Only in Africa Part 6: Tell it like it is

We got stuck behind this truck on a highway in Jo'burg. It really lived up to its name.

Why would anyone in the transport business give themselves such a name? (...guess they were being honest...)

Protea Wanderers, Johannesburg

Last month, I'd discovered the B&B Little Tuscany . This month, I happened to stay at the Protea Wanderers again and thought I'd snap some pix for comparison.

The rooms are much smaller, although there's room service so it's great when you come back late from an approval and can't be bothered to go out to grab a bite.


The oddest thing about the place is their slogan that goes something along the lines of "we're known for our apples!" ...and seriously, every room has an apple that's prominently displayed on a frame.


Everything else about it says "corporate hotel"... but a comfy, cosy place to stay nonetheless. (I still don't like being in Jo'burg though..)

Tuscany moves to Johannesburg

I had to go to Johannesburg again this week for work. The thing about travelling locally for work is that there's absolutely ZERO glamour involved.

Domestic flights are pretty much glorified bus rides except travel time is much longer - it takes you 1 hour to get from home to the airport; you sit and wait for an hour to board the flight; the flight itself takes 2 hours; and getting to your destination in Johannesburg pretty much takes you another 1 hour (and if the traffic lights are out because of Eskom's infamous LOAD SHEDDING... forget it - it'll take you up to 3 hours to get anywhere). This means one-way travel time is anywhere from 5 - 8 hours.

Then you get to the client's office, sit for a meeting anywhere from 1 - 3 hours and then it's time to head back to the airport again to make that long journey home. Yes, all this happens in ONE day. Suffice to say that any day trip to Jo'burg basically means starting your day at 3.30am when your alarm clock in Cape Town goes off, and ends at midnight when you finally unlock your front door to get home in Cape Town again.

If you end up having to stay the night, company policy dictates you stay in the Protea (3-4 star hotel. aka not bad, I've stayed at worse) or Garden Court (2 or 3-star motel. aka this really sucks, almost the worst). The thing about me is I HAVE TO STAY IN A NICE HOTEL!!!!

Having been used to working on regional jobs around Asia where nice hotels are dirt-cheap and a dime-a-dozen, it took a while getting used to hotels/ motels that used horrible felt blankets under a flat sheet instead of down feather quilts (y'know, the kind of felt blankets they hang up at Chinese funeral wakes); where shower curtains are used instead of glass shower doors (I check for mould on those curtains and won't let any part of my body touch it); and where they only give you a bar of soap instead of body gel (Jo'burg's dry enough already and they want me to use SOAP?!)

So when I had to spend the last 4 days in Jo'burg at an offline edit, I was stressing over which crappy little place to stay at when someone suggested a guest house (aka B&B) instead. My life has changed and I'm never turning back from the Guest House again!

People always joke that Johannesburg's architecture is full of bad taste - the nouveau riche move in and build huge homes complete with marble arches and columns (Hey! Sounds just like Singapore!) ...except they seem to have a penchant for Tuscan architecture and nowhere is that more apparent than in the suburb of Bryanston. To the point where our guest house was actually called "Little Tuscany".

At half the price of the crappy Garden Court, with rooms that are TRIPLE the size of the crappy Garden Court - Little Tuscany wins, hands down. Plus, they even had an overweight Golden Retriever and affection-junkie Daschund on hand to greet you at breakfast.


I like that they also had those oldskool milk packets in the triangular shape - the kind you used to get as part of the school milk program back in the day. Except these packs were shrunken-down, mini triangles, enough to add to 1 cup of coffee only.


The only thing that really bugs me about being in Jozi is the constant security issue that keeps niggling at the back of your head, which isn't helped by seeing signs on the back of your room door like this:

...are they only talking about the pool, or am I just being a paranoid Singaporean?

Whatever it is, security there's pretty tight (but that's life in Johannesburg for you - everything happens behind high walls and electrified fences)... as long as within those walls everything's as rosey as this, it kind of makes staying in Jo'burg a wee bit nicer.

Shoot in Irene, Pretoria

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Last Thursday & Friday, we were in Irene, Pretoria on a shoot. Pretoria's the official capital of South Africa (it's right next to Johannesburg, and both cities are growing so quickly that they're merging into one). Irene (pronounced Ai-ree-nee) is a suburban area with a few dairy farms in the area, and everywhere we went from the Irene Country Village Mall to the Irene Village Farmstall, there were cows and cow-themed everything, everywhere. Check this upside-down cow statue in the local village mall.


There was an outbreak of Rift Valley Fever in the area so we were told not to eat the cheese or drink the milk (although farmers were selling RAW milk - unpasteurised/ unhomogenised in the streets). YUCKS!
We were shooting a pastoral/ nature scene with the four seasons and it was glorious what art department did - check out rain in summer, snow in winter, lots of red & gold leaves in autumn (each individual leaf was dipped in double-velvet wall paint for extra strength, with glitter added on top), and pink cherry blossoms in spring. More photos in the album on the left, and some video footage at the bottom of this entry.

Johannesburg Part 2: More Pix!

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More pictures from Johannesburg! There are mine dumps dotted all over the city - you see them from the highways driving from suburb to suburb. They're starting to re-mine some of them again coz apparently the technology nowadays allows them to get more gold that slipped through from back in the day.

Tried to get as much greenery as I could in these pix to show the world's largest man-made forest... and even in Sandton, the new CBD (and richest area in Jozi - this is where the most carjackings takes place coz of all the nice cars in the area), the buildings aren't really that high and built-up, and it still feels very American-suburbia.

The township in the 2 photos here are on the highway turn-off into Sandton, and it's a nicer one coz the houses have proper walls and roofs, built by the government (not shacks made up of billboards/ zinc/ any recycled material people can get their hands on).

It was hot on the trip there this week and the suit on the job was driving our rented car with the windows rolled down. She thought I was mad when I kept saying "KEEP YOUR WINDOWS UP! LOCK THE DOORS! CARJACKERS CAN SPRAY MACE THROUGH THE CRACK IN THE WINDOW!" ... even though we were driving a crappy little Hyundai Getz... I am a kia-see Singaporean after all mah.




Windows Live Spaces

Johannesburg

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As most of our clients are based in Jo'burg, Kelly and I have been flying to & from there quite frequently. I've shot a commercial right in the middle of the CBD (once upon a time you wouldn't dream of walking in the open here coz of the crime... some people still wouldn't dream of being there now, but it's really OK). There are policemen, some with guard dogs, on every other street corner, and apparently they've set up a security camera system on every street corner so thugs get nailed within 2 seconds of committing any crime.

I was expecting Jozi to be full of graffitti, with bullet holes in walls and shopfronts boarded up... but the place is very surprisingly... just like American suburbia... It's the world's largest man-made forest (they needed all the wood in the gold mines back in the day), and it's extremely lush and green and leafy. It takes at least 45 minutes to an hour to drive anywhere, and coz it's so spread out and sprawling, it kinda reminds me of LA (with lots more trees). ...it's still hard to say what the place feels like coz there really isn't a sense of place about the city... every now and again you drive past a mine dump (like a 10-storey high mound of earth the length from Ngee Ann City to Wisma Atria), right outside the city and it's a bit bizarre.

Haven't managed to take good photos of the rolling green passing by the car yet, but got a couple shots of a monstrous power plant we drove past yesterday. Will be there again next week, will update with more pictures.