lairdandjonelle

Here are eel pictures from our last trip. Don’t know whether any of these guys had their heads bitten off; if so, it is very sadmaking. I can’t believe otters would do that! Gotta be river otters — cutiepie ocean otters wouldn’t behave so badly!

First, the spelling of the material is shwe shwe. Second, the material of the pants Loret and Helmein made for me is not shwe shwe, but Nigerian fabric. Not that it matters, but now I know that what I really, really love is Nigerian fabric. Shwe shwe is patterned, but much tamer than Nigerian, and not waxed. I have some, but I want more of both. There is a FABULOUS pattern that I want to make bathroom curtains or shades out of — I’ll be the envy of the neighborhood for sure! Or not. But I will love it. Helmein told me about a shwe shwe sewing project in a settlement that I understood to be next to Groot Brak. Wrong! We had to go to hell and gone trying to find the place, but finally we succeeded, a long way away from Groot Brak. Alas, they don’t sell shwe shwe, they make things, so I bought a bunch of buttons and what Laird calls a Zulu One Pot — a fabric “oven”. So you can cook rice in 1/2 hour after it boils instead of 20 minutes. No wonder they also call it the Wonder Pot, which was apparently very popular in SA awhile back. Turns out both Marita and Noekie have one. Now I do too. Made out of shwe shwe. Aren’t I lucky?!?
Tomorrow is Eel Day at Stillbaai. No, not eating them, petting and feeding them. Our friend, and my miracle worker, Carina is going with us, so I expect we’ll have a great day. Shwe shwely yours, jm & lg

Before we start, we have to tell of seeing what we think was a cape gray mongoose on the road to Emily Moon, a resort just outside Plett where we wanted to go for a meal. We don’t know if it is rare in the world, but it is definitely rare in our world. The only one we’ve ever seen!
Now for Plettenberg Bay adventure pictures. Don’t forget to notice my SWELL Tswai Tswai (uh, schway-schway phonetically) pants at Birds of Eden.  The house on the beach is a beautiful 1933 Cape Dutch in Wilderness.  I WANT THIS HOUSE!  P.S. I have NO IDEA why this is formatting the way it is, but I’m just hoping that the pictures publish.  Bird is a Knysna lourie, the little animal is a duiker.  The dog is Gustav.  See previous posts for info about all that.

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Well, it was Tuesday when it was so. First to the wolves. We’ve all been confused about wolves in Africa and now we know that confusion was warranted. There are no wolves in Africa. The wolves at the Wolf Sanctuary are rescues from North America. I did ask how they got to South Africa but our guide didn’t hear me and the conversation went in another direction. On the way back to Dana Bay, I want to stop by and ask the question again. Most of the wolves had been “pets” and then the people realized that they couldn’t keep them. It is always astounding to me the number of numbnuts there are in the world who are willing to ruin animals’ lives either so they can have an exotic pet or because they think they are rescuing them. Far from rescue, they doom them to a live behind bars. All of the places we’ve been around Plett are rescue places, sanctuaries. At the wolf sanctuary, there are more wolf dogs than wolves, but they do have pure wolves, including timber wolves (I think four; can’t remember). We couldn’t go in with them, but we got to go in with the other packs. Interestingly, most of their wolves and wolf dogs are male. Another question I didn’t get the answer to: why? Also interestingly, they can’t neuter the males because they’d never be able to be alphas or betas if they were. There are two pairs of wolf-wolf dog with young, one with two males about a year old and the other with six puppies about three months old. So cute! Oh, yeah, we didn’t get to go into them either because they didn’t want to disturb them. But the mother, a wolf dog, came to the fence to be petted. All the cages are fairly big, with enough room to run, but they are in the process of building the new family a much, much bigger place. We played with a wolf-wolf dog pair who were both quite friendly and gregarious; generally the wolves were more reserved, as you might expect. Most of the wolf dogs’ dogness is Huskie, though the have at least one that is probably part german shepard. Interesting to feel the difference in the coats; wolves’ coarser, of course.

After the wolves, on the way back to Plett, we stopped at a restaurant for lunch.  Odd place.  There is the restaurant that only serves breakfast; there is the Cheese Man, obvious what it is, but also some other items; there is a garden shop and nursery with beautiful plants; the Radical Raptors sanctuary; and two home decor stores that have some of the most beautiful furniture and textiles I’ve seen in SA.  NOEKIE, if you haven’t stopped there on your many, too many trips to and from Port Elizabeth, you really must.  They have some beautiful wood swings (with and without backs, with and without the hanging supports) and concrete-made-to-look-like-carved-stone garden seats that would look wonderful on the farm, or even out by Castalina’s pool.

