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Update History

21 July 2009

The Eighth Wonder Of The World

Boulders Beach


The only reason I encouraged Pi Chi to submit her paper to the Durban conference was because I wanted to go to Cape Town. And presenting it at such a conference would make it easier to publish. But mostly I wanted to go to Cape Town.

Every so often Pi Chi rattles off a list of places where such conferences are held. They are mostly in cities or countries I have no desire to go, or are in exceptionally expensive areas at rather inconvenient times. There is almost always a conference in Hawaii at the end of April. Nurses seem to like going there, and April is a good time for Hawaii. Unless you have to fly through Japan, as we would. The end of April is Golden Week in Japan. Several public holidays are all smashed together and a shitload of Japanese hit the road. It is like flying through China during what the Chinese do not call Chinese New Year. When not going to Disneyland, the Japanese love going to Hawaii. We could get cheaper flights if we flew to Australia or California and then to Hawaii, but I am morally opposed to taking the absurdly long way around.

There is usually a conference in Scandinavia in January. I am always up for a trip to Denmark or Sweden. Or any of the lesser Scandinavian countries. But they get a little chilly in January. I like snow as much as the next person who does not have to live in it, but I prefer to stay as far away from the Arctic Circle in January as possible.

Turkey has recently shown up as a conference site. I could do Turkey. The odds of my accidentally hiking near the Syrian or Iranian border are pretty thin. But the cheapest flights from here to there require stopping in Johannesburg or London. Johannesburg is not what one would call close to Turkey. And the flights from London to Ankara cost as much as the flights from Hong Kong to London. I am cheap enough to find that inexcusable.

When Pi Chi said there was a conference in Durban I said yes, emphatically.

“Durban good?” asks she.

“A mere pittance on the world stage,” says I, “But a brief sojourn to the wondrous metropolis that is and always will be the Cape Town.”

“Captown good?” asks she.

“Aye, verily,” respondeth I.

I do not remember the exact conversation, but I am sure it went something like that. I think one of us was holding a parrot.


Boulders Beach


We rented a Honda at Cape Town International that looked just like the Toyota we rented at OR Tambo, and drove to our house on False Bay. Obviously, this meant a good deal of driving. Especially since the N2 was under serious construction for the World Cup next year.

I put more effort into finding our Cape Town house than any accommodation I have ever used anywhere. Cape Town has relatively few traditional hotels and more guest houses than most cities its size. It also has a wide variety of houses for rent at amazingly low prices. Unless you go during the World Cup. Fortunately, we were a year ahead. The low prices threw me off, and I was suspicious of the first few houses I saw. Common sense told me that a four bedroom house with a swimming pool for US$100 per night must be a rat hole and/or in a horrible neighborhood. The more I looked into it, the more I saw that $100 was the high end and most of the houses looked pretty nice. At least according to the websites.

I eventually chose a house with great views of False Bay that looked pretty good on several websites. The good news in renting a house rather that going to a hotel is that there are no hotels overlooking False Bay. If you want those postcard views you have to rent a house. The bad news is that the person who claimed to be in charge of the house did not take credit cards. I had to send half of the payment in a bank transfer and pay the rest in cash when we got there. All of my research told me that this was standard operating procedure. Apparently South Africans are trusting enough to rent out their very nice fully furnished houses to total strangers, but not trusting enough to take anything besides cash.

If I lived in a normal country, it would probably be very easy to send bank transfers. I could probably do that sort of thing online with today’s e-technology. But I live in a place where computers are used almost exclusively for playing extremely violent and graphic games that depict women as very small, save for their enormous breasts. Business is rarely transacted via computer as all Chinese business requires a Chinese hand stamp before anything is official. A personal seal outweighs a signature and most of the computers around here cannot produce either. I do not even know if my bank has any computers. Everything is done with paper and stamps. Sending money from my bank to another requires filling out several very long forms. When I found that the information provided by the person who manages the house in Cape Town was insufficient, I had to ask him for more information. He told me that what he gave me should do the trick. I agreed, but it did not. After several attempts and far too many e-mails, I was finally able to send him a big wad of cash. Or not.

