Into Africa: Addendum

April 7, 2010:

Hardly slept a wink, spent the evening browsing and packing. When we all got down to the lobby 10 boxed breakfasts were aiting us to bring them to the airport. The food was a mix of cookies, croissants, vaccum-sealed slices of salami and your choice of sparkling water or a juice box. Once we got to the airport our first destination was the Tax Refund/Goods Inspection booth, because Tammy told us on our first day here to a save our receipts, for purchases of R200 and up entitled to a VAT refund, minus a small commission. I spent a less than R500 in taxable goods (T-shirts and a baby-vest) and got about R70+ in return. I was considering exchanging that for $s but the commission on that would've wiped out the refunded cash. I opted to just spend on more gifts, in this case several capsules containing foam animals (that would form when the capsules are placed in warm water) placed in containers shaped like the African continent.

Hmm, my complicated description betrays the simplicity of the toy. (Drop capsules in warm water. Watch animals form. Repeat.)

On the flight from Joburg to Capetown I was kept awake by a crying baby girl. Much as I loathed to experience that again, the best I could do was cross my fingers. The Capetown-to-Joburg flight was event-free, but the Joburg-to-HK flight was Hell in the Clouds.

First, guess whose netbook refused to work again? It's like "Disk failure" was the default setting while I'm in Joburg. I had a theory of just letting the battery drain out before trying to plug it in again.

When we got on the place we saw a Chinese family onboard that looked definitely out of place, like they were dragged out of their Beijing boondocks and dumped on this plane. They were probably planning to emigrate to South Africa but someone FUBAR their papers, and now they're being flown back to HK. For a huge portion of the flight I was trying to cancel out that Chinese family's baby boy and toddler girl's wailing w/ the headphones, finishing that last part of Me and Orson Welles I missed on the HK-Joburg flight, and followed that up w/ Crazy Heart and The Road. At the same time I was in awe of the baby's grandma's resilience, as she seemed to stay awake for the whole 13.05 hours we were up in the air. Not that she had a chance to fall asleep; that crybaby was channeling Tom Jones and risking a childhood growing up w/ the voice of Al Pacino and Alec Baldwin combined. That family was fortunate to be seated next to a mother who was travelling w/ her 3 kids, as I'm sure she could sympathize w/ her plight and be more patient about it. A

t HK International Airport t

hat Chinese Family's kids quited down a bit, but now Gramma left the toddler girl to fend for herself while walking to the transfer gate. When she got left behind by the escalator 3-Ku was good enough to carry the kid up.

My streak of bad luck continued here, the

once place where I didn't expect to have any trouble finding an outlet for the netbook adapter. (Stupid diagonal slots.) Now I'm stuck lugging around a pricey 7" x 10" x 1.5"paperweight. On the other hand I got to finish reading Shootout.

So, final thoughts:

• If you were to go to South Africa, going in the order of Joburg, then Capetown, would be best. The former is busybusybusy, while the latter destination would relax you. Just check the weather reports for seasonal changes, coz it turns out when we went it was almost Autumn. If u do decide to come around this time of year, pack a collapsible umbrella.
• Don't buy the first ostrich egg you see. They can come cheaper.
• Didn't encounter a single mosquito, so malaria fears unfounded. Bees, on the other hand...
• English is a national language here, so don't be surprised if someone looks at you funny when u ask them how to say Thank you in "the African language." (It's "Thanks," btw.)
• Bring bottled water.
• If you're gonna talk about the locals in a non-PC manner (i.e. saying "The Whites" or "Black Africans"), make sure the tour-guide does it first.
• You will NOT see Charlize Theron. She lives in Los Angeles.

Into Africa, Day 7: Final Stretch

April 6, 2010: Managed to wake early enough to enjoy breakfast properly, even if the cook screwed up my ham and cheese omelet order. (Egg was already cooked thoroughly, so she just placed the diced ham on top and folded the egg.) Too early in the morning to be confrontational, so I let it pass.

Table Mountain weather report was still same as yesterday's, so it's fingers crossed it'll change before the day ends, 'coz it's our last day and our last chance to go up there. For now our plan is to do a perimeter tour of the island, similar to what my group did in Taiwan and literally drive along Capetown's edge. (During the drive we had a good view of Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was jailed. Morgan Freeman was nowhere to be found.)

