. In front of our apartment there are a hundred or more surfboats lined up on the beach, waiting to race. Further down the beach there are kayak races, lifesaving competitions, and other events. It's all very Australian; here are some pictures:
Surfboats and their crews (that Vegemite must have something in it)...
On Thursday night Satomi and went to see the new Tom Hanks movie, Castaway. Here's my two word review:
Hollywood sucks.
This could have been a great movie. And if it had been made in the sixties it would have been. Good writing (no problem there), good acting (Hanks deserved his Golden Globe for it), and good directing. The problem I have with it is that, like a lot of Hanks Vehicle Movies (tm), it is so polluted with product placement money (in this case Fedex money... they must have had their fingers in every aspect of the film's development) that it looks like a never-ending Superbowl Sunday TV spot.
Really, an ad agency could (and probably will) compress the entire movie down into fifteen seconds of quick cuts and it would be perfect.
Of course what really should happen with a movie like this is that Hanks (he said in an inverview he "doesn't need the money" so he can "choose scripts that appeal to him") should step in as producer, refuse product placement money and dump the totally unnecessary 50 or so million dollars in special effects. (The crash scene went on forever and added nothing at all to the plot; it only provided material for the trailer. "Snip," take it out and the movie loses nothing.)
But that can't happen, of course.
Oh, well... at least it keeps the people in certain parts of LA gainfully employed and off the streets.
Julian at The Rocks today (Satomi went downtown this time, and successfully got our passports "evidenced" with visa stamps)...
Nikita is the son of a shop owner in The Rocks and he and Julian hit it off the first time they met back in November. (The shop's name is Nikita Studio and Nikita's mother Natasha is there most open hours. Nikita seems to have free run of the shops in the area.)
Perhaps if we could just understand Vegemite, then we could understand Australia.
This appalling stuff, with the appearance of used axle-grease and the taste of, of ... I don't know, maybe like ultra-concentrated soy sauce gone very bad ... is a staple here. Remember the Men at Work lyric, "he just smiled, and gave me a vegematic sandwich..."? I suspect they were avoiding the trademark (now owned by Kraft Foods) but the implication was clear: you can't be an Aussie without eating the stuff.
Some time last week Chiemi (or her mother, I'm not sure which) bought a little souvenir kangaroo that was on a sale table in some shop. Around the roo's neck dangled a little plastic container of Vegemite, which was shared around the apartment one evening. I took one little nibble, then sprinted to the bathroom to brush out my mouth. Ugh!
But the locals love it.
The story of Vegemite goes something like this: In 1922, an Australian entrepeneur by the name of Fred Walker became interested in yeast extracts as sources of food. He put his chief scientist to work (a Dr. Cyril Callister), and this mad scientist (who must have had defective taste buds) invented the first yeast extract spread. The stuff was concocted using brewer's yeast extract along with other ingredients like celery and onions. To this was added copious amounts of salt resulting in a thick, briny paste. Yum.
The product was eventually dubbed Vegemite after a naming contest. (My suspicion is that the contest enterants were not actually given samples to try, else it would have been given a name like "Vegebarf".)
In World War 2 Vegemite became a staple of the military and civilian diet (it was included in rations) and the rest, as they say, is history.
Kraft Foods bought Walker's company in 1950 but so far has not had the courage to promote the stuff elsewhere. (There is a somewhat wacky-looking distributor in the US who maintains a web site at www.ozchannel.com/vegemite/). Small wonder... But perhaps it would succeed as an industrial lubricant?
Be sure to check out www.vegemite.com.
And remember, "spread it thinly".
One afternoon, wasted...
I'll be leaving for Japan and the states on Monday, but before I go I need to get my passport (and Satomi and Julian's) stamped to indicate I have a work visa, otherwise I've technically overstayed my three month entry visa. I wanted to take care of this today, so I called the Immigration department (they actually go by the feel-good name of the "Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs") in the morning to make sure they were open and find out if just one of us could go, rather than all three. The answer: "Yeah, no problem, just one of you needs to come down."