He was supposed to send a confirmation e-mail upon receipt of said wad. After a time, I sent him an e-mail asking if he indeed had my easily earned cash. When there was no response I considered the options. The money might not have gone through. If not, where is it and can I have it back? Sending money from an Asian bank that no one outside of Asia has ever heard of to an African bank that no one outside of Africa has ever heard of could be risky. But if the money went into some interdimensional banking void, why was this guy not answering my e-mails? The second option was that he had my money and I would never hear from him again. That would be inconvenient. I could find another house and go through the entire process again, hoping for a better result, and hunt this person down once we got there. But I only knew where the house was, not where the person who said he managed it was. Also, I tend to think that when something goes horribly wrong I should probably not repeat the process. Excluding marriage, of course.

A third option was that he had received the money and had simply not yet had a chance to send an e-mail. This was my bank’s opinion when I went there to see if I could get my money back. They guaranteed that the money went through successfully. When a Chinese person guarantees something it means that they think there is a fair chance that something might be as they possibly say it is. They also say that things are impossible if they are unlikely, unusual or require some effort.

With the money gone forever, I did what I could to look into this person who may or may not have gotten it. I had his name, bank account number and business address. Apparently with the e-technology, that is enough.

I found his Myspace page with plenty of photographs of him surfing and skiing, some college information, his work address and quite possibly his mother’s home address. When I found out that he is the manager of a tile company, I was a little worried. It did not seem likely to me that the manager of a tile company was authorized to rent out houses to visitors. The tile company is located very close to the house, which only made me more suspicious. Anyone who drives by a house for sale every day could easily take pictures of it and advertise it as rentally available. The fact that this same house with similar pictures was on several different websites recommended by the South African tourist board did nothing to assuage my concern.

Surfer Dude eventually sent an e-mail saying that he received the e-money and all systems were go, but I was never confident that any of this would work out. Before we left the Silk Continent for the Dark Continent, I printed out a large list of alternate accommodations should this one turn to the absolute shit pile I assumed it would. I also brought along every piece of information I had on this guy just in case legal action and/or Molotov cocktails were required.

I told none of this to Pi Chi. I generally like to avoid telling her about such speed bumps because she always “has a feeling” that only the worst outcome is possible. Once she has her feelings she will either nag me until I do whatever she wants me to do or I smother her in her sleep. In this case she would have insisted that I book another house. But I preferred to keep her in the dark and be optimistic. And I really did not want to go through all the paperwork for another bank transfer.

I also neglected to tell Pi Chi that half of the house payment was to be paid in cash on arrival. Since Cape Town was at the end of our trip, this meant I wandered around South Africa with a big wad of cash in my pocket. This would have sent her into apoplectic shock. The last thing the Chinese will have on them when facing Big Black Men is money. And there were all those animals at Kruger that might have eaten me. Not to mention the Indians. One should never get a Chinese started on the Indians. When I lived in the filthy little farm village of 崙背, one of the locals told me that he would never want to visit India as it is too dirty. Most Chinese do not get irony.

When we drove up to the Cape Town house, it looked just like the pictures on all the websites. That was encouraging. But the address was wrong. The number that I had been given was the house next door. That was discouraging. While we waited for Surfer Dude to show up with the keys, I was still willing to believe that this situation could go either way. When he actually showed up, I was more than a little surprised, and Pi Chi was relieved as she was in desperate need of the facilities.

When Surfer Dude told me that the house next to the house that was featured on all of the websites was indeed the rental house, I could feel my eyebrows involuntarily fall. But this was the same jock on Myspace and he had the keys to one of these houses, and with Pi Chi in the bathroom, that was good enough for me. The actual rental house turned out to be bigger and nicer than the one on all those websites. We did not need bigger, but nicer was nice. Lamentably, the actual rental house did not have a pool. But it was winter, and whether I would have actually used the pool is debatable. Since Pi Chi cannot swim, it is likely that she would not have. The pool at the fake rental house is also clearly visible from the actual rental house, so naked time would have been problematic. And the actual rental house had a large stoep spanning the length of the house from which one could watch whales in the bay and suns setting. I spent more time on the stoep than I probably would have in the pool.

