Seeing Sydney

It's frightfully early Sunday morning, 1st February, in Melbourne. The worst of this week's heat wave seems to have passed, and coming back from the tennis this evening it was actually rather pleasant. I've been traveling again for more than a month now; a month that, as always when one's having tons of new experiences all the time, and regularly seeing new places, learning new things, and meeting new people, has passed far faster than seems really possible. I know full well that, before I even really know it, I'll be back at what's become my regular life in the US. During my absence, the US has undergone further change -- we've ushered in a new president, ushered out probably the most destructive president we've ever had as well as a frightfully corrupt major-state governor, lost many thousands more jobs, and entered a new year.

All I have to offer, for now, are some photos of Sydney, where I spent several days in early January with my good friend and former Nigeria colleague Trudi. She's with me here in Melbourne now for the finals of the Australian Open; about that, about politics and my thoughts on Australian flora, fauna, history, culture and landscapes -- more later. For now, no thoughts to offer other than thanks for staying tuned, and I hope to show you more of Australia -- Western Australia, Victoria's coastline, Melbourne -- soon enough.

...Trudi went a little shutter-happy on our boat trip to Taronga Zoo from Circular Quay in downtown Sydney, and I've saved some of the better or sillier shots of me with the famous Opera House and Harbor Bridge in the background. Also above and below are shots of the skyline as seen from Lady's Bay east of downtown, views of the South Head lighthouse (at the south entrance to Sydney Harbor aka, I believe, Port Jackson), and of North Head seen from South Head; and views of the Pittwater and me flexing what might pass for something vaguely six-pack-ish, at Palm Beach on the ocean side of the peninsula that creates that Pittwater. (Oh, look it up on google maps if you need to -- north of Sydney.) Love you, mean it.

...oh yeah, and the old Government House (read: governor's mansion) in Paramatta, inland or upriver from the main part of Sydney Harbor a bit -- important for early Australian colonial history because the land there was more fertile and allowed the colonial settlements to become more self-sufficient and less reliant on boatloads of supplies from Britain. Australian colonial/european history is short, even compared to American colonial/european history -- this first main residence of the colonial governor was only built around the first decade of the 1800s, I think. Lovely little house, though.

Greeting the New Year in Tahiti

Hello my friends. smw, slt is in Perth, Western Australia at the moment. In a few short hours we'll hop in our rental car and head south to explore what's reputed to be a gorgeous area of coastline, mountains and wineries in the southwestern portion of this vast and varied state. More about WA in some future post, but for now I've managed to get caught up on some photos from the tail end of 08 and the first day of 09, which doesn't seem like too much of a lag until you realize I've already been in yet another country, and three new cities, since then. Oh well: with any luck, you'll see more of Sydney, Melbourne and Western Australia in coming weeks. The news from the home front seems good; the house project moves ahead and my wonderful brother has taken the baton from me for the time being; thanks, Steve. I'll send postcards, fear not. :-) Happy new year to you all, and let's hope we don't weigh our new president down with so many expectations that he's bound to fail. Here's to a much better 2009 than 2008. (Oh, and one small note: I'm on a hotel internet computer that is neither the best nor the worst I've been on, but tending to the bottom half; either this fact or some change in blogspot means I don't have access to the usual formatting choices I've gotten used to...so there are likely some errors of formatting and things that won't look as good as I'd hope. Oh well. Let the pics, if you can see them, speak for themselsves...


OK, so my January-February vacation this year was supposed to be Australia and New Zealand. But, as I figured out during my short stay there, this is not high season in French Polynesia, and the airlines and hotels still want to bring in business. Wherease in Oz and NZ, it's definitely peak season. Result: far cheaper airfares if I flew via Tahiti than direct to the two main destinations. Tough choice, but like our soon-to-be-ex 'president' used to say, I'm the decider. Thus I spent about 50 hours on land, smack in the middle of the Pacific, in Tahiti.





As I've learned, Tahiti is the capital and largest island of the absolutely enormous territory of French Polynesia. French Polynesia includes something like 170 main islands in five different archipelagos, spread across an area the size of Europe (literally) in the middle of the Pacific Ocean (going east to west), somewhat south of the equator. They're literally in the middle of nowhere, quite remote from anywhere else. (This seems to be a theme of this trip; I write this from a hotel lobby in what's often described as the most remote major city in the world.) And they are, from what little I could see of them - plus all those stories and photos we've all seen over the years - truly beautiful.




Having only a short time - December 31 and January 1, to be precise - I had just time to take a quaint little bus into the capital, Papeete to explore a bit, then hop a 4wd vehicle for a trip up the principal river valley on this volcanic island with two main portions, formed - like Maui, I presume - by two different volcanoes over the millenia. All of the lovely waterfall and moutnain valley shots are from that half-day trip; the others are from my walks around town, except the sunset beach shots looking out at Moorea (next-door island) and the high-up shot of turquiose water, which came from a walk in the hills above my hotel on new year's day, where I found myself walking past the University of French Polynesia.

Above, a few shots taken around town in Papeete, the capital of French Polynesia and the main town on Tahiti. You can also see Moorea, a next-door island, in these shots as you could from the beach at my hotel, which is several miles back east or counter-clockwise around the island. Below are several shots of Papeete's Town Hall, all decked out for Christmas -- I took these shots on December 31st in Tahiti. Nice way to truly see out the old year, huh? :-) Tough life, but someone's gotta do it...

Adieu 2008, from LA

After a lovely family and food filled holiday hosted at my temporary apartment in NYC, I hopped a flight for LA on Monday the 29th, where I had a bit of time to walk around my old haunts of Venice and Marina del Rey before hopping a flight the following day for Tahiti. It being one of those classically gorgeous LA winter days, with seaside temperatures in the perfect range, and skies more than clear enough to see the snow on the San Gabriel Mountains, I couldn't help snapping a few shots.