After a brief photostop along the coastline, we went to the docks for the Nauticat Launch Cruise, (courtesy of Drumbeat Charters yes I'm reading from the brochure) to see some seals at Duiker Island. When we arrived at the docks several vendors were busy setting up their makeshift giftshop/tents and wares. While Tammy was buying our tickets, 3-Ku and I were looking around some more and came across a huge stray seal. Fer reals, it just crawled out of the ocean, moving fast, or at least at a moderate pace in our direction, simultaneously fascinating (Wonder how fast it goes) and terrifying (Holy crap it's following us) me. A (apparently) homeless man wanted to charge us R5 for taking a picture of and with his "pet." I was of course dubious of the guy's claim of guardianship, but 3-Ku obliged him anyway. I asked the lady at the boat ticket booth about their Harbor Odd Couple, and she said that the seal keeps coming back instead of living w/ its own kind because the homeless guy keeps feeding it.

Alright, time to get on the boat and see non-homeless seals.

Choppy waters notwithstanding, us land-voyeurs got a good view of hundreds of seals laying about, swimming for food and... I'd like to say sunbathing but it was a cloudy along Duiker Island. When we returned to land we were greeted by a streetband trio welcoming us like we had just arrived in Hawaii, minus the laying of leis. Before we left I got myself and Lola a couple of T-shirts.

We drove around again for another hillside view of the coastline (along the way we thought we saw the fins of a whale's tail --strangely immobile for some reason--, but it turned out to be a buoy), then went to Boulders near Simon's Town to see what seals sometimes have for lunch: penguins. The colony has some of the birds in nesting shelters laid out across Foxy Beach, w/ a few of them waddling under the boardwalk. African Penguins are midgets compared to their Arctic Emperor cousins, but that just makes them cuter.

While Achi Arlen and I were walking down the boardwalk I noticed a cute Asian girl walking ahead us look over her shoulder a couple of times in our direction. From there I deduced she was Pinoy, or at least understood Tagalog. Later while setting up for our Nth groupshot I asked her and her other female companion out of the blue "Taga saan kayo," to which they said "Manila, po," the po making me feel old, not respected. ;)

Tammy receives an SMS: Table Mountain is open for business! But not so fast, we still have lunch, the Cape of Good Hope and a Lighthouse to visit before that grand finale.

We stopped at the Fish Hoek Galley Restaurant for lunch, w/c consisted of one lobster for each of us, with French fries, buttered rice and fish kebab on the side. Some of us opted to order their home-brand Appletiser/Grapetiser sparkling soda to wash it all down. From my window seat I caught sight of a hobbling one-legged pigeon, a mom letting her baby frolic on the beach in her birthday suit, lots of seagulls (the real rats w/ wings, IMO), and someone flying a kite so big you could've had someone paraglide on it. As we were finishing up our meal, a huge group of Chinese tourists came in, w/ their tour leader having to boss everyone about just to get them to sit down. Most of them ordered beer instead of the "fruitisers," or just drank from their plastic jugs filled w/ tea.

Next stop: Cape of Good Hope, literally the lower leftmost butt-end of the African Continent (rightmost butt-end would be Cape Point). Had we stayed longer I would've wanted to climb the steps moving up that hill behind us in this picture to the left. We did the next best thing by going up to highly-situated spots, but w/ vehicular assistance.

First was the lighthouse at the aforementioned Cape Point, but their much-touted "Flying Dutchman Funicular" (or hillside cable car) was on the fritz, leaving us to line up and ride the Driving African Mercedes Van, instead. When we reached our stop we found out that we still had to climb up a blessed number of step before reaching the lighthouse. Finally, those trips to the Great Wall (and that time the power went out in my office building and I had to climb up 19 floors to get to work) are finally gonna pay off.

At the top the doors leading into the lighthouse were locked (seems tourists can't resist flicking on the light switches), but 2 other things got my attention up there. One was a 10-foot rock situated in front on the lighthouse that seemed to have no business being there other than to be a rocky canvass/quasi guestbook for those w/ pen/chalk/Whiteout at hand, or be climbed by those tempted to do so, like yours truly, which I did. From up the rock I saw my groupmates having groupshots taken by a special road-sign that pointed out where other major cities are and how far, in case you ever find yourself by the lighthouse and wanted to jump into the ocean for a swim to, say, Sydney but needed to know how far (11,642 KM, btw).

Our second assisted climb was the one we were all waiting for: Table Mountain. We made it w/ almost an hour left 'til the place closed. One long queue later we were in another waiting area w/ 54 other tourists to ride the 65-pax capacity Cableway (Male operator's name: Blondie. Seriously.) Going up at 10m/second the cable car was also moving in a slow clockwise direction, giving us the 360° view of the town, and some nutty free-climbers too impatient to wait in line for the Cableway.