When Surfer Dude left, he had my big wad of cash and we had keys to a very nice house that he may or may not have been authorized to rent. If anything went wrong I could always call his mobile phone that always goes to voice mail or write an e-mail to which he would take weeks to respond.

The entire time we were there I expected a surprised family to come home from vacation. But it was a nice house.


False Bay


The great thing about Cape Town is that it is lekker topgallant. Dude. Specifically, it has friendly natives, excellent food, great weather, well-paved roads and outstanding scenery.

With no conference to occupy Pi Chi’s attention, I had no free days to see Cape Town my way. But Cape Town is not a popular travel destination amongst the Chinese. This means that they do not watch television shows that tell them where to eat, or buy travel books that tell them where to shop. What this meant for me was that I could suggest going anywhere or doing anything without Pi Chi wanting to visit the famous commemorative thimble shop. If we go to Paris, she has to buy a €25 Eiffel Tower statue that is worth about 50c. If we go to Amsterdam, she has to buy bags full of tiny porcelain shoes that probably cost far more than they should, but I could not tell you the price since I likely walked away in disgust. But if we go to Cape Town, she does not know what famous souvenir she is supposed to buy.

But somebody told her about Century City, in which lies Canal Walk, “Africa’s premier super-regional retail environment”. It advertises “the most comprehensive and compelling lifestyle shopping experience in South Africa”, “spectacular architecture and an unparalleled array of local and international retail brands” all in a “majestic setting”. It looked like a mall to me.

Once again I found myself in a city with a unique culture, history and scenery, but I got to spend the day standing around oblivion while Pi Chi looked at purses. Fortunately, she was unimpressed with the food court so we spent less time there than we could have. The best thing about Century City for me was that it is on the way to Bloubergstrand, from which one gets the most famous view of Table Mountain.

Table Mountain would have always been at the top of my list of things to see in Cape Town were I to make such a list. It is not the tallest mountain in South Africa. It is not even the tallest mountain near Cape Town. But it has great views of Cape Town and is as flat as one of those mites that kills citrus fruits, or as flat as a table, if you will. When I visit a city, I like to go to the top of the tallest building or observation tower and have a look around. Cape Town is not known for its skyscrapers, but it happens to have a big flat mountain right where you would want a tower. The flat part is convenient for those of us who are not too terribly keen on hiking up rocks and dirt and other horribly natural surfaces. The people in charge of Table Mountain were also considerate enough to put in a cable car that stretches from a paved parking lot to the top of the mountain. Those who wish to hike up the mountain may do so, but those of us who wear comfortable shoes can take a ride in a little box that dangles precariously over a sheer cliff. And the cable cars rotate 360 degrees so everyone can get a good view of their impending death.


Table Mountain


Cape Town is a popular destination for hikers, surfers, fishers, divers, snorkelers, sky divers, kayakers and general outdoor sporting activity enthusiasts. These are not things that Pi Chi and I do. Cape Town has a wide variety of beaches, and each might have completely different water temperatures on the same day, thanks to the city’s jagged coastline and two different oceans. But there was one beach that was always at the top of my imaginary list.

Boulders Beach is a tiny patch of sand and rocks on the eastern shore of the Cape Peninsula. It gets its name from the giant rocks on the beach and in the water that keep most waves and surfers out. It would be a very good beach for small children if not for the thousands of penguins that invaded several years ago. And that is what I wanted to see. I cannot think of anywhere else in the world where you can swim with penguins. Most of their beaches in South America are protected, and swimming around Galapagos is probably an excellent way to get eaten by sharks. I suppose you could swim in Antarctica but that would be stupid. As it turned out, the water of False Bay in winter was too cold for me. Yet I think Antarctica might be colder.