We went to Radical Raptors, Laird eagerly, me just to please him, but it was wonderful!  Again, these are all rescued birds, most from people who took them as chicks.  Those can never be returned to the wild because they don’t know how to BE wild, or they had their wings clipped or, in one case, the bird was kept in a cage too small for it so it could not even open its wings all the way so now it will never be strong enough to wild fly.  It can fly, but not far or long.  This should make you cry:  these birds do not know that they are birds.  They think they are human.  They get other birds people bring in who are wild but damaged somehow and they rehabilitate them and send them back out to the wild.  Those birds are not on display, of course, because they want to keep them wild.  Mark, whose brother owns the place, showed off a kestral, a Harris hawk (not indigenous to South Africa), a great horned owl [LAIRD fill in the South African name, please, along with the jakel’s buzzard or whatever it was.  GALAXY, you would have really liked the place!  And, then, the BEST PART.  Mark’s dog, Gustav!  What a wonderful, magnificent dog he is!  As black as the Formosa Bay bunnies, he’s a Gernan wirehaired terrier (?) and lab mix.  He LOVES golf balls, to hunt and to chew.  Depending on the command Mark gives him after loosing the ball, he either stalks it or hunts it.  He’s amazing to watch him “hunt”.  If you throw the ball way away when he can’t see the throw, he has a very organized hunting pattern he follows to sniff out or see the ball.  The last time the ball was thrown, Mark had put his hat over Gustav’s eyes and kept blowing into his face before releasing him.  Between that, the wind and the golf ball’s smell from other throws, the poor sweetie pie was having to go through pattern after pattern after pattern over and over again.  Laird, who had thrown the ball, said he thought it might have gone in a hole, so finally Mark walked out to see and help Gustav.

Today is going to the Big Tree, a 1,000 year old yellowwood tree.  We dedicate today to Marita, who LOVES the Big Tree!

I’m publishing this, but come back to it after Laird has a chance to correct my mistakes.  Since I’ve lost entries TWICE, I’m afraid to get out without publishing!  Laird is doing the laundry (talk about the best kind of husband!) and there is wi-fi only in reception and the restaurant and I’m not about to leave my computer to go to the laundry or our chalet.

Predatorily yours, jm and lg

It’s Monday, so it must be Birds of Eden. But first, the news: yesterday, Laird read a headline in the paper that said “Make homemade condensed milk in shell jewelry”. We were quite confused all day long. First off, why would someone want to make any kind of anything in shell jewelry???? Anyway, it wasn’t until I was looking at the paper last night that I saw that Laird had mistaken “and” for “in”. How, I don’t know, but it cleared up a lot for me. I don’t think we saw anything in the paper today, but if so, I’ll report tomorrow.
Before the adventuring, let me tell you about the beautiful BLACK, very black bunnies all over the resort — they are quite cheerful making.
Breakfast at Mugg and Bean, which isn’t my first choice of place to go but at least they have good coffee and a terrific breakfast bowl (that isn’t served in a bowl) that is quinoa, spinach, tomatoes and poached eggs. It’s served with a terrible hollandaise sauce so after the first time I learned to order it without. Then on the road to Birds of Eden. Kind of ugly day, overcast, sometimes chilly, sometimes not, like it wants to rain — which would be fantastic, of course, but it hasn’t so far. At Birds we saw my favorite bird, a Knyesna lourie (pronounced NICE-nah instead of what I want to say, which is Ness-nah). It starts out at the top sort of a grass green then moving down gets darker and darker green until it becomes a deep navy blue. When it flies, it flashes the most startling scarlet red on its underwings. See if you can google it to see what it looks like. Oh, they also have “eye make-up, white around the red circle around their eyes. We saw lots of them, but at one point there was one right in front of us and as we stayed still and I had my hand on the post, he walked up to me, then up my arm and onto my shoulder so he could peck so gently on my ear! Reminded me of the lorikets at the casino near Joburg that swarm you and want to eat the earwax out of your ears (a very weird feeling, let me tell you!). He hopped down, hung around some more and then hopped up on my shoulder again. I was thrilled, of course! Speaking of scarlet, Birds of Eden also have lots and lots of scarlet ibis, also quite beautiful. But a pinker scarlet than the lourie underwing. We also saw blue dikker, a very, very small buck. I can’t remember what is bigger, a dikker or a dikdik, also a small buck. I’ll get back to you on that. I got my first order of boboutie at the restaurant there — one of my favorite South African dishes.
Noekie, please tell Loret I wore a pair of my WONDERFUL pants she made for me and I felt SO TERRIFIC. I wore the circle ones. I’m going to try to figure out how to spell the African fabric that they are made of: phonetically it’s something like schway-schway. It might be spelled something like Tswai-tswai, but so far I haven’t asked anyone who knows how it is spelled. It’s a waxed cotton that loses its wax in the first washing unfortunately, though it does make it a far more flexible fabric than when you buy. But, oh, those amazing African patterns in shiny wax — so fantastic! First wash must be in cold salt water to set the color. Why they don’t do that when they make the fabric and before they wax it is beyond me, but there you are: they don’t. Daniel and Sandy, you would go nuts at the colors and the patterns! The store Loret took us to has shelves and shelves of the stuff, sorted by color: reds, oranges, blues, turquoises, greens, yellows, purples, pinks, browns, on and on, in regular patterns like polka dots and then the craziest patterns you can imagine. Some of them are like being on an acid trip in the ’60s! I wanted to buy out the store, of course. Loret and Helmien made me TWO pairs of bell bottom pants — I can’t wait to wear them to the capitol! Thank you, thank you, thank you to both of them.
So I guess that’s all the news I have. Hippiely yours, jm

