Google and the MDGs

November 02, 2007 • Blog

World » Thailand » Chiang Mai » HDnet office

Google Earth now can keep you up to date on the worlds progress towards the Millennium Development Goals.

The eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – which range from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education, all by the target date of 2015 – form a blueprint agreed to by all the world’s countries and all the world’s leading development institutions. They have galvanized unprecedented efforts to meet the needs of the world’s poorest.

Although particularly that last sentence is a bit rich, the MDGs do form a central focal point for developed and developing nations to use as a basis for helping the poorest of this earth.

I’m a big fan of Google Maps and Google Earth, I’m a web developer, and I do a lot of work in the development (NGO) sector. So imagine my excitement when Google announced their MDG layer for Google Earth. MDG means Millennium Development Goals.

With the MDG layer for Google Earth, you can keep track of how the world is faring in pursuing these goals. Install Google Earth, run it, get the feed and go wild. There’s much more info over at the Google/UN/Cisco website mdgmonitor.org.

SD card with wi-fi

Possible the best thing EVER for photographers is a 2GB SD card with built in wi-fi. What the thing does is that, when you pop this in your digital camera and there’s a wireless network around, pictures are automatically transferred to either your PC or your photosharing (think flickr) service of choice. Read more at photojojo. Currently only (legally) available in the US.
Obviously, this is useful for transferring your pictures at home, without having to whip out cable or cardreader. But it’s even better when making a pitstop in some coffee shop or restaurant offering free access. Just sip your coffee and you’re ready to reuse your memory card.

Seriously, this would be reason for me wanting my next camera to have an SD slot.

Was Jesus Caesar, the movie

October 31, 2007 • Blog

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World » Thailand » Chiang Mai » Baan Chinnakorn

A while back, I read a most interesting book, Was Jesus Caesar, by Francesco Carotta. A friend of mine, Arnold, who published a book on struggling at being a young father, also became interested in the subject and even met Carotta. It was Arnold who introduced me to Jan van Friesland (who returns no less than six results on the Dutch Google news), a Dutch film maker.
Very recently, van Friesland finished a documentary on Carotta’s work and the possibility of the Jesus myth being modeled on Ceasar’s life. I received an invite for the world premiere in Utrecht in a few days but, being in Thailand, it will be tough to attend. You can take a look at the press release. Let’s hope, well, sort of, that the video will be available on YouTube soon…
Carotta also has a PDF which goes into more detail on his site.

Guinea Pigs Get Paid

Back at university, on several occasions I considered being a lab rat, in exchange for, being a student, serious amounts of cash. One of my fellow students occasionally ‘volunteered’ as a guinea pig and made serious money, even though, at times, he would come back from a 20 or 30 day trial, multiple kilos less, white and, well, sickly looking. I figured it was easy money.
Not so my family and my then girlfriend and, in the end, I decided the domestic disturbance wasn’t going to be worth it.

Here, in Thailand, I’m going through the Wireds that were sent to me over the past year in record time and one of them has an article on human guinea pig circuit. The matter still intrigues me and, hey, as a shoestring expat, I’m not the richest individual in my peer group from student days of yore.
Most notably, with the advent of ubiquitous web access, the Wired article mentions the website GPGP.net, Guinea Pigs Get Paid, which lists upcoming clinical trials in the western world, with a very strong focus on the US. Knock yourself out, literally. And for a reason. Compensation in the US is very, very decent, the Wired article mentioning that you might make as much as 50.000 dollars a year, devoting your time to trials and finding them.

Spam!

My Gmail spam folder now holds more than 10000 spam messages. Seriously!

Meanwhile in Thailand

We’ve had a Thai cooking class on Betsy’s birthday. We missed the hash by arriving at the collection point half an hour late. We visited the zoo and saw giant pandas and koalas.

Hitting the ground running

October 25, 2007 • Blog

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World » Thailand » Chiang Mai » Baan Chinnakorn

I pretty much finished the HDN website in June. However, here, they only really started working with a few weeks before my arrival. That meant that, now, some functionalities needed to be changed, as well that quite a few small bugs were uncovered.
All this has, so far, resulted in very busy days, as I also have to work on the project which is the reason for my being here this time around: A digg like website which will combine two existing HDN run projects, HealthDev.org and TheCorrespondent.org.

We’re settling in. We’ve rented a scooter and have driven around quite a bit already. We visited Doi Su Thep, probably Chiang Mai’s most prominent tourist attraction, as well as a series of other wats (temples), ordered a laptop for Betsy and have good food, three times a day. We even started playing trivia again and we were off to a good start, coming in third last Monday.