But Cape Town was not too cold for a drive. Our rental car had somewhere around 20km when we drove it away from the airport and over 1000km when we returned it, and we never really left the False Bay/Cape Town area. Unlike our drives to and from Kruger, we never got lost in Cape Town. I am not really sure how anyone can. The roads are in excellent condition and everything is well marked. In English, no less. Afrikaans is the dominant language, which means the government has been changing everything to English since 1994. In Durban, they are changing everything to Zulu, which is probably good for the people who speak Zulu, but does nothing for me.

The first time I rode the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Tokyo Disneyland I felt an odd tinge of familiarity. The ride looked, sounded, smelled and felt so much like the one in California that I felt for a second like I was in California. It was kind of spooky. The first time I drove up the M4 near the University of Cape Town I felt as though I could be driving in California. This is unusual for me since I usually drive amongst Chinese people who obey no rules of the road or common sense and on Chinese streets that could not possibly remind any sober person of California. But the palm trees, mountains and oceans of Cape Town could remind one of California, especially the superior southern part.

There is also the issue of climate. Cape Town’s and Los Angeles’ temperatures are comparable, though Cape Town can get colder. They get about the same amount of rain in winter. The humidity levels feel similar and it all just generally feels the same, though I would say that Cape Town has much cleaner air. If international terrorists ever blindfold me and put me on a plane, I will immediately know where I am if I get off the plane in Southeast Asia, Eastern Africa or Western Europe. But if they let me off in Los Angeles or Cape Town, I will probably have a difficult time sensing which it is.

But they would likely take me to some Middle Eastern desert wasteland anyway. There I would be bathed in rose petals and water collected from the morning dew on lovegrass bushes while nubile handmaids feed me fresh dates and tahini-filled dark chocolates with just a hint of mint. After all, this is what international terrorists do. If pirates can be wacky madcap heroes, I imagine there will come a day when we treat terrorists as big lovable teddy bears. Maybe a Broadway musical with jovial songs about global jihad and honor killings.


They were murderers and rapists, right?
(Photograph not by me)


One of the great things for me about traveling to and fro is the food. I live in a place and time where everyone eats Chinese food. All the time. Chinese breakfast, Chinese brunch, Chinese lunch, Chinese afternoon tea, Chinese dinner, Chinese dessert, Chinese midnight snack. I have nothing against Chinese food on principle but I like to eat other food as well. Despite what Chinese children learn in school, there is a larger world out there. Some of it has some good food.

South Africa has an outstanding variety of food thanks to its long history of submission and oppression. What should be at least 15 different countries are crammed into one. Add to that the Nederlander and British conquerors and a disproportionate proliferation of Indians and you get some nice recipes. The larger grocery stores in the larger cities are about as international as you can get.

We had a very large kitchen at the Cape Town rental house and I always assumed I would cook most of our meals. But we also went out a lot and Pi Chi has to eat when Pi Chi has to eat. This was never a problem as Cape Town is littered with enough restaurants to suit practically any of her whims. But as often happens, her favorite restaurant was not some small hole in the wall with excellent food and a pleasant atmosphere. Those are always my favorite. Hers was the snack shop on Table Mountain. They had packaged convenience store food, though far superior to 7-11, and a basic cafeteria. All at much higher than average prices because, on a mountain, where else are you going to go. Pi Chi thought their potato salad was one of the great wonders of the world. I thought it needed more mustard.


False Bay



10 July 2009

Betty And The Jets

Golden Mile


Durban is the largest city in the Zulu Nation. The current king is a direct descendant of Shaka. He holds absolutely no power in government but does more to combat the spread of AIDS than the people who are actually supposed to do something about it. Durban is famous for several things I do not care about and has some of the best beaches in the republic. I generally spend very little time at beaches.

Durban also has the largest shopping mall in Africa and the Southern Hemisphere. Supposedly. I can believe it is the largest mall in Africa, but I have to assume Australia has a larger mall or two. I have no doubt that Pi Chi has seen larger malls. I know that I have.