When we got to the plateau area the air was chilly and the winds nippy, but a half-hour later I wanted to remove my jacket w/ the sudden rise in temperature. We were up so high the weather was fluctuating as we spoke, and the park people need to sound a horn to tell people to come down because of approaching high winds. The views were unimaginable, the numbness in my fingers, slightly bearable. Some in the group opted to wait in the presumably warmer cafe or gift shop, but the rest of opted to see more while the sun was still visible. It was also our last chance to get some wacky shots in honor of my Beijing days, like this one...

or this one...

and especially this one.

For our Last Supper we ate at the Wang Thai Restaurant located at the V&A Youknowwhere. As popular spots go, there was one restaurant inside the mall doesn't seem to be run out of customers, and this was Willoughby & Co., a local sushi restaurant. Its ironic tagline, "It's All in the Name," didn't exactly invoke images of sashimi or maki like Kimpura, Saisaki or even Teriyaki Boy would. Hell, I thought it was like a British TGIFriday's.

Back at the hotel we started to pack. Lo and behold I plugged in the netbook on a whim, and it was working again. Made up for lost time in browsing and blogging, w/c in turn ate up any sleeptime I had left. (Hell with it, we were leaving the place in 6 hours, tops, and I can sleep on the plane.)

Into Africa, Day 6: "Where U Can Go A Place Like San Francisco But It's A Little Low(er)... It's Capetown"*

For a song parody lyricist, I make a great cook.

April 5, 2010: Sis is currently in China for her birthday today. Both circumstances are unrelated.

Anyhoo, apparently here in South Africa they celebrate Easter Monday, and as such most of their business establishments are closed. Some in the group took advantage of their waking up early to go around the hotel area to take some pictures, while I slept it off and only had an hour left of free time to enjoy my breakfast. Beverage section even gave us a choice of bottled Still or Sparkling water, the latter that just tastes weird and turns your orange juice into a less-sweetened version of Royal Tru Orange. Tammy was receiving constant weather reports for Table Mountain, and so far it was still at cold and cloudy, so our morning trip there was put on hold for now. Instead we started our day at Signal Hill, w/c gave us a spectacular view Capetown's two other peaks, Devil's Peak and Table Mountain, as well as a view of the city (ooh, I can see our hotel from up here). Frankly the weather feels very Canadian to me (i.e. Sunny w/ chilly winds), but I still opted to leave the jacket in the car.

Afterwards we drove around the city, seeing the Malay Quarters (no Malays sighted), House of Parliament (where their president stays when he's in town), City Hall (where the pigeons hang out just outside) before finally stopping at the Castle of Good Hope. The shuriken-shaped place (more Pentagram then Pentagon) reminded me of Intramuros, w/ the high stone walls and vintage cannons, but w/o the Starbucks.

Speaking of cannons, we were treated to a cannon-firing demonstration by someone from the South African Cannon Preservation Association (or some-such organization for that-such purpose). While soliciting donations in exchange for being able to light the fuse and fire his small cannon, so to speak, one woman finally stepped up and forked over 100Rand to shoot a small 5lb. iron ball towards a small drawing of Humpty Dumpty (whom legend has it was actually a cannon, not a giant egg, w/c wasn't mentioned in the nursery rhyme, anyway). The palace also housed a military museum that had two life-size replicas of horses. Nice front lawn, too.

We then headed for the West Coast Ostrich Farm and mingle w/ said giant birds, and, unbeknown to them, have the ones not on display for lunch. These giant birds have lot in common w/ cows in that they're herded, their skin makes for some quality leather goods, easy to feed from your hand, but if you agitate them can kick you so hard you'll fart through your mouth.

Their mini-museum had a full-size skeleton, metal skeleton sculptures, giant feather fans, ostrich skin displayed and framed on the wall, and bottles containing their gonads, eyeballs and an embryo. The room next door had eggs being painted and decorated like secular Easter on steroids. Turns out they're able to produce unfertilized eggs for the sole purpose of making these hard-to-break souvenirs, priced as low as 70 (plain) to as holy-crap-high as 500 (Laser-etched, painted and glazed). The two usual entertainment options I didn't do was stand to the ostrich eggs laying at the sand pit and/or mount an secured ostrich for photo-op purposes.