Satomi wasn't feeling well, so I took Julian with me for the ferry ride into Sydney. We walked through The Rocks (historic district) and up a side-street to the large and imposing (and architecturally out-of-place) Immigration House. There was a sign on the door that said "Closed". A sign below that one (hand-written) said that, as of October 5 of last year, the office would close at 1:30PM on Wednesdays.
I looked at my watch: 1:50. And it was Wednesday, of course.
I got out my mobile phone, called the number on the visa approval letter (I imagined I could hear the phone ringing inside) and whined for a few minutes to the person who finally answered. But no luck, they wouldn't open the door for me ("Just a simple stamp?"). There were people occasionally coming out the locked door and I briefly considered sneaking in with Julian ("I was here on time but, uh, he had to go to the potty?") but finally decided to just give up.
It was hot and humid (and Julian was expecting something to justify the trip) so before getting back on the ferry we stopped for ice cream. Julian's chocolate gelato was dripping all over him so we had to make a trip to the restroom to get cleaned up. Then we stopped for a few minutes to watch two street performers... and we missed the next ferry by one minute.
The ferry ride back (we had to wait only twenty minutes for the next one) was a typical non-stop, exhausting interrogation by Julian the Grand Inquisitor. I could lose my patience and say, "put a cork in it!", but he wouldn't listen anyway -- it would just open a new line of questioning: "What does a cork do in my mouth? Where do corks come from? Do bottles have corks? Some bottles don't have corks... do bluebottles have corks?"
It was four o'clock by the time I got back to work.
Yesterday morning Satomi noticed that two more of our potted plants walked away during the night.
As I've described before, we're on the ground floor and our small patio is protected only by a five foot high wall along the sidewalk. A couple of weeks after we moved in we decided to dress the place up a bit. We bought six clay pots and planted flowers in them, bought a tomato plant and another clay pot planted with chives. Later we bought got a plastic pot with some kind of trailing plant plus a nice-looking hybiscus. Most of these we lined up on the top of the wall, helping to screen off the street and provide some color outside.
In the first couple of weeks two of the clay pots with flowers walked off (on different nights), leaving only dirty water stains where we had placed them. In defense we started leaving the patio light on at night, which was probably a good idea anyway. Nothing else disappeared until this past Monday night. This time the pilferer took the healthiest plant (the trailing thing that had finally recovered after seeming a bit sunburned) along with the nicest pot (the one with the chives).
We're not letting this bother us, but we're thinking of putting small notes into each of the remaining pots. Something like:
To whom it may concern: Thank you for stealing this pathetic little plant. We've tried for months to keep it alive, but as you can see the leaves are turning brown and the flowers are gone. The pot is ugly (we've never liked terra cotta but it was on sale, cheap) and it seems to have developed a crack in the side, probably as a result of pushed off the wall by a drunk (was that you?). We hope you enjoy this plant, although we suppose every time you look at it (and we don't expect you'll put it on display in your window) you'll be reminded that you're a petty thief. Best of luck, and don't forget to water it.
This morning when I went for a run the beach was littered with flotsam (seaweed, bits of plastic, candy wrappers and corks) along with thousands of bluebottles. It seems when the current and wind cooperate the jellyfish get really thick, and at high tide they wash up in tangled masses along with all the drift-junk.
I don't take a camera with me when I go running on the beach, but today I went back to the apartment and grabbed it for some snapshots. Here are some pictures of the "blueys":
The bluebottle in the picture above has its stinger, the dark blue strand underneath. These stingers can extend as much as six feet behind or below the bluey when it's in the water and they often become detached in the surf, making it impossible to see them without the telltale "blue baggie" floating (or lying) nearby. And for a time at least, the stingers are just as painful with or without the rest of the jellyfish. (Children here learn not to pick up bits of kelp and other debris that might have stingers tangled up in them.)
Chiemi and Yasna left for New York today. They'll have 20 hours of flying to do, plus a layover in Los Angeles. A long trip back to be sure. It will be quieter around here, and Julian will miss having Yasna to play with.
Here's a picture of Grandpa Yukio and Yasna at Manly Beach, taken yesterday (Monday)...
Where did the weekend go?