We spent an entire day in this mall because that is Pi Chi style. It is home to a wide variety of crap I could not care less about and Pi Chi’s favorite juice stand in the world. That is saying something since Pi Chi has lived her entire life in a country that has at least one juice stand every five feet. It also has a very nice Superspar where we bought entirely too many groceries. Despite not having a car in which to take them away.

We rented a car for Kruger because not having one would have put us at the mercy of drivers and guides who know what they are doing but tend to charge money for their time and services. They also have schedules that are hard to keep when traveling with Pi Chi. And we stayed outside of the park, which would have added extra complications with regard to said fees and schedules. We rented a car in Cape Town because our lodging of choice was not entirely in the CBD, or Central Business District to you and me.

We chose not to rent a car in Durban because we stayed relatively close to the Indian Ocean and not too terribly far from the pop and parties. This left us at the mercy of taxi drivers since Durban, and indeed most of South Africa, has virtually no public transportation. There are no metro systems anywhere, the buses rarely follow any schedule or route, the kombis are shared taxis that go wherever the driver wants to go and there is no guarantee that he will speak any language that you speak. Visitors are discouraged from using most public transportation since the system makes sense only to locals. Cape Town is slightly better since it has a local train system, but the trains only go around half of False Bay. This may be why renting cars in South Africa is much cheaper than anywhere else that has international chains and a highly developed highway system.

The taxi driver who picked us up at the airport told us that he could take us wherever we wanted to go for the duration of our stay for a very reasonable fee. This seemed too convenient for comfort, but it turned out to be standard practice since almost all visitors either rent a car or rely on taxis. Somewhere along the line, the taxi drivers realized that repeat business was more profitable than picking up random strangers. Much as I did when I met Pi Chi. Another benefit was that where we stayed seems to be very hard for anyone to find.


The new Moses Mabhida Stadium
Built for the 2010 World Cup


Rather than stay at a traditional hotel in the CBD or something more expensive on the Golden Mile, we chose a guest house in a quiet suburban neighborhood which was a few rooms above someone’s garage. But it was so much nicer than that sounds. From the outside it looked like a few rooms above someone’s garage. From the inside it looked like a small house with an average size bedroom, living room, dining room, very large closet and changing room next to the bathroom, and one of the best kitchens I have ever used anywhere in the world. It was not the largest kitchen, but it had everything we needed and was very comfortable. Like the rest of the loft, the kitchen was almost completely surrounded by windows. The living room and bedroom had floor to ceiling windows with sliding glass doors that opened to the wrap around stoep. The sunlight penetrated every inch of those rooms like something not vulgar even though only vulgar similes are occurring to me right now.

The owners of the loft were a friendly old couple, much like the owners of the rondavel in Hazyview. Except that instead of showing any interest in birds, they were endlessly fascinated by military history. The small library in the bedroom was full of books about the Boer Wars (or Freedom Wars, depending whose side you are on), Voortrekkers, the British Raj and Churchill’s entire History Of The English-Speaking Peoples. The owners were also Hungarian, so bereft of that goofy South African accent.

When we arrived at the loft, the kitchen was stocked with enough food to tide us over, all the condiments, herbs and spices we could need and even a chilled bottle of wine. We appreciated the attention to customer service, but I do not drink and Pi Chi gets drunk before finishing a single glass. Lamentably, she is not an entertaining drunk, so I like to discourage her from imbibing. But I like to visit the local grocery stores wherever I stay, and since we had that great kitchen, I was determined to use it. We were going to call our airport taxi driver, but the Second Mr Owner offered us a ride to the nearest store, which he claimed would more than suit our needs. And it did.

The local Kwikspar was only slightly larger than a large 7-11, but instead of dead open spaces and a bunch of stale Chinese crap, it was packed with fresh produce, fresh bread, fresh pasta, and a variety of African and European food. It was within walking distance of the loft, but carrying uphill all the groceries we bought would have been a chore. We were grateful for the free ride and surprised when Mr Owner II apologized that he would not be able to give us similar rides in the next two days as he had previous engagements. But we had more than enough food and noticed more than a few restaurants during our short trip down the hill. We also planned to go out on the town from time to time and thought it unlikely that we would starve.