Other creatures of interest included medium-sized tortoises and albino peacocks. The latter slowly (duh) walked around in a pen and our and our museum guide picked one of them up to give us a closer look. The skin on their legs reminded of that Indonesian "Tree Man" (click here if you dare) and lifting him almost threw my back out.

The latter were just hanging around just outside the ostrich pens and attracting the attention of tourists and the sole colored peacock. At the gift shop I bought an ostrich egg to replace the one Jian broke, as well as a couple of pasalubong and those colored stones Ma asked me to buy for the fishbowls and glass trays in the living room. These things were sold by the cup or bag, and you're left to fill it as much as possible w/o spilling any.

After the light lunch of ostrich meat (another thing in common w/ cows: they taste like beef) w/ just the ironically small serving of scrambled ostrich egg, we went to the Groot Constantia Winery for some wine tasting. I placed emphasis on the tasting, giving that cast-iron spittoon they placed on our table a run for its money. Whether it was because of what happened to me on the plane coming to Joburg or just my experience w/ wine drinking in general, all 5 bottles that passed my mouth went from swivel, smell, swish, spit. Repeat. Admittedly, I'm not an expert. Hell, one glassful is all it'll take to make me sleepy. All I could discern was whether the booze was fruity or dry. Sticking to champagne and Welch.

The rest of our late afternoon found us back at the V&A Waterfront, but now we had more time to explore the place, mostly the craft shops outside the mall and local boutiques. I browsed their music shop for a bit, where the "bargain" CD went for 50 rand, or 350 pesos. Hooray for bittorrent. Dinner was at a Chinese restaurant (surprise), Mr. Chan, where they almost shang-danged us out of our abalone. We got back to the hotel earlier than usual, but still managed to stay up 'til 1AM to write on the journal manually (netbook still on the fritz). Also caught the end of the Jesus miniseries (The Passion) and found out that the ''ill-designed'' showerhead i mentioned last time wasn't redundant, but that I just pressed the wrong button. South African hotel shower technology almost beat me. But I can figure out those electrical outlets, this shouldn't have phased me.

Into Africa, Day 5: Diamonds are Forever (Pricey)

April 4, 2010 (Easter Sunday): The nice-looking breakfast buffet spread here at the Joburg Crowne Plaza Hotel makes up for the so-so view from our bedroom window. I think we're overlooking a small bank. As for the former, though, I was this close to having poured lumpy milk into my cereal, but good thing Achi Arlen caught the sour taste before I did. (Ok, good for me, bad for her.)

After breakfast I did a quick tour of the hotel before we officially checked out. Small gym, smaller (elevated) pool, and a funky "unisex" bathroom where both genders cross paths at the circular washbin area but choose from several doors lined up like the fitting rooms in a clothing boutique. Our parting shot is this "Telenovela Ensemble Cast" portrait on the upper left.

After checking out Peter took us on a tour of downtown Johannesburg," and being a no-work Sunday the place was almost a ghost town, save for the local Black population wandering about. It's the typical tale of big (White-owned) businesses moving elsewhere, leaving the poorer (black) residents w/ big empty office buildings and skyscrapers. Crime is rampant, Peter says, but illegal immigrants still come over. The place looked like pictures of I've seen of downtown Detroit in the Eighties.

AiAi was feeling pious and asked that we stop by a church. After looking for less dodgy looking neighborhoods we stopped at a Catholic church where they had people queuing outside for food, most of them homeless or illegals. When we stepped inside the place was packed, w/ one White priest sermoning to an all-Black congregation (Asian tourists not counted). I was surprised to find that the diamond workshop we were visiting was w/in the vicinity of that dodgy neighborhood, but then again I supposed those rocks would be hard to fence. The guard at the door looked and dressed like a certain deposed Iraqui dictator, w/c from a conspiratorial point of view made for an interesting cover.

The tour around the "factory" by their manager (who emigrated from Taiwan 15 years ago) was merely to highlight the technical aspects on diamond jewelry production (and to take us to their showroom later on, 'natch). Their computer program used a 3D model of an uncut diamond, w/c then the software draws the most efficient jewel shape that they cut out of it. It reminded me of those articles I read of how Leonardo Da Vinci didn't sculpt his famous horse statue from scratch, but just showed everyone the horse that was already inside. I wasn't in the market for one, either way (sorry ladies), so the tour felt dull. We were also given a lecture on the 4 C's of diamonds; when realistically, I thought there should be seven. (The extra 3 being Cash, Credit and Collateral?)