To get from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, we took an overnight train. Understanding what type of service you’ll get before you get on is a bit hard. We figured that second class sleepers with fans wouldn’t be too bad. Actually, it wasn’t, but we also had no private cabins, the lights stayed on all night, as did the windows, mostly.
The train started with 15 carriages, only one of which was a sleeper. Regular second class meant having to spend the night in a luxury recliner seat. Third class meant spending the night, on a moving train, on benches seating either three or two, with no armrests. Man, was I happy with my cramped upper bunk right under that glaring neon light.

What’s for dinner in Thailand?

I’ve committed myself to eating those large bugs, but only after I see someone eating them first. Meanwhile, we’ve had Indian curries, many Thai dishes, great continental breakfast, several sweet fried snacks, cotton candy which resembled the hair I had cut off at the Bangkok train station, fried quail eggs, loads of sushi and much, much more.

Ping pong at Pat Pong

October 14, 2007 • Blog

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World » Thailand » Bangkok » New World Lodge

Expect to pay a 500 baht (10 euro) cover charge. Expect to pay 500 baht for your first drink. Expect to be charged 300 baht for the few drinks you're almost forced to pay for some of the girls.

Now, keep the above in mind when you enter any pingpongpussy club on Pat Pong. It will only get better.

It's hard to ignore the touts/proppers and once you give in, you'll be fooled into thinking a beer is 100 baht, the same as the cover charge. You'll get in, you'll get your first drinks and the show will start. Then the madame will come up to you and explain that, really, cover is 500 baht and the first drink is 500 baht. Colas for the girls are 300 baht, but every next drink is only 100 baht.
Obviously, if you can keep your cool and decide not to walk out, this is where your bargaining skills come in handy. If you're part of a group, you stand a better chance of getting a good deal.

These are the shows you can expect:

+ Shooting darts from a pipe to pop balloons. You can hold the balloon.
+ Shooting ping pong balls, but only a meter's distance or so.
+ Smoking a cigarette.
+ Pulling a string of flowers from that dark spot.
+ Pulling a string of very sharp razor blades from that same dark spot.
+ Popping a raw egg in and out.
+ Blowing out the candles on a cake.
+ Opening a bottle of water in a very unusual way.

In the end, during the bargaining round, I got the price 'down' to 500 baht entry and 100 baht per drink. I was irritated for having to bargain down a price I did not agree to, but in the end, the deal wasn't too bad. The show's interesting, but in no way sexy or hot. It's a series of circus acts, designed to optimize its financial return.
"I'm lady boy, give me money."

The shoestring expat

October 05, 2007 • Blog

World » Hungary » Budapest » Tajtekos napok

Volunteers working for organizations like VSO, ICCO or PeaceCorps typically go through a training course before they’re sent abroad, get guidance in their country of placement and get another training course after they return to their home country.
Likewise, expats working for the usual suspects, the Shells, Unilevers, P&Gs, etc., not only get trainings and guidance, they also get shitloads of relocation money to remain comfortable while adjusting to their new surroundings, partner benefits, free housing and whatnot.

We’ve been in South Africa for 18 months. No adjustment training, no partner benefits, no cultural guidance, no compensating financial benefits. In one day, I’ll be back home, six days later, I’ll be in Thailand on my next project. Meanwhile, compensation is, compared to local standards, good, but, compared to what big shot expats earn, peanuts, the most typical example of this discrepancy probably being my work in Afghanistan.
Indeed, this style of life, though living/working as expats, feels more like traveling on a shoestring budget. Meanwhile, it also can’t, specifically, be compared to, say, Aussies working to stay abroad, or northern European teenage beauties working as bar maids in sunny Spain, in short, people working for an extending vacation.
Therefore, I would like to introduce the term shoestring expat. In relation to expats, Wikipedia mentions:

In dealing with expatriates, an international company reckons the value of them and has experienced staff to deal with them. Furthermore, a company often has a company wide policy and coaching system and includes the spouses at an earlier stage in the decision making process by giving them an official say in this. Not many companies provide any compensation for loss of income of spouses. They often do provide benefits and assistance. The level of support differs, ranging from offering a job-hunting course for spouses at the new location to full service partner support structures, run by volunteering spouses supported by the organisation.

So, with the above in mind, I would like to suggest the following definition of a shoestring expat:

A shoestring expat works for an international company that reckons the value of them but provides no experienced staff to deal with them. There is no company wide policy, no coaching system and the spouses are not included in any stage of the decision making process, providing no benefits or assistance for the spouses.