After my walk Saturday we had a mostly lazy afternoon during which Julian and I had time to build a fine sand castle. We had taken our boogie boards down to the beach, but there were so many bluebottles we decided not to spend much time in the water. (While we were finishing the sand castle and building a protective dike in front of it, a wave washed in and deposited a nice fat bluey right at the castle gate. I read this morning that there were 350 requests for first aid from jellyfish stings in the Sydney area over the weekend, a number that doesn't include the vast majority of stings that aren't reported.)
Saturday evening Satomi and I went out for a date. We drove to Neutral Bay, where she had previously found a small Japanese grocery and used book store. I found a great little book-filled coffee shop with cushy chairs to relax in while she browsed. (I lost myself for 40 minutes in a book about wooden boat construction.) After that we drove somewhat randomly around the backstreets of Neutral bay and Mosman, trying to find a way to Balmoral Beach without actually getting back on the busy main road. Eventually we found it and decided to try a small restaurant across from the beach. The food was excellent, the design of the place was interesting (very postmodern, with bare concrete floors, walls and bar and an enormous backlit whiteboard with the specials and wine list scrawled with a felt pen). And the diners were "tres chic", as one would expect in this area.
Yesterday (Sunday) was another day in which not much happened. It was a good day for the beach and I did get some time for boogie boarding. The waves were big and confusing, so while I got some good rides I also got tired pretty fast. The surfers were having trouble with it also. I'd see them trying to catch waves further out that were the size of small buildings, but the waves would pile up and break so fast the surfers would be left half-standing on their boards with nothing but ten feet of air underneath. Down they would go like cartoon figures, legs and arms spinning and flailing. But when surfers did catch a big wave like that it was impressive to watch. (The rips were strong as well; lifeguards were constantly after swimmers who had strayed outside the flagged areas, and while boarding I noticed if I got just a few meters to one side of a certain sandbar the current parallel to the shore was very strong, hard even to walk against in waist-high water.)
At dinner, Lisa and Rick (upstairs) offered to watch Julian and Yasna while we went out for dinner with Chiemi and Satomi's parents. We stopped for a bottle of wine at a bottle shop then got a table at Minato, a Japanese restaurant near the ferry wharf. Everyone had a good time (and some of us -- particularly Satomi's mom -- got a bit tipsy after polishing off the bottle).
I got up early this morning (6:30) and went for a long walk, starting from Manly then around the Middle Harbour and over to Clontarf and The Spit.
This is a popular semi-urban trek (from our apartment, a total of ten kilometers one way) that goes through quiet waterfront districts and traverses the cliff-tops of a small national park for a few kilometers before dropping down to the sailboat filled harbor at The Spit, north of Mosman.
Here are some pictures from the walk...
The district of Fairlight, near Manly:
A boatyard near Seven Baskets beach:
The trail through the national park:
Here's a panorama (180 degrees) showing Manly on the left, North and South Heads (the passage to the open ocean from Sydney Harbour), and Middle Harbour on the right with downtown Sydney just visible over the hill:
Looking west toward Balmoral and Mosman:
Hillside houses in Mosman, overlooking the Middle Harbour:
At the Spit I spent a little time looking at the Bavaria yachts tied up at the wharf (at a Bavaria broker), had an ice cream bar then caught a bus back to Manly. I was back in the apartment before 11:00.
Tonight I drove downtown after work and met Satomi and the others in Chinatown, where we had a terrific dinner at a Chinese restaurant. As we were going in the restaurant Satomi noticed something that looked good to eat on one table. She asked a waiter what it was, as in "What number is that?", and he responded, "No number, not on the menu," then told her what to ask for. This seems typical: if you really want the good stuff at a Chinese restaurant, you have to know what to ask for, particularly if you don't read Chinese. The menus that are provided in English or Japanese usually don't list everything, and sometimes neither do the Chinese menus.
Anyway, we had a good dinner, the waiter was funny and helpful and wandering the district afterwards was fun. It was crowded, there were street musicians on every corner and the night was clear and warm.
Here are some pictures from Chinatown in the evening, all of them taken by Julian (while perched on my shoulders)...
Bracelets and other trinkets for sale:
How about a massage ("Head $8, Neck and Shoulder $9, Back $10")?