After another Chinese lunch (where AiAi managed to get our sick-of-tofu dish changed to pork spareribs) we headed for the airport, said our goodbyes to Peter, goofed around at the airport shops, and took the 2-hour British Airways flight to Capetown. During the flight I the stewardess asked to turn off my celphone after she saw me wearing the headphones (I was listening to the Leather Maiden audiobook on my Nokia 6300), but Albryan showed me the "flight" function on the phone, w/c allowed me to use of non-celphone related functions and kept it from emitting and receiving signals. Cool beans, but I'm still of the mindset that if a tiny phone ringing can bring down a jumbo jet, it's the jet that has a problem.

Upon landing in Capetown we were met-and-greeted by Fatima Wahab, aka Tammy, a local of Pakistani descent, but spoke w/ such a charming singsong British finishing school accent if left me wondering if she teaches young girls piano lessons on the side. ("Prektise, prektise!") She took us to what would be our "tambayan" for the duration of our stay here: the V & A (Victoria and Alfred) Waterfront. The look of the place reminded me of the Marina District in San Francisco (w/ seal sightings coming up inna coupla days), and when I mentioned this to Tammy she said V&A also reminded other tourists of a Brisbane in Australia, as well.

We went around the mall (w/ the most time spent at the first souvenir gift shop we stopped in-- whatever happened to canvassing?) for an hour and a half before grabbing some dinner at the Hildebrand Restaurant, where for once we had some decent fish, fresh from the ocean nearby.

The Le Vendome Hotel was going for a Victorian-era look for it's rooms, so save for the flatscreen TV and bathtub w/ the oddly placed showerhead hose, they might have completely succeeded. And I have to mention that of all the hotels we stayed in during this trip they are slowest in terms of service. Asking for ice took 2 calls, and getting the proper electrical outlet adapter took trial and error. Two flat prongs versus a triangular dot formation on the wall! There is a worldwide conspiracy of wall outlet manufacturers out there determined to not make a globally accepted electrical outlet design, but instead continue to mindf@#k w/ tourists. And they're probably conspiring w/ universal travel adapter manufacturers, as well.

Oh, and in case you needed a better picture of that unisex bathroom at the Joburg Crowne:

Into Africa, Day 4: Gold Reef Fevah

April 3, 2010: Our last morning game drive here at the Mabula Lodge was a vast improvement over yesterday's, especially weather-wise. Rain was replaced by fog and mist, and it turns out if you drive through them quickly in an open-air jeep, dewdrops form on face and you look like you're sweating in a sauna. Better moist than soaked. TinTin was able to join us this time, sorta taking JunJun's place since he was feeling under the weather, w/c is apt since getting soaked yesterday from the rain was probably what caused it. (Unfortunately for JunJun, his roommate Roger joined us at the game drive but took their jailhouse-style room key w/ him and locked him inside.)

The animal sighting checklist was improved, as well, w/ better views/close-ups of giraffes, zebras, gnus, jackals (driver/guide Rudy said this was a rarity), wild boar, impalas and water buffalo. As a last resort we drove all the way to a separate reservation to find the lions and elephants, but Rudy only saw their tracks and path of destruction (by the elephant in the form of fallen trees). Being that far away from our lodge we got back an hour late, so we only had 1 hour to have breakfast (they have flapjacks!) and pack.

On our drive back on Johannesburg we had lunch at the Lotus Chinese restaurant and witnessed an odd spectacle. Behind the dividing wall a rowdy bunch of Chinese men (aka "Chonkers") called the Chinese manager over, then she in turn asked 2 black waitresses to join them. Next thing we knew the waitresses were kissing one of the Chonkers on the cheek and leaving w/ a nice tip. Seems Chonkers facsination w/ Blacks isn't gender specific.

After 2 hours on the road we were at the Gold Reef City Theme Park. For a Black Saturday (no pun intended) this place was packed. We were first treated to a brief film about the origins of Johannesburg's gold rush. The film shows a black kid talking to a "reflection" of an old white prospector in a small pond, who regales him w/ said history. (Wonder what would've been weirder: if the kid was really just talking to a puddle of water on the ground like an idiot, or that a creepy white prospector was behind him talking to the kid like an idiot.)