Yet again, these African innkeepers were displaying hospitality unheard of in Asia. They were treating us like their guests.

The hardest thing to get used to at the loft was the housekeeper. Employing domestic workers is common amongst white middle class South Africans. The fact that all of their housekeepers, cooks and drivers are black does not seem to bother anyone. Everybody is used to the system that has been in place for generations. It was only when the black population started to make more money and wanted their own help that things got awkward. I have never met a single African who had a problem with black people serving white people, but some find the idea of a black person serving another black person unnatural. And a white person serving a black person would probably cause the universe to crack.

I am not comfortable with domestic workers of any ethnicity. I cannot see my home as a workplace for someone. Home is where I can take off my shoes, close my eyes and blast music until the neighbors bang on the walls. Living amongst Chinese, home is the only place in the entire country I can go without anyone staring at me. Unless Pi Chi is home. Chinese people are endlessly fascinated by whitey. And rightly so. We are an unusual breed.

Hotels never feel like home, but they are the closest thing applicable whilst traveling. And even then I do not like being in the room while housekeeping is keeping house. It just seems wrong to be lying on the bed and defacing the Gideon Bible while a middle aged woman is on her knees scrubbing the toilet. Unless you are into that sort of thing. Who am I to judge.

The loft’s housekeeper was an older Zulu woman who lived in Mr and Mrs Owner’s house. We were determined not to give her any extra work to do, but one day we left the loft in a rush with a dish or two in the sink. When we came back, the dishes were washed, dried and put in their proper receptacles, and the entire sink was scrubbed spotless. We had been told beforehand that Betty would be more than happy to satisfy our laundry needs for a small fee paid directly to her, but since there was a washing machine in the kitchen we decided to be self-sufficient. However, as often happens on vacations, we had better things to do and ended up giving her a pittance to do our mentionables. We returned to find our clothes neatly folded in the changing room and cleaner than they have been in a very long time.

Betty was also an incredibly friendly person who proved invaluable during our stay. Mrs Owner was called away on family business just before we arrived and Mr Owner was not entirely sure how things worked around his home. He had his own semi-retired business going on and the loft was Mrs Owner’s project. Betty knew where everything was and how it all worked. When the heater in the bedroom chose not to cooperate, it was Betty who brought in a portable device. Winters in Durban are not exactly cold, but when one lives with thirty degrees year round one tends it find it a bit nippy at ten. Pi Chi puts on a coat at twenty.

After our second or third taxi ride, we assumed that the driver who picked us up at the airport would be our driver for the duration of our stay. He seemed more than happy that we not use his competition, and he was very prompt in the beginning.

I originally assumed that while Pi Chi was at her conference I would be free to do whatever I wanted to do. This is usually how we operate. But the taxi ride to the convention center required going through a neighborhood of Big Black Men. There was never any danger since downtown Durban is relatively safe for a city its size, the neighborhood between us was more working class than post apocalyptic dystopia, and our taxi driver knew where he was going. But Pi Chi is Chinese. So I had to go with her in the morning and pick her up in the evening. This often turned two taxi rides into five since whatever I was going to do was not necessarily anywhere near the convention center. Having our own personal taxi driver was convenient, but renting a car would have been cheaper.

On Pi Chi’s first full day off she wanted to go to the largest shopping mall in the Southern Hemisphere. Supposedly. I had already told her about some of the more interesting parts of Durban I had seen, but a large shopping mall will always be her top priority. Our regular taxi driver was unavailable so he sent someone else. This was not a problem as we were going somewhere famous that any taxi driver should know how to find. Unfortunately, Someone Else could not find the loft. It is tucked away on a tiny street away from any large streets. It is very easy to miss the street. And if you find the street, it is very easy to miss the loft. And that is what the other taxi driver did.