.. or some roast corn and fried dumplings:
That flu bug caught up with me yesterday so I stayed home from work and took it easy (reading, working a bit and surfing the net -- could you tell?) while everyone else was out at the mall. Last night it burned itself out and I seem fine today.
It made me wonder, though: do Australians (and others in the southern hemisphere) normally get the flu in the summer rather than the winter? I suspect so, because influenzas always seem to originate in the same places (Asia) and they probably just hitch rides on Quantas (or whatever) and show up here at the same time they show up in the colder north.
With all that spare time yesterday I finally finished "The Origins of Virtue" by Matt Ridley. Really an outstanding book, one of those rare science books that's entertaining to read. Ridley ties together biology, economics, sociology, anthropology, game theory and more to show how humans (and many other creatures, even at the cellular level) have evolved to be naturally cooperative: being generous has benefits apart from esteem-building.
The only problem I have with the book is that Ridley, after leading the reader chapter by chapter through a terrific set of examples and specific experiments and demonstrating the inherent ability of humans (and many other animals) to form first and second order, mutually beneficial alliances, and behave in what appears (on the surface) to be an altruistic manner with no need for religion, government or culture to prompt them, then goes on to present a view of government that is pure Newt Gingrich (or Adam Smith) in its philosophy. His final chapters deal with humans' failures as environmental custodians (the myth of the noble savage), proposing that unfettered private property rights are the only way humans can protect the environment for the common good. His logic is good, but it seems to me he leaves out a critical point: properties are bought and sold like any other exploitable resource. He does say at one point that currency speculation is a "zero sum game", but so is property speculation based on resource extraction.
Sure, by giving title of land back to its inhabitants (who have a vested interest in maintaining it as a shared resource) you risk its being destroyed by selfish mismanagement (the inevitable collapse of cooperation when any one individual can profit greatly from defection). But the alternative view, where a single corporate owner such as Weyerhauser (to use a Northwest example) is expected to do what is for the common good simply because they are (in theory) thinking long-term and "wisely using" land that they (or more precisely, their shareholders) own is clearly false. The result is just a "value-added" phenomenon whereby the low-profit, high-efficiency forest is converted (over time) into a sprawling, high-profit but low-efficiency housing development, or golf course, or commercial park. What's good for the property owner is often not good for the society.
Anyway, it's a good read if you maintain a sense of political skepticism.
Yesterday was a day of wild weather. The forecasts called for temperatures in Sydney near 40C, and it appears that by early afternoon some areas hit that figure easily. (I was in the office, but apparently Manly stayed relatively cool due to the sea breeze. Homebush reportedly hit 46 and Penrith was near 50. That's HOT!)
But the forecasts also said that by late afternoon the heat would be blown away by a large storm, and they were "spot on". At around 6:00 PM a tempest flew in and wreaked havoc with powerful, swirling winds (full story here). Umbrellas were crashing into the pool across the street, tree limbs were raining down and trash was scattered everywhere. There was at least one death, a nine-year old boy who was crushed by a temporary fence at the Fox Studios complex after leaving his parents to go to the restroom. (He wasn't found until this morning when workers went to repair the damage.)
It's been a slow weekend... There's a flu working it's way through the building and so far it's hit Chiemi (recovering), Yasna (still sick), Satomi (one day into it) and Satomi's father (started this morning). Julian may have had it a few days ago (he woke up one night and threw up, which is not at all normal) but seems otherwise fine.
Yesterday Julian and I hopped a ferry in the morning and went over to Sydney. We watched the free water ski show again, had pizza and hung around Darling Harbour's large playground for a while. Before getting back on the ferry to Manly we walked over to the Rocks district. I bought an ear of roasted corn for Julian and we sat down to listen to a jazz group that was playing in a small plaza. The group was good, particularly the woman vocalist.
In the evening Satomi and I went out for a walk. Here's what it's like on the Manly Corso at night...
The bouncers in front of the Steyne Hotel's bar (where drunk Tongans like to pick fights with drunk Queenslanders) are pumped up in their black tee shirts, walkie talkies strapped to their heads. Inside it's packed, mostly large-shouldered, large-voiced men, with a few women clustered in protective groups around their beers.