Afterwards we went 220 meters down a elevator to tour a decommissioned(?) gold mine. The section we were being shown at just the mining tip of the iceberg, as the whole mine went down as far as 3,700 meters, and I don't think park staff are keen to hand out oxygen tanks along w/ the hardhats and flashlights they already lent us. Speaking of hardhats, that thing saved my noggin at least three times from the low ceilings in this place. (Definitely fared better than my forehead when it got a slight cut 2 days ago from opening the Sun City Palace room cabinets incorrectly.) After the underground tour we saw a gold-pouring demonstration that form those large bricks we see on TV and a couple of Indiana Jones movies. Gah, those things are heavy.

Now we barely have enough time to try out a couple of rides in the theme park, mebbe one if we were lucky. As with my trip to Universal Osaka two years back, I was the only one willing to line up for their inverted roller coaster ride, The Anaconda. While at the queue me and others in line had to put up w/ a-hole line jumpers (who sheepishly walked to the back of the line after they were called out) and screaming riders who just finished their run after spinning around for 100 seconds at 55.9mph; but it was hard to tell if the screams were from the adrenaline rush or someone discovering they caught the vomit of the person riding in front to them. When I finally got on the ride it was 5pm on the nose, the park's closing time. "Kind" usher ushered me to the front seat to sit next to the guy who called out the a-hole line jumpers. (Bravo, sir.) Like myself he just lined up for this ride alone. Unlike myself he opted to leave his shoes behind for the ride, while I lost my Nokia cap mid-air after the first loop.

We left the park (missed out on the chopper ride for R240) and after a brief photo-op at Soccer City (currently undergoing renovation for the 2010 World Cup) we headed for the Carnivore Restaurant for a chance to sample some of those animals we saw during our game drives (take that, PETA). Cream of potato soup for starters, followed by a lazy-Susan 6 salad (Greek, Salsa, Sweetcorn, Three Bean, Baby Marrow & Coleslaw) and sauce (Garlic, Horseradish, Mint, Apple, Chilli & Cranberry) combo, cornmeal w/gravy on the side, and finallly come the waiters w/ their skewered meat. First one offered pork sausages (pass), then one came w/ roast beef (pass). Venison? Now you're talking. Impala was dry and tough, but the Blesbock was really juicy. Hey, other waiter, when are you coming to our table w/ those venison meat balls? (Not to be confused as Roger was when I said "Venison balls.") I passed on the crocodile meat, coz it was cooked like chicken and tasted like chicken. Sadly the more exotic zebra, giraffe and warthog were not in tonight's menu (false advertising, photocopied travel itinerary!), but we had ice cream for dessert.

Tonight we stayed at the Joburg Crowne Plaza, a 5-star hotel totally in love w/ it's European design roots, if the nightclub-ish lounge sofas surrounded by bead curtains and bubble designs on the walls are any indication. I half expect Lady Gaga or a Calvin Klein commercial crew to pop up any moment.

Into Africa, Day 3: Mabula Matata

April 2, 2010: Since everyone slept early last night we were all up pretty early, especially AiAi who dragged 3-Ku up at 6:30AM for more picture-taking around the hotel. My head was still glued to the pillow at the time, but 2 hours later TinTin and I had breakfast by the pool deck, trying out the strawberry smoothie and passion fruit juices, and checking out some TV magazine host interview the head chef for their program. One odd thing about the dessert buffet was that it wasn't being buzzed around by flies, but bees. Literally. Managed to get a strudel w/o getting stung. And their apple mangoes were incredible.

Thanks to AiAi's meticulous nature (got that from her mom), not only were we all up bright and early, but we checked out of The Palace and made it to the front entrance to meet Peter w/ time to spare. Many a time I toured w/ Pinoys/Tsinoys that either cut too close to the meeting time or are just plain-@$$ late. Now comes to 2-hour drive to the Mabula Game Lodge.

The fates seemed to be against us (and my tummy, still) as we arrived to a wet and rainy game reserve. That pool would've been nice to swim in if the water wasn't freezing. I didn't know what to expect from our rooms, but some of us apparently thought we were getting into a tent or hut with a cot, and hopefully a working toilet. One out of three isn't bad. No, we had modern accommodations, w/ each "hut" unique in design and bed arrangement. All the doors used old-style keyhole keys, but no lock for the bathroom. No cable, either, as 10 lonely channels on the TV would attest. Rooms also lacked some floor mats, w/c made entering w/ wet shoes pretty messy. (On the other hand: split-type air conditioners, oooh...)