First things first, though. In today’s news we learned that an ostrich’s eye weighs 60 grams; its brain weighs 40 grams. Some days, I can sympathize.
After a lovely breakfast at a coffeeshop — which had a beautiful green wall, Sandy, and we’ll send you pictures — we decided to go to Birdland/Monkeyland, which is north of Plett. Well, we turned onto that road and saw a sign for walking with elephants, so, of course, we turned in that direction. What a terrific time we had! By the time the tour started, there were three couples, counting us, and there were three elephants: Marula, the matriarch (though she was not the oldest), Jabu and Thandi. Marula and Jabu both had defective trunks (they had lost the “fingers” on the end of their trunks in the wild), which meant that we gave them treats on the inside of the outside of their trunks and they then put them in their mouths; Thandi’s trunk was OK, so we put her treats in her trunk, which she then blew into her mouth. But Thandi has no tusks, so the others help her out when tusking is necessary. Elephants are very good about helping each other out as needed. We got to walk hand in trunk into the forest and got to pet them and learn about them up close and personal. What a swell time it was! They made a video of everyone and the elephants — the videographer, a man, spent most of his time taking video of a beautiful young blonde woman. Of course! Alas, I don’t understand how I lost 35 pounds and STILL look as fat as I did before. What the hell is that shit????
For lunch we stopped at Moss and Maple farmstall, where we met a lovely young man who was our waiter. His name is Janoh and he will be a high school senior next year. I had a great drink made of passion fruit juice combined with lemonade. Yummy.
Nice drive back and much quicker than going, and we found where there is a grocery store for future reference. Like Marita, we’ve decided to try having our dinner at lunchtime, very Georgia-farm-folk for me, and eating less at night — gotta do something or I’ll have to lose that damn 35 pounds again when we get home! Last night we just had plates of sauteed veggies, though I did sort of ruin the hoped-for effect by having about three glasses of wine. Small glasses, but even so, not helpful for dieting purposes. Who the hell thought it was a good idea to make wine fattening?!?

Even so, I think I’ll go have a glass — I’d rather skip the damn veggies.

Elephantly yours, jm.

What a glorious day in Plettenburg Bay to see whales. And see them we did! Lots of them! All humpbacks, having so much fun — though there were a couple that the guide said were males fighting. What do we know???? I was up on top with the guide and saw a whale glide RIGHT BY THE BOAT and turn over — I was gobsmacked! We also saw lots and lots and lots of the 8 to 10 THOUSAND cape fur seals that live on the Plett penninsula. Funny, they sound like sheep, except the deeper growly barks of the males. Laird saw one guy climbing straight up the cliff.  When we got back to shore, to bring the boat back to shore, i.e., the beach, they come in sort of close and wait for the folks to move any beachgoers away from where they want to land, then go out aways and turn around then GUN IT until they hit the beach — talk about all our butts yelling OOOPH!  So our main reason for coming to Plett has been satisfied; next we’ll go to Birdland and Monkeyland and walk with elephants. For lunch we were looking forward to sushi and went to a sushi restaurant we had seen earlier. It was a disappointment, particularly in light of Laird’s fantastic tuna sashimi the other night in Mossel Bay. The only real fish they had was salmon, which is not my favorite by any means. And fake crab, which I like, but not as my only fishy sushi. Oh well. That’s the news for now.  Whale and seal pictures to come when we get back to Dana Bay.

We had a double date with Noekie and Johan last night; went to Gannet in Mossel Bay for dinner — one of our favorite restaurants there. During the day, you look out at the ocean, at night into the lovely dining rooms. Good food was had by all. For appetizers, Johan and I had snoek, pepperdaw and something springrolls that were quite delicious. Noekie had a mushroom in phyllo something that looked really good and Laird had very beautiful tuna sashimi. I had Inverroche amber gin — a double — with very little tonic water. They served it with strawberries and pink peppercorns, but peppercorns in a drink are just ANNOYING. They are not drink, so the urge is to spit them out. So I did, but discreetly, y’all, discreetly. Noekie joined me in the gin for dinner, but we both said, no peppercorns, please! She had hake, Johan had another fish that I can’t remember, Laird had Thai seafood curry and I had (surprise!) cauliflower and chickpea coconut curry after agonizing over more exotic dishes like kingklip en croute. Everyone loved their dishes and we had such fun talking and laughing the evening away. Yet another lovely bathroom, folks!  Drove by the ocean on the way home — high tide and gorgeous.  I reminded them on when Marita and I went to the beach in blackest night looking for whales and had to wait about an hour and half for the sun to come up.  Noekie learned an expression from Marita’s late husband, Koos:  “you get zero for brain cells or something like that.  That’s what I got for hunting whales!