Across the mall two kebab shops are doing a brisk business in lukewarm take-away pizza and big fat chicken wraps while techno music blasts out of cheap speakers perched on top of competing drink coolers. The servers shout at each other in Turkish or Farsi and many of the customers are in bare feet, some with surfboards slung over their shoulders. Nearby, the outside seating at Charlie's is full and its better-dressed "bring your own" customers clutch their wine bottles as they drift past, looking for a table to start their foreplay.
In front of the shuttered Humphrey's bookstore two Chinese men in khakis and polo shirts have set up small stools and wait patiently for customers: "Pressure massage. Relieve stress." In another alcove, a red-faced man with a slouching belly offers to "cut your profile with scissors" from shiny black cardboard. He works fast, lips pursed, while a group of heavily made-up young women giggle at one of their own who is being snipped, who camps it up by putting out her tongue.
A Peruvian band has started playing next to the now-dry fountain and a crowd has gathered. The group is playing too close to another performer, a spray can artist, and the fumes from his frenzied efforts make it hard to stay for long.
Satomi and I walk around the corner and past the beachfront cafes. The U-Turn, Tunis, Blue Water, Rimini... all packed. There is no smoking inside restaurants, so the "al fresco" tables on the sidewalk are monopolized by tobacco addicts and their suffering companions. But the food looks good, and the atmosphere is thick with urban hipness never mind the smoke. (One guidebook I read said that "missing the last boat back from Manly" is a rite of passage for young Sydney-siders.)
We head back to the apartment, where it's mostly quiet. At around 3:00 in the morning there's a loud group passing by the windows, shouting at each other. Another night on the Corso is over.
I left early today, picked up Satomi, Julian and Satomi's father and together we drove down to Bankstown for a scenic flight. I have to admit I was a little nervous: this was my first flight without an instructor in seven plus years and I was still unsure of myself in the Tobago (an airplane that I had less than three hours of time flying in, all of them last Saturday).
We arrived at Bankstown early and found it was hot. Very hot... in fact it was scorching, and the Tobago (being a low-wing aircraft) was like a blast-furnace when I opened the gull-wing doors. Fortunately there was a breeze so it cooled quickly (at least to the ambient temperature, which must have been over 90 degrees) with the hatches open.
I took my time pre-flighting the airplane and refamiliarizing, going through departure and landing checklists in my head while studying the panel. Satomi, Julian and Yukio were off looking at airplanes in the shade of a T-hanger. When everything was ready I waved them over and we strapped in. I left one door cracked open while starting the plane and taxiing, but still the temperature climbed. We were really, really hot by the time we got to the run-up area.
I went through the run-up checklist, cycled the prop, checked the carb heat, then checked the magnetos. The left was fine, but the right mag was rough. I switched back to both mags and ran the engine up while leaning it (hoping to burn off whatever gunk might be fouling the plugs) but it was still rough. Finally I told the others were weren't taking this plane and we headed back to the parking area, all of us drenched in sweat.
Fortunately there was another Tobago available, this one not quite as nice (worn seats, loose bits of plastic in the interior which is normal for a training aircraft) but with a smooth-running engine. Oddly, this one had an oil dipstick that wouldn't thread properly... so an instructor who happened to be out there suggested I steal the dipstick from the first Tobago. (I did note from the logs that both aircraft had been in regular use, including today, so you have to wonder...)
The flight was fine; we flew north to Pittwater, then past the lighthouse at Barrenjoey Head and down the coast to Manly, where we circled a few times at 500 feet above the water.
I was most worried about my landing: out of ten landings last week, only two were really acceptable. But the landing today was perfect; I think letting things sink into my head for a week helped, and the Tobago responds well to "attitude" flying (just keep chanting, "attitude for airspeed, attitude for airspeed" and it practically lands itself).
On the way back from Bankstown we stopped at Homebush to see the Olympics site and stop for dinner. But what I had thought (from the last visit in November) was a decent restaurant turned out to be an awful-looking buffet (cook your own burgers/steaks). And to top it off there was a terrible keyboard player/vocalist there with his volume turned up too loud playing the worst imaginable hits of the seventies and eighties. Ugh... we made a run for Manly and ate at Blue Water instead.