Lunch thankfully was a buffet that offered vegetables, while their shepherd's pie used ostrich meat. The Olivans had an unfortunate extra-spicy encounter w/ the salsa that had more sliced peppers than diced tomatoes, but fortunately there was milk by the drink bar to counter its effects. And they had fresh ice cream! Wasn't expecting that.

We got to rest for an hour and a half before our afternoon game drive, during w/c I caught the last part of Melanie Griffith's movie Crazy in Alabama and what was apparently (after some IMDB research) the first part of a miniseries about Jesus and the Passion, w/ James Nesbitt (Jekyll) playing Pontius Pilate. I liked how the show humanized both Jesus, Pilate and the Pharisees, giving the latter more depth and a credible reason to think Jesus was a threat to them, something that wasn't exactly delved into from watching episodes of The Flying House, w/c basically made them a cookie-cutter villainous organization. Jesus is still prescient like a sunnuvagun, though, and when placed in modern context, comes off a bit of a nutter.

The rain still wouldn't let up and it kept on drizzling for our afternoon safari. We were met by our game drive(r) Rudy, who handed us rain ponchos, because this time our jeep didn't even have a roof. Aside from all of us looking like the ensemble for the musical version of Unbreakable, at first I thought that the plastic poncho (from yesterday) I was already wearing was going to be redundant, but turns out later on it was crucial in preventing the rainwater that seeped through Rudy's ponchos from reaching most of my clothes. Unfortunately what didn't seep through just trickled down to my socks, shoes, lower pants legs and boxers, apparently not being part of the "most of" category.

At least this game drive was more educational than yesterday's. Rudy was very informative and led us to see a mostly eaten rhino carcass (w/c Rudy said was struck by lightning), as well as our first crash of white rhino (looking all black from the rain, but then again Rudy explained the name was a English mistranslation of the Dutch word for wide, referring to the creature's big mouths). We also drove to a nearby pond where a crocodile's eyes peered at us, unmoving, and saw more giraffes, zebras and gnus (Rudy called them the clowns of the Savannah because their physical features seemed to be derived from several other animals, like a bastard child of a horse gang-banged by other animals), but no luck on lions nor elephants. Plant-wise, the oddest thing we saw was the white-thorn acacia. Without flowers, the plant looked like it was growing those white bamboo toothpicks you get at restaurants.

When we got back to our rooms, first thing we did was take a shower (irony intended). Second thing was to made good use of the room's hairdryer on the my sneakers and pants, and in 3-Ku's case, his wallet.

Now 3-Ku is old school about the "2 guys sharing a room" thing, in that not closing the bathroom door when doing twosies, or even bothering to do something about the afterstench was normal. In lieu of Lysol, never was my bringing a bottle of Tommy Sport as an afterthought to this trip been so helpful.

During the buffet dinner some of the staff (presumably) performed a song-and-dance routine, w/ one them going around tables offering face-painting services to guests (mostly black or white stripes and dots, nothing too artistic).

Into Africa, Day 2: Land of the Rising Sun City

April 1, 2010: Up rainy and early for my first ever game drive at the Pilansberg Game Reserve. They gave us raincoats but failed to mention that the tarp over our jeep was meant to protect riders from sun, not water. While trying (but failing) to keep my clothes dry we got all paparazzi-ish on the animal sightings, and w/ some of the quality of our pictures. Rain rain go away...

A few beasts braved the rain, if not our cameras. Zebras and gnus literally turned their backsides to us. The impalas leaped away. The giraffe wouldn't take time out of eating his leafy breakfast for a decent picture. The lioness stared creepily in the way that I half-expected her to come after us if we used flash photography. And did I mention we were getting wet from the rain?

Funnily enough, after drying ourselves off from the wet safari (and me taking some Immodium) we had breakfast and headed for The Valley of Waves, the Palace's water-themed amusement park. With it's prerequisite artificial beach and wave-generator, water slides, giant inner tubes and lazy river ride, it's a variation of Splash Island, w/ the added bonus of a trampoline ride and a giant pool for actual swimming.

Some of us got tired of waiting for big fake waves to hit us, so we first tried the Temple of Courage, where I slid 17m down and the force of the water landing pushed up my boxer trunks, turning into a T-thong. Moving on to tube and body water-slides, both had open-air and closed versions. The closed tubes limit movement and have u slide down in complete darkness, while the open ones may look safer but actually can turn you around while sliding.