We are off to Plettenburg Bay for about a week of adventure, courtesy of Noekie, where we are sure to see whales.  Alas, Marita is bedbound on orders of her doctor until at least Monday, so when she is well, we’ll come back and get her for what remains of the holiday.  In Plett, as well as whale watching, there is walking with Elephants, Monkeyland, Birdland (with the most beautiful Knysna louries and other fantastic birds frying sort of free in an enormous enclosure that is 150 feet high and about 4 acres of forest.  3,500 birds of 280 species.  Monkeyland is 450 primates, also enclosed in a huge forested area (brochure doesn’t say, but we’ll report back).  We’ve been to both; Birdland is my favorite.  There is also a wolf preserve!  Who knew there were wolves in Africa?!?  Though, all that area used to be deep, deep forest, so it’s not as unusual a though upon reflection.  But, still, it is a little disconcerting.  Anyway, we’re going there, too.  So time to pack — in a tiny backpack????  How will I do that?!?

You’ve read the “stories”, i.e., conspiracy theory, of people going somewhere and waking up without a kidney, etc. Well.  The other day, the front page story was two South African teachers, men, missing in Vietnam. Vietnam thinks they may have run afoul of organ traffickers! Apparently the country just busted several organ brokers for trafficking. There goes my desire to see the country!

In today’s paper: a column in the Cape Argus (same source for above) reports that the average German is said to have 10,000 separate items at home. Hmmmm. Laird and I must have multi, multimillions if that is so! I bet if we started counting, we’d run out of numbers! Laird opined that we probably BROUGHT 1,000 on our trip. Even though much of what I brought were presents and have mostly been given away already (still have presents to deliver to Cape Town), I’m pretty sure I won’t be coming home with fewer than I brought! One whole suitcase was filled with presents and I assume the same will be true on the way back.

That’s it for the news. for now.

Forgot to tell you, the ducks are English Whistling ducks. So let’s try this:

OK, I’ll try again, now that I have cussed and sulked for a few hours. Words cannot express how much I HATE this damn laptop!! I told you all about our very lovely day at Bottlierskop (bottle cap hill) game reserve. We got there for the 10:00 game drive, but Marita stayed in the lodge because she’s still recovering from her 7-week flu (her doc said 5-week, but I remember some of my friends and it’s more like 7). We saw gnus, including a golden gnu; impala; Cape Mountain and Burchell’s (now called Plains) zebra; rhinos; giraffes; elephants; lions; cape buffalo; eland; waterbuck, bontebok, two blue crane couples (they mate for life and is the national bird of SA). . . maybe that’s it. A beautiful day, but damn cold up on the mountains. We met a lovely couple from New Jersey and had fun talking to them. They said they would follow our blog, so I hope that’s true. She also said she’d buy my book, Cruisin’ Passion Boulevard, and I certainly hope she does that! It’s on Amazon (plug, plug). Our guide was fantastic — a great wealth of knowledge about the animals we were seeing and we learned quite a bit of new information even after all the game drives we’ve been on.
When we got back, we went up to the main lodge for lunch. What a beautiful place it is! I want to live there. And if I can’t, I want to have a bathroom like theirs. It is the BEST bathroom ever! You walk into an anteroom, with a sofa and chairs, a large shower room off to the left and the handwashing station ahead. The next left are the toilet rooms, men to the left, women to the right. After washing your hands, you take the terrycloth towels and then throw them into this antique thing that looks like a trough and looks like it was originally used for something to do with cooking or agriculture; lovely piece. Over the sinks, another one was turned upside down and copper pendant lights hang from it. Of course there is lovely soap and hand lotion. I love this bathroom! I made Marita come let me show it to her as soon as we got to the dining room.
So we started with drinks and I had a sex on the deck, which is vodka, peach shnapes (god, I can’t spell anything anymore!), tropical fruit punch and whatever else. Ohso yummy. Basically I’m just going to tell you about my lunch because mine was the most interesting. Laird had Italian food (really?!?) and Marita had curry. But I had springbok carpaccio (I gotta learn how to spell this if I’m going to keep having it) and it was mouthwateringly delicious. Then Chef’s Venison Platter, which was crocodile, ostrich, something, warthog and kudu. Crocodile tastes like alligator tastes like chicken. Ostrich, ehhh. OK, but nothing special. The thing I can’t remember was good, but the warthog and kudu were superb! You have to feel very sorry for yourself if you haven’t had it — well, I guess you vegetarians get to skip that feeling. It’s a blessing that warthog doesn’t taste like it looks! After one last trip to the women’s room, we were ready for the trip home. Marita and I walked down the walk to the car while Laird came by the stairs. He reported seeing a small buck, bigger than a dikdik, smaller than an impala. I rushed up the stairs to see and there he was, such a lovely little animal, with stripes down his sides. Marita said it sounded like a cape rebok so that’s what we’re saying we saw.
After writing all this much more entertainingly the first go-round and finishing my cussing and feeling sorry for myself and a lovely visit from Noekie, here I am at the end again. It’s night here, almost time for bed, so goodnight one and all. Oh, I forgot to say: zebra, particularly cape mt zebra because they are smaller, are called pajama donkeys. Everyone knows the Big Five, but today we learned about the Big Ugly Five: hyena, warthog, maribou stork, vulture and gnu. Personally, I would take out the birds and put in rhino and hippo. Anyway, that’s it for us. Oh. We tried to put in a picture of the baby giraffe, but then we lost stuff so I’m afraid to try. Think we’ll try a new entry for pics.