Bye

My last day in Jo’burg was much more emotional than I expected. Every end is a new beginning, you win some, you lose some, but here, I felt that I was losing more than I was going to win. 18 months is a long time. Betsy and I have really attained a ‘native’ foothold, with (good!) local friends, local activities and local likes and gripes while, now, we’ll have to see when (if?) we’ll ever be back to try and pick up where we left off.
I was also sad to have to say goodbye to Spoek, our neighbor’s sweet, completely white, very playful and young cat. Twice, on my last day, did she run up to me, almost begging to be petted, when I was outside, dropping of garbage or whatnot.

And in Budapest

Going to places I haven’t been in ten years and to places I’ve never been before.

And a cute little Hungarian chicky offering ‘Francia’ (not the language, I misunderstood at first) for ‘three’ because her baba was ‘rossz’.

No pictures

Strangely enough, when I unpacked my things at my mother’s place in Delft, the memory card from my camera, together with some 350 pictures I’d shot over the previous two days, had disappeared.

On the way out

September 30, 2007 • Blog

World » South Africa » Johannesburg » Fourways » Shingara Sands

Tuesday: Last trivia night at the Keg & Filly. Wednesday: IBM farewell party at the Baron. Thursday: Dinner and drinks at Clair’s. Friday: Prize ceremony for the Pretoria photomarathon. Saturday: Last hash in Pretoria. Alcoholic business, going away.

Total ONIge, part II

Managed to jump through a second ONI. Nearly 9 minutes of ‘Soul 6’, like my previous ONI, also on DDR Extreme. And then I did it again!

100000!

My Flickr photo stream jumped above a total of 100.000 views, with nearly 6000 photos in the stream.

Listed in a feed, scraped on one of my sites

September 21, 2007 • Blog

World » South Africa » Johannesburg » Fourways » Shingara Sands

The website in the screen shot below is inzim.com. I started it three years ago, when living in Zimbabwe. It started as a full blown portal but now, it reads and structures news feeds from allAfrica.

Last week, Ismail and I won the Highway Africa new media award for Soweto uprisings . com and allAfrica wrote about it.
Then, inZIM scraped their feeds and automatically posted it on my site.

So, in the end, I’m the subject of a news article, listed on a site which I built three years ago, without me being directly responsible. It’s a bit like an injoke.

Too late did I realise that, most likely, Babasprojects.org also picked up the story.

Total ONIge!

September 20, 2007 • Blog

World » South Africa » Johannesburg » Fourways » Montecasino

Today, I managed to finish my first ONI. It’s a DDR thing, like a non-stop, but you’re only allowed to make three mistakes. Depending on the ONI, you get up to 10 songs in sequence where, on some occasions, you start again with the first song after finishing the last one. The ONI I finished was Naoki normal on DDR Extreme, where six songs saw me step around for a consecutive 8 minutes, 34 seconds and 50 hundredths of a second.

A newspaper interview

Yesterday, Ismail and I were interviewed by Elles van Gelder, a stringer for the new and free Dutch daily DePers. The article is supposed to be in the paper tomorrow (Friday the 21st).

Some published pictures

Also, some of my photographs were recently included in the Schmap Budapest guide.

Yet another visa run

September 17, 2007 • Blog

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World » Mozambique » Maputo » Fatima’s

Like three years ago, a visit to the Maputo fish market. Now, we did have our king prawns prepared at the baracas at the back of the market. And we saw (and tasted) that it was good, if not more expensive than anticipated.

Staying at Fatima’s again. The venue is decent enough, but staff is as grumpy and unhelpful as always. Went over the other backpacker’s in town, The Base, to check it out: rather small, with a beautiful view, more centrally located, but with no bar.

Strolling through town, we were entertained at the municipal market, a lovely building from early last century, by crabs. A cluster of ladies was selling mud-caked crabs from cardboard boxes. Live mud-caked crabs, the top ones wiggling around while their owners were chatting away in Portuguese.
As we were standing next to one of the boxes, watching the spectacle, we saw one crab struggling and finally succeeding to free itself. It was about to crawl over the edge of his box: “Free at last! Free at last!”, before it was hit on the head several times by the lady behind the box, with a stick she specifically employed for this purpose. The crab retreated, the lady continued chatting.

On the streets, lots of people sell lots of stuff, while walking around. Sweets, pants, shirts, belts, watches, DVDs. And, while having a drink at the cafe next to the Nucleo de Arte gallery, two ladies asked us to buy a live turtle.

The Mozambican economy is doing quite well, even though it’s said corruption is also soaring. Perhaps the economic upsurge is the reason for restaurants selling fewer fish dishes