As an endcap to my fun I got in one of those giant inflatable plastic balls, after which they moved me into a shallow pool and I my best hamster impression. Inside the bubble you can't hear anything other than your own voice and the sound your body makes slamming on the plastic as you attempt to stand up straight. They only give you 5 minutes inside the ball, w/c is reasonable because you probably use up that much oxygen laughing while inside it. Whoo, great workout.

We had to rush our lunch a little bit because of scheduled activities afterwards, including archery and clay shooting. Because it was drizzling our instructor, Shadow, handed out plastic raincoats, or as I like to call 'em: sandwich bags.

After managing to give my left arm a couple of welts from releasing the bowstring incorrectly, my aim improved in time and I even managed to get a bullseye 3x in one round (out of seven). As for the clay target shooting, well, let's just say for a gunman I make an excellent archer. Not only did I manage to bruise my right shoulder from the recoil, but sometimes I missed because w/ the protective earmuffs on I also couldn't hear Shadow's commands to shoot. After all of us (except for Carol, who acquired a fear of gunfire alla sudden) got to shoot about 25 rounds well into the late afternoon, the weather only got worse and we had to cancel (but got refunded on) our ATV riding trip.

After some Chinese ('natch) at the Orchid, we were treated to an after-dinner program (or cabaret) at the Sun City Theater: Dancing Queen. If you thought it was a tribute to ABBA (or as Carol thought, a stage version of Mamma Mia!) you'd be half right. Full points if you said "Abba and Queen tribute." (Title was too clever for its own good. Dancing Radio Gaga, perhaps.) Anyhoo it was fairly entertaining, and that almost made up losing at the roulette table twice.

When I got back at the hotel room I soaked in the hot tub, hoping to staving off impeding aching upper body tomorrow.

Into Africa, Day 1: The 'Burgs (UPDATED)

*Logging on from the Le Vendome Hotel in Capetown after I found my netbook inexplicably working again after not being able to do so during my time here in South Africa. That said, gift horse inna mouth and alla that...

MAR. 31, 2010-- On my 13+ hour Cathay Pacific flight from HK to Johannesburg I sat next to-- and had a pleasant chat w/ for a good portion of the trip -- a Canadian who's now living in South Africa, but does business back home working in the mining industry. When I showed him the itinerary he complimented in approval, but like me wondered why we were going to eat at so many Chinese restaurants instead of sampling more local food, w/c he said comprised of a lot of meat. (Guess that answers that question. Where else would we get our veggies?) He shared some tips on ordering said meat for my trip to the Carnivore Restaurant (decline initial offers of beef and pork; wait for the antelope and/or zebra) and shared a cautionary anecdote on local hotel security that involved his wife, a cleaning lady, a missing phone and the cleaning lady's ringing boob when wife dialed the number of said missing phone.

Speaking of digesting, that plastic glass of white wine I had did not agree w/ me. While it's been scientifically proven that one does not get intoxicated faster from alcohol consumption while ( this high up in the air, my nausea and pounding headache is proving to be the exception.

At "Joburg" International Airport we were greeted by a tall lady and gentleman, the latter being Peter, former policeman during Apartheid turned tour guide (interesting career change, for sure).

For my part, I'm sure that if it weren't for the diarrhea and headache (now brought about by the change in land altitude as I'm now at 694m above sea level), the places we visited during the city tour of Pretoria would've received my full attention. Instead I was rubbing my temples and clenching my butt. After the sights and sounds of famous landmarks like Paul Kruger's old house and the Voortrekker Monument currently under renovation, we had lunch at our first Chinese restaurant (Lai Jing) and continued on our 2-hour drive to Sun City.

Sun City is not an actual city any more than Disney World is another planet. Turns out the place had more in common w/ Las Vegas, with a group of 4 hotels and a couple of entertainment centers. We were booked at The Palace of the Lost City and greeted by stoic-looking staff who handed us wine glasses filled w fruit juice, plus a bowl of strawberries. By coincidence BoiT's old classmate Kendreck Chua was also in town and staying here w/ his wife, in-laws and some of their relatives. We checked in, rested a bit and checked out the place. Saw an odd sign by the pool area: Please Do Not Feed the Monkeys. That's the most pressing problem here?!?

After a buffet dinner at the Calabash Restaurant (had my first taste of ostrich neck stew) we exchanged the vouchers the hotel gave us for a 100 Rand single-play chip. Che lucked out by winning big on roulette, her 100 Rand becoming 450 from betting the number of her mom's birthday.

Meanwhile I spent my evening afterwards w/ multiple bathroom visits. (Stupid white wine...)