What a great party we went to last night. We went to our friends Carina (my miracle working physiotherapist), Stephen and Carlene’s house for dinner and there were lovely friends of theirs there as well as Laird, Marita and me. I love Afrikaans people — they are so willing to laugh and have a terrific time. And they all have such large, wonderful laughs — really engaging. We had an offal stew, a very traditional Afrikaans dish, chicken and borwors (sausages grilled perfectly) and LOTS of wine. Well, I don’t know about anyone else, but I had LOTS of wine! I was actually surprised that I was able to go to sleep after so much wine. I don’t know whether it is age or altitude, but I have had a couple of nights drinking lots of wine without any ill effects — and I didn’t make anymore of an ass of myself than normal, so that’s always good. Or at least I think not. Could be wrong of course because. . . did I mention I had LOTS of wine? Anyway, the dinner was scrumptious and the company divine. Speaking of wine, SANDY, pay attention: August 31 is International Cabernet Sauvignon Day, so all you wino friends, stock up. I told most of my drinking friends, but I remember you said you don’t look at your email, Sandy, so I’m passing on the message to you, and to anyone else I forgot to inform of this important date. GET PREPARED NOW — there might be a run of cab at the store and you won’t want to miss out celebrating this best of all possible “days”.
We’ve closed out the weekend and tomorrow we are off to Stillbaai (unless a cold front comes in, which looks like it might be) to feed and pet the eels. Oh, how soft they are! You won’t believe it. They eat chicken livers. Just think how exotic chicken livers must be to eels. I wonder what they think they are eating — do you suppose that every unknown taste tastes like chicken (it’s what people always say about things like snake and alligator and wild meat — I have absolutely no idea what eels say about exotic tastes), even chicken livers, whether you know the concept of “chicken” or not? It’s a curious world, isn’t it? On that note, I’m going to end, finish my Amarula (god I love this stuff~!) and get ready for bed. Good night, friends.

Woke up to rain. Of course, we’re all happy when it rains, wherever we are. Well, unless we’re in the US midwest or Durban, South Africa. Durban had terrible flooding this week, but here in Danabaai, I think people are quite happy with this rainy Saturday. Marita is quite stir crazy by now — she’s a very energetic woman and having to lie around sick is getting to her — so yesterday, we piled in her little Ford Figo and went off to Jakkalsvlei (Jackel’s marsh) winery near Herbertsdale. We love their wine and we like being there as well. Really lovely place, but, alas, their really good food is done on weekends and weekdays it’s mostly pizza and burgers. Though Laird and I had wine pairings, his was different kinds of prawns and I tried dry meat, thinking I would get more red wine. Nope. Whites outnumbered the reds and as y’all know, I don’t appreciate white wine. But I soldiered on and drank them. The meats were bokkom (dried fish, not quite as hard as bonito, but it did take some energetic chewing), biltong, cracklin’, bacon and something else I don’t remember. I was surprised at how well a slightly sweet white went with the quite salty bokkom, but I still don’t like it. The wine, not the fish. Laird’s shrimps were all fried — he let me have most of the one made with beetroot, which I quite liked. Have to figure out how one gets beetroot in powdered form to make a fry coating. If I find it, I’ll bring it home and we can have a shrimp fry. I also had ostrich carpacchio (spelling?) and brie with the most wonderful fresh-baked bread. I drank my pairings, then had a glass of their very tasty cab, so I was quite done in by the end. It was our turn to cook dinner so we went to get ingredients for lemon chicken with garlic and olives — our first purchase in SA was a One Pot — but poor Noekie, who had been in Port Elizabeth all week had come home very late on Thursday night and had to go to work on Fri AND work late so dinner was canceled. Perhaps Sunday. Tonight we go to our friends Carina and Stephen’s for dinner. She is my miracle worker physiotherapist who did wonders for me when I was in so much back and (unknown to me) hip pain. They have a dairy farm, but I don’t think I’ll be very interested in petting calves in the rain tonight! Otherwise I love that, and having them suck on my fingers — they’re so very, very cute! Maybe off to TekkieTown to get some shoes that I can wear socks with. It’s quite cold. Whether it’s day or night where you are, have a pleasant time!

Well, nothing to write home about yet. We are very happy to be here, but poor Marita has teh vile 7 week flu and is not in the mood to play (who can blame her?!?) and Noekie is off to Port Elizabeth working herself into the ground. So we’re on our own. Even sick, Marita can’t help bring amazing and she made the most delicious fish casserole for lunch yesterday and is making lamb for today. It looks like another cold front came in, not terribly cold, but very, very gray. Yesterday, though, the sea looked so beautiful and blue, big waves. Thanks, Chris, for the picture of Sia and her last first day at Atalaya. More leater when we escape jet lag — this week is what happens when one for gets to take No Jet Lag throughout one’s journey!

