I've Changed My Address

Did you know that the title of this post is a track off The Jam's album In the City? The Jam is one of my all time favorite bands.

At any rate, it is true, I've changed my address, so please desist from sending any correspondence to 4 Burg Road. If you would like to send me something, please e-mail me and request the new addy. I will also be sending the address to the e-mail list in due course hopefully.

I have moved to a new place. There is even a website for it, which primarily features the owner Lulu and her catering business. But it may give you a little bit of a sense of what the place is like. Hopefully I will have a better picture or two later.

And in honor of my new digs, I have posted here the lyrics for the aforementioned Jam song. But wait, they don't really apply to me--unless I were to sing it to 4 Burg Road... Anyway, Paul Weller wrote this when he probably about 17. What drives a 17 year old to compose a song like this, I don't know. Nonetheless, it is a simultaneous demonstration of his performance (unfortunately) of certain "noncommittal, perpetual bachelor" male gender norms, but also (positively) his maturity of lyrical composition at such a tender age.

I'VE CHANGED MY ADDRESS

Knew the time to leave had come when you pointed out your ring

Never could see what was in this matrimony thing

Baby, baby, baby you sure made a noise when I left

And your father started shouting lest you ironed my shirts'fore I left
Would've liked to explain first but it was a split decision thing

Couldn't see me settling down with a mortgage and a kid

Now I hear you've been looking for me

Combing every single inch

You'll probably find me in Hyde Park

Try the hotel first then a bench
Baby, baby, baby I've changed my address

I didn't mean to make you cry but I know it's for the best

Baby, baby, baby I've changed my address

It's OK being in love girl, but then fun is second best
No one's gonna tie me down

Nobody tell me what to do

Don't you see I've got to be free

Sorry baby that's the way it is - get with me

I said maybe!
I didn't mean to break your heart and I know it's not your choice

Better think of it this way, there's other fools to entice

That's right!
Baby, baby, baby I've changed my address

I didn't mean to make you cry but I know it's for the best

Baby, baby, baby I've changed my address

It's OK being in love girl, but then fun is second best
Baby, baby, baby I've changed my address

I didn't mean to make you cry but I'm sure it's for the best

Baby, baby, baby I've changed my address

It's OK being in love girl, but then fun is second best

Visiting the Mother Club

Since I arrived in Cape Town, the rotarians here have been a source of guidance, good advice, and fellowship. It has been great to finally make an appearance at my host club's meeting. I have had the extraordinary luck to have been assigned the Cape Town Rotary Club, the flagship club of the greater Cape Town area. It is also known as the Mother Club, just as Cape Town's moniker is the Mother City.

As I mentioned in a previous post, one of their major projects is Glencairn. But the club is involved in many other things. A recent project I worked on was helping serve the calamari at one of the food booths at the Cape Carnival, a big fair that is held every year, featuring delectable dishes of all sorts and the proceeds go to a foundation called the community chest. Proudly i wore my San Francisco Rotaract polo and met some very cool Rotarians from my club. Check out the club's website.

My first visit to the club meeting, held at the Royal Cape Yacht Club, was very nice.

President Myra Goldenbaum and I exchanging the flags.

Greeting the club with San Francisco West flag in hand. Pat Mayers, Rotary host counselor extrordinaire, always has my back. Pat has been wonderful throughout my whole time here thusfar, from bringing me fragrant rose from her garden when I arrived at the airport, to having a good chat over pizza, and taking me along to a meeting for the planning of the launch of the South African arm of the global right to health campaign. She is a socially conscious and engaged woman who does a lot of really great work. Very straightforward and no-nonsense but also wonderfully warm and understanding. She has been a solid source of support through all the ups and downs.

I delivered my first presentation to my host club recently as well. I spoke a lot about my experience as an Asian American woman with a disaporic consciousness, and how that is tied into my interest in issues of diversity and my work with the South African Bone Marrow Registry. I hope to do a post in the future that updates on my work there soon as well.

And I know I promised a link to the video of my ostrich riding, but that has yet to materialize. Apologies to those of your who have expressed a desire to witness this feat. You may start to think that I didn't actually ride it...

Suffice to say, I really like my host Rotary Club a lot. They are a group of really dynamic people who take service to their community very seriously, but they also have a really light sense of humor on the whole. And I find them to be supremely accomplished people, as I discover in conversations with them.