Eventually, we made it to the mall and bought too many groceries. The second taxi driver gave us his card and wanted us to use him, but we felt a sense of loyalty to the first driver and called him when we wanted to leave the mall. He was still unavailable and sent someone else. We slowly realized that we had no idea what this other driver’s car looked like and he had no idea what we looked like. Since this was the largest shopping mall in the Southern Hemisphere, supposedly, there were more than a few cars going and coming and more than a few people waiting. At home it is easy for taxi drivers to find me. Look for the tall white guy. In South Africa there are quite a few tall white guys.

In the end we called the second taxi driver since we knew what his car looked like and he knew what we looked like. He picked us up within fifteen minutes and we decided to use him from then on.

Until the next time we wanted to go to the convention center. Thirty minutes after we called him, we called the first taxi driver. He was unavailable yet again but said he would send someone else. When we reached the point where Pi Chi was going to be late no matter what we did, we called a third driver. Mr and Mrs Owner kept a book of local phone numbers in the loft. There was a page for taxi drivers that they considered reliable. None of our drivers was on their list. So we called one of theirs and he knew exactly where the loft was. He seemed to know Mr and Mrs Owner personally. We thought he was probably the best choice, but Pi Chi wanted to get there as quickly as possible. Whoever showed up first would get our business.

Mr and Mrs Owner’s recommended driver and our second driver showed up at the same time. We chose the recommended driver since he had not let us down. Yet. Our second driver was more than annoyed and felt that he should be compensated for making the effort. I pointed out that had he made any effort we would have never been in this situation. He was uninspired by my logic and gave the impression that he wanted to express his dissatisfaction with life in greater detail, but Betty looked at him and he got back in his car and drove away. Since she was facing away from me, I could not see what she communicated, but I have to assume that she meant business.

The recommended driver took me back to the loft after we dropped off Pi Chi, and I arranged for him to pick us up at the convention center when she was finished. I would make my way there in my own way at my own time. After the arranged time came and went I called him and he said he was on the way. Much later I called him again and he said he was on the way. We took a random taxi back to the loft. That driver gave us his card and said he would be more than happy to drive us around during the rest of our trip. We threw away his card. From then on we called a taxi company that sent different drivers each time. None of them could find the loft and all of them showed up.


Betty, as seen on Google


Pi Chi likes to shop. I might have mentioned this already. She likes to shop at famous department stores and the supposedly largest shopping malls in various hemispheres. I prefer local street markets. The Gateway in Umhlanga, Pacific Place in Hong Kong, CentralWorld in Bangkok, Sarit Centre in Nairobi and Westside Pavilion in Los Angeles all seem the same to me. At least the CentralWorld did before the Red Shirts burned it down. But Fa Yuen in Hong Kong, Shibuya in Tokyo, Myeongdong in Seoul, der Graben in Vienna and Cuypsmarkt in Amsterdam all have their own character. Pi Chi wanted to do some authentic African shopping, so I took her to the Victoria Street Market. She hated it. There were no department stores, no designer clothes and no ridiculously expensive purses. And it was populated and surrounded by Big Black Men and tiny Indian women.

Pi Chi’s conference was the only reason we went to Durban, and it was the conference that really made it worthwhile for me. While she was busy talking shop, I was able to see the town the way I wanted to see it. And when she had free time I was able to go with her to the things I do not care about. Since she spent several days in her conference, I almost had enough time to visit Durban my way. The more I do what I want to do, the less I bitch and moan about going to yet another shopping mall. At least until I write about it later. Have I mentioned that she made me wait for ten hours at Louis Vuitton in Paris while I was hobbling around on a cane? That has to give me at least a few more years of bitching rights.