Well, that was brutal! From the time we woke up on Monday morning until late Thursday afternoon, we had almost no sleep, so you can imagine how ecstatic we were to have the journey part over with.. We got almost no sleep on Monday night before the trip even started and it went downhill from there. Laird can sleep on planes; I cannot. I finally got an hour or so in OR Tambo, waiting for our flight to Dana Bay. Oh, how glorious it was to get off the plane in George, knowing we were done with flying for months! So very, very happy to once again get to hug Marita — and, oh, the first sight of the Indian ocean on the way to Dana Bay was magnificent! The weather is cool, but the flat is cold because for some weird reason many houses and flats in Dan a Bay don’t have heat or air conditioning — even though it gets quite hot and quite cold here. Makes no sense, but that’s the way it is. We have a couple of heaters, but I’m very happy that I brought a couple of heating pads as presents (another mystery is why South Africa doesn’t have heating pads, though they do have electric blankets). A nap until dinnertime then we; went over to Noekie and Johan’s house for dinner — Marita made oxtail and samp (no known analogue in US) for us and it was DELICIOUS. A couple glasses of wine and we went straight to bed when we got home and slept until about 3:00 the next afternoon — ahhhh, bliss! Today, we planned to go to Mossel Bay for the 2nd annual Soul Day festival, but when we got there, I couldn’t stand the thought of being in a crowd of people so we went off for late breakfast instead, then went to a couple of stores to get some life supplies and now I ready for a nap again. At least we now have shampoo and conditioner and will get a hairbrush from Noekie so Laird might be able to brush his hair in minutes instead of trying to comb unconditioned hair. But what the hell was I thinking — I didn’t get any wine. Marita had Inverroche gin waiting for me, which I haven’t had a drink of yet — might take it over to Noekie’s tonight for before-dinner cocktails. Still, I need to have some bottles of wine here. So I’m off to the liquor store across the street to get some and a bottle of rum for Marita to have hot toddy for her cold — guaranteed to fix her right up! After that, dream time. Talk to y’all later.

Our last day in Honolulu was spent traveling around the island on the hop on-hop off bus.  I think we went to the windward side, but I’m not absolutely sure about that.  We did see many gorgeous beaches, a real live blowhole and a fast driveby siting of Pearl Harbor and whatever other military stuff.  Our last bus driver/tour guide was obsessed with shopping malls and pointed out every single one on the island, I believe.  In two days we saw a whole lot of things we want to see more of, so there must be a return trip.  And no striking hotel workers, because I still want to have the full Royal Hawaiian experience.  [LAIRD: We talked the checkout down from a supplementary $125 to $0 and got a free breakfast out of the deal. Martina, the checkout clerk, was spouting a line obviously designed by corporate lawyers that they did not want to email notice to prebooked customers of the strike. The convoluted arguments was that the strike could settle at any time and they wanted to make sure that they could offer hours to the returning workers. And Martina did say that a few customers elected to find another hotel instead of the Royal. My memory, however, of checking in was only the apology and an offer to forgo the $37 a day “resort fee.” No mention was made of canceling our pre-paid reservation on the spot and getting help to check in at a non-striked hotel. So I’m contemplated writing a letter explaining that I feel betrayed by Royal management.]  We did wish the strikers GOOD LUCK every time we passed them.  They want $25/hr, which is still not very much in Hawaii when you consider the cost of living.  Marriott offered 75 cents/hr.  That’s a damn far way away for them to reach a reasonable consensus.  [LAIRD:  The organizing slogan for the strike was ONE JOB SHOULD BE ENOUGH!  The economics of the whole situation is in the favor of management, of course, because they’ve hired nonunion locals and brought in managers, etc from all over the country to help out in their various locations.]

Got to the airport in plenty of time and bought a lunch around suppertime — and wouldn’t you know it, they served supper on plane!  We had eaten in the airport because coming to Honolulu at  beginning of trip we did not get ANYTHING from LA to Hawaii (an 8 hour flight for pity’s sake) after spending 6 hours in LAX after sitting 3-4 hours in ABQ.  That was American, perhaps not the best one to fly if you want to eat.  Coming home from Honolulu was United and they were very nice to us.  I use a wheelchair when traveling because I can’t walk as long as it takes to get to most big airport gates, particularly if I’ve had to stand in lines to check in and go through security.  Anyone who has limitations should definitely travel this way!

[Laird:]  I decided to go to STEM club at Atalaya. The kids were hyper, having Halloween costumes (Harry Potter prevailing) and looking forward to the Haunted House and other activities Friday evening. Rather than persisting in my lesson plan with the pendulum rig, we made pumpkin slime and cornstarch oobleck. The oobleck was cool. I wanted to teach the kids how to turn a demo into a science fair project but failed. It was kind of weird to be working when 12 hours (and about 30 degrees F. temperature) ago we were in Honolulu.

Got home about 11 am [actually 10:31, but who’s counting?].  I wandered around for a bit, went through the mail in a daze and yearned for a nap.  No good.  Didn’t fall asleep until about 5:30 p.m., awake at 7:00, back to sleep by 10:00 and didn’t get up until noon today.    I still have more hours to make up.  A desultory attempt at unpacking has been my only effort so far.  Too hard.  Maybe tomorrow.  Speaking of tomorrow, Sunday, there is a benefit mariachi concert for Playschool of the Arts at the Lensic in the afternoon, 2-5.  Music by Lone Pinon and another group whose name I forget and dancing by Folklorica.  PLEASE GO AND PLEASE SUPPORT PLAYSCHOOL OF THE ARTS!  It’s an amazing preschool for Santa Fe’s kiddies and most of their students are low-income.  Our grandkids, Theodore and Sia, went there and loved it.  If you know anyone with children I think 18 months to 5 years of age, encourage them to check it out — the founder is a BRILLIANT teacher and the other teachers are tops, too!