As I continue to engage in more Rotary experiences I will be sure to include them in other entires. It's a bit quiet on my end, but now that I am adjusting to life in Cape Town, the activity will likely pick up the pace. Keep your eyes on the palimpsest to see how things develop...

Lay it all on the Table

Yes, yes. It is a rather boring title, to show you pictures related to Cape Town's iconic Table Mountain, but I promise the spectacular landscapes I present to you here will stand out all that much more without a snazzy titular distraction.

Hello to all of you from atop Table Mountain. Devil's Peak right behind me.

Gazing down on Lion's Head and Signal Hill from a Table Mountain vantage point.

Flanked by fellow Ambassadorial Scholars Emily Kenney and Jon David Connelly, we were taken up in a plane by pilot extrordinaire and Hout Bay Rotarian Clair, up above Cape Town and Cape Point, where the Indian and Atlantic Oceans supposedly meet. Departing from the Cape Town International Airport, near a large group of hangars, we were all treated to an breathtaking experience. Literally, taking my breath away at the end, as we slowly reduced altitude at the end of the flight, my tummy flipped a few times peppered by a queasiness that stopped a conversation between Jon David and I about the quality of Public University state education in the states...

It was a once-in-a-lifetime thrill to be up in a plane like this peering down at a peerless landscape, from bird's eye view, where few are rarely afforded such a clear day. Pristine sparkling ocean below us, the maze of urban and natural pathways making themselves apparent, sunlight everywhere, and pilot trainee Wimpy showing his preparedness for his higher level flight exam we were in good hands, aerially speaking. Simulating stormy conditions, we flight rookies were momentarily alarmed when Clair put up blinders on Wimpy's side of the cockpit windows, but the flight continued unabated and the fear subsided.

We were up in the air for what seemed like forever, several times circiling past the City Bowl of Cape Town (the curvature of the bowl created by the chain of Devil's Peak, Table Mountain, and Lion's Head) and over Robben Island, the site where Mandela was imprisoned for those many long years. Traversing the landscape of oceanic spelndor, bays and beaches, mountainous terrain dotted below.

Here's just one sample view from the plane courtesy Emily Kenney's camera, showing off the City Bowl and Robben Island:

Our ever-steadfast flight crew peeping out from the cockpit, Wimpy (pronounced Vim-Pee) and Clair, along with the Emilys:

To say the least, Table Mountain is a majestic sight that haunts you everywhere in all the nooks and crannies of Cape Town. And as I am moving into the city at the end of this month, I will be living at it's foot, looking up at its edifice as I walk out the door every day.

More still to catch up on. Sorry for the total lack of chronology. It's all the last two months, really, that have been an insane blur of whirlwinds sights, cultural adjustments, new experiences everywhere, and always, always being floored by the natural and human beauty of a place that has begun to sneak its way into my heart.

A few more images. Forget text for a while.

The Oriental Village in the Boardwalk in Port Elizabeth. ORIENTAL!!!!!!

From the bathroom near the Bloukrans Bridge.

When I was a young warthog...In the wild at Addo Elephant Park. And yes, I saw elephants, but the pictures did not turn out well.

Hope you enjoyed the pictorial narrative of the Garden Route! Will soon have link to ostrich riding video and additional pictures courtesy travel companions Jen Hotsko and Em Kenney.

Welcome to the Garden of Earthly Delights

Hello everyone. For vacation, I've just been on the road on the Garden Route, and amazing drive down South Africa's N2 freeway. Here are some pictures from the trip, with hopefully more to come:

A stretch of the drive near the beginning past Cape Town.

First stop: Mossel Bay. The only northward facing beach in South Africa, an overcast morning after a thunderous evening staying in a train compartment hostel...

Highgate Ostrich Farm, just outside Outdshorn, Ostrich capital of South Africa. I rode one of these babies! A picture of proof will shortly be provided.

Yours truly holding a giant ostrich egg. Did you know that the shell is so strong you could stand on it and it wouldn't break? This is one of the offspring of Sally the stripper and Jack the Ripper. Yes, those are the parent ostriches names!

It's another world down in the Cango Caves. Check out the stalactites in this chamber. I felt like I was in another planet. I wish I could've done spelunking around here.

Bondi the dog, a mascot of the Knysna Quays. Knysna is a sleepy little harbor town with a lagoon dotted by boats.

Bloukrans bridge--site of the highest commercial bungee jump in the world. But sorry, I didn't jump...

More to come later!