Sunset over Clare Hills



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Most important for honor to making drive with eye close (7) How can it be an accident when they drive like assholes on purpose? (3) Let your family get their own dreams to the reality (3) Police don’t ask me how I feel – I feel fined (3) When you travel to a city with a rich culture and history try to visit its theme parks (3) And I ask myself why were there no strippers at my wedding (2) Get out the way old Dan Tucker (2) Holy Mother tramples the heads of the Earth fire dragon (2) I hate the fact that I need an electronic device in my life (2) I was tired of walking anyway (2) It is indeed like rain on your wedding cake (2) No colors were harmed in the taking of these photographs (2) What the Zagat guide doesn’t tell you (2) Why is not now if it fight? (2) And they don't even hold a grudge (1) Aucune couleur dans la fabrication de ces photgraphs n'a été blessée (1) Brother can you spare a thousand dimes (1) Castle Of The King Of The Birds (1) De Cultuur van Amsterdam is de belangrijkste van Nederland (1) Does one person really need 500 shoes? (1) Dorénavant je ne parlerai pas même Français (1) Everything I know about right and wrong I learned from M*A*S*H (1) From Genesis to Revelation in one run-on sentence (1) Hast du etwas Zeit für mich - Dann singe Ich ein Lied für dich von Wien und Österreich und das sowas von sowas kommt (1) He doesn't care too much for money since money can't buy him love (1) I am tired of typing tiny dirt farm village (1) I knew there was a reason I never go to Dallas (1) I participate in all your hostility to dogs and would readily join in any plan of exterminating the whole race. – Thomas Jefferson to Peter Minor 1811 (1) I think I saw Walt Disney’s frozen head in the popcorn line (1) If I were a half decent photographer anything I shot in Africa would make you say Great Mbleka - this place is awfuckingtastic (1) If Jesus exists then how come he never lived here (1) If Nelson Mandela exists then how come he never lived here? (1) If Rodney King lived here he’d still be alive today (1) If you wish to be starting some thing you have got to be starting some thing - I say if you wish to be starting some thing you have got to be starting some thing (1) If you’ve seen one crowded polluted stinking town… (1) It is make unluck to give a shit (1) It is super and strong to kill the wound dint (1) It’s actually a pretty enormous world after all (1) Keine Farben wurden im nehmen dieser Fotos geschädigt (1) Me no like (1) Most greatest blog post is ever was (1) NOT ALLOW (1) Never trust a man who can only spell a word one way (1) No humans were harmed in the taking of these photographs (1) Not counting the last one (1) Old people got no reason (1) Peace and easy feelings (1) Peter Brown never called me (1) Planes and trains and boats and buses characteristically evoke a common attitude of blue (1) Probably the best time I have ever had at one of my favorite places in the world (1) Red is the color that my baby wore and what's more it's true - yes it is (1) Slap tjips - jy maak my nou sommer lekker skraal mos (1) Strike up the band and make the fireflies dance (1) Suicide is Painless but booking trips at the last minute around here is a pain in the ass (1) The day the music died (1) The lingering acrid scent of $5 whores never impresses the little lady back home (1) The one about my first trip to Amsterdam which doesn’t really say anything about my first trip to Amsterdam (1) The woman who will be the mother of my illegitimate children just as soon as I get that time machine fixed (1) They might as well be dead when the rain comes (1) Think about how stupid the average person is and then realize that half of them are stupider than that (1) Those godless French bastards never once offered me any vodka (1) Tiny metal rods (1) To boldly be our guest a long long time ago where no man has gone before under the sea (1) Unfortunately to get to nature you have to go through civilization (1) We’ll kill the fatted calf tonight so stick around (1) What good is a used up world and how could it be worth having? (1) Who is this Red Rose that just walked in the she hot stuff (1) Why Julia Child never lived here (1) You make kill we make kill so all same ok (1) Your lateral cuneiform is full of eels (1) scenic Bali (1) spellcheck this (1)

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I have no qualms about disseminating creative works for the public benefit when the author is duly credited, but if you use any of the writing or photography contained herein and try to pass it off as yours, that just shows you are a big pussy who is too lazy to come up with your own word usements or shoot your own digital paintings. You should be ashamed of your dipshittery.