So back to regular daily life.  I had a huge scare yesterday when I got on the scale:  it said I had gained 11 pounds.  YIKES!  NOOOOOOOOO! But today it said I only gained ONE POUND.  Now that’s more like the miracle I was looking for! [LAIRD:  I clocked in this morning at 172 on the nose, for, at most, a one pound gain over the two weeks. And we did have some very good food. Did Jonelle talk about the amazing tuna we got at a sushi bar in the Tokyo airport? Really, really good in color, texture and taste. And, by the way, Americans use far more soy and wasabi than do Japanese. They only dip fish, and then very lightly on the fish side, not the rice side of the ball.]  OH MY GOD, that sushi.  Wild bluefin tuna — the best either of us has ever eaten, fur sure!]

We loved Japan and definitely must go back to see so much more than we saw on this trip.  We’ll still sign up for more cooking classes, I think, because they were amazing and it would be so swell to see our chef friends again, but there was so much that we missed.  I wonder if the Japanese do airbnb???  Probably not — they are probably way too private for that.  That’s how we feel about Kyoto.  I’m not sure either of us is much interested in going back to Tokyo.  Well, maybe to see the Imperial Palace and the amazing Japanese museum.  But other places are likely to be more enticing to us.  Still so much to see in Kyoto — and we have lots more shrines and temples to see just in Arishiyama — not to mention the rest of Kyoto.  A huge shout out to everyone we met in Japan — everyone was so wonderful to us!  And a special, special thanks, with many kisses, to Yoriko — can’t wait to get up of a morning and have miso soup with your homemade miso!!

Bueno bye till our next travel adventure, sure to include South Africa next year, along with maybe Spain or somewhere else — jm & lg

We spent today on two lines of the hop on-hop off trolley as well as the dining trolley we took to dinner at House of Wong — 4 1/2 stars on Trip Advisor.  It was very good; best pot stickers, perhaps ever.  But let’s start with yesterday.  After flying all Wednesday night/Thursday early we arrived in Honolulu on. . .WEDNESDAY.  Want to do a day over?  Cross the dateline and start over.  Ours wasn’t worth all that much.  When we got to the Royal Hawaiian, which I have wanted to stay at since I was a kid, we were in for a BIG DISAPPOINTMENT:  service workers are striking against all Marriott-owned or -managed hotels on Waikiki Beach.  That includes the Royal Hawaiian.  Great.  Rooms cleaned only every other day, which I’m willing to live with, BUT NO RESTAURANTS, NO BARS AND NO FAMOUS ROYAL HAWAIIAN BAKERY are losses too far.  I was so pissed yesterday!  I’m better today as long as I don’t think about it, but having to go out on the prowl for every meal when I had dreams of dining in their fancy restaurant, drinking gins and tonic on the many lanais, etc. is pretty damn sadmaking for me.  And considering the astronomical price the place costs with no amenities is really, really sadmaking!  Having a veggie delite sandwich at Subway for breakfast was not on my bucket list for this trip, believe me.   I expect to haggle over my bill tomorrow morning for sure.

But, we still had a lovely time here traveling around looking at everything.  Interestingly, most houses here are kind of ugly.  Plantation “Slave” Quarter is the architectural style.   And then there are some very ordinary, unexceptional ones built in the 1950s and 60s that were boring, though their location near the beaches was que swell.  The houses that are nice are very, very nice. Oh, and the lushness everywhere.  OMG, the lushness:  palm trees, plumeria, hibiscus, antheria (right, for plural of antherium???), golden and red rain shower trees, banana tree blooms, ferns galore, crocus, bromiliads, bamboos, on and on.  And GRASS.  Indian Banyan, Walking Palms, Monkey Pod trees and so many more, more on and on and on — Sandy, we sure needed you so you could name the palm trees.  There’s one here that is really, really skinny and grows very, very tall.  None of our drivers knew what they are.  The best thing:  all the trees, regardless of what they are, have the most amazing structures, so, so beautiful.  They have the tiniest lizards you’ve ever seen.  It’s pretty damn hot, though, and as humid as you would expect.  We are hoping to see the state capitol tomorrow and the Iolani palace.

Oh, I forgot.  On our second trip, our bus blew up.  OK, it was its engine, not us.  But while we waited, we were right next to the Kwan Yin temple, so we went in.  It was SO BEAUTIFUL.  Our best serendipity for the whole vacation, I think.

I thought of lots of other things to tell you during the day, but I’ve forgotten them perhaps for good.  Oh well.  It feels like bedtime, so I’m off.  Mahalo to our readers and to Chris, a very special ALOHA.

Well, except for about 5 hours in the Tokyo airport.  But yesterday was a very full day, lots of time on a bus as we went to see Mt. Fuji, Hakone, Lake Ashi and the top of some mountain (Mt. Komagatake) by the lake on what they call ropeway — it’s like the tram up Sandia.  (Jonelle saw the ropeway sign and asked, “what do they brew there?” mistaking “ropeway” for “brewery”. It was a long day.) (Hey — I was a long way away from it when I said that!) I didn’t stay, came down soon after getting up because it was VERY COLD up there.  Laird wanted to walk up to the summit, with Shinto shrine.  No way I could do that with my back, etc. hurting.  I am really, really cranked that the pain down my leg, which had gone away finally, has come back.

Fujisan is worth all its press and is rightfully considered sacred.  What a beauty!  It looked EXACTLY like all the (good) paintings show.  It last erupted about 300 years ago, but is still considered to be active.  The countryside is gorgeous, with lots of familiar-sounding tree names and some evergreens that don’t look like ours, but must be some kinds of firs and pines (our guide, whose given name is “FUJI”, said that some of the evergreens are larch.).  Lots of mountain bamboo and fields of Japanese pampas grass.  In the fall, people come to walk in them.  We saw a group in the middle distance and it looked like they were lost in the pampas midst, but they were actually on a trail.  Our guide gave us an astounding amount of world statistics in which Japan featured, lessons in Japanese counting and the three types of Japanese writing, the differences between Shinto and Buddhism and a panoply of other information.  Alas, he told us about all the places and museums we must go to in Tokyo and other places.  All that we have not seen and will not see on this trip.  Definitely, there must be another trip to Japan in our future.

Soon we have to catch our ride to the airport.  I’ll report on it if it’s wonderful.  Probably will if it’s terrible, too.  But I can’t believe that it would be terrible — the Japanese wouldn’t do something terrible.  Then it will be on to Honolulu for 3 days — I”m really looking forward to flying on Korean air; it’s supposed to be super great.  Of course, that might be for first and business classes, not steerage.  WE’LL SEE!

Wingingly yours, jm & lg        Oh.  p.s.  What I will miss most about Japan?  Toto toilet!  I am getting one, I don’t care how expensive they are.  And I’m considering driving up to 10,000 Waves when I have to go to the bathroom until I get one!

After a very bad night’s sleep last night — we went to bed early, got awakened about 11:00 by a ringing phone that Laird could not find — it wasn’t his and apparently it wasn’t the hotel phone (I actually think it was) — he spent most of the night working on his tax reform data & modeling project and I kept waking up because his headlamp was on BRIGHT.  He started packing about 5:30 after taking shower and I followed at about 6:00.  Our suitcases are a damn sight heavier than when we came!  Cooking tools and presents, oh my.  When we checked out, I was handed a bag with PRESENTS FOR US from Yoriko — the most beautiful earrings that she made — I know all you women will be jealous when you see! — and homemade miso she made as well.  Can’t wait to make miso soup when we get home!  What a sweetheart she is!!

We had to be at the train station for the 9:35 bullet train to Tokyo and it took us awhile to find where we were supposed to be on the tracks.  Well, by the tracks.  Train was fast, certainly faster than the Rail Runner at home, but it wasn’t as fast as I thought it would be, but it was very nice: lots of leg room and we had reserved seats.  Alas, you can’t see much out the windows because the tracks are screened in lots of places and also there were three or five or some number of tunnels.  Lots and lots of buildings upon buildings, with some rice fields and other agriculture and a goodly number of solar panel fields. We did have a beautiful view (and some decent pics) of a snow-covered Fuji. I asked at the hotel. Fuji is 4,800 meters (about 14,400 ft.).  Tokyo is Skyscraper City — on steroids.  Our hotel, the Park Hotel Tokyo, starts on the 25th floor of one of them.  It is very nice and has a big focus on art, including 31 rooms on an upper floor that have been painted by artists — very cool!  We got into Tokyo station at about 11:53 and it took us sometime to determine how and where we should get out of it.  We debouched into a long line for taxis, but finally got one.  We handed the guy the map of how to get to the hotel, but he seemed pretty confused about where to go.  Luckily, he got us here.  I knew cooking class was at 1:30, but somehow I got that confused with 1:00, so we checked in, came up to our room and went immediately back down to have a taxi called for us.  We got there about 1:15, so it worked out.  There were 8 of us students, 5 from Australia (they were a group.  Note to grandkids:  there was a boy and a girl y’all’s ages who did a great job at sushi), 1 from the Netherlands and us.  Our instructors, Kanae and Yuki, taught us several types of sushi:  rice-on-the-outside CA roll, tamago yaki, inagi, nigiri and maki.  We were all stars!  Well, for cooking class, but I don’t think any of the Latinos making sushi in Santa Fe, etc.   grocery stores will have to worry about us taking their jobs.  It has been years since Laird and I have made sushi, but we held our own and nothing fell apart upon eating.  We came back to hotel and collapsed.  After naps, it’s time for bed.  Tomorrow we have a very exciting day — so stay tuned!  Oh, and we have a BEAUTIFUL view of river and a park from our window,with a window seat to sit on and admire the beautiful view.  Yours from On High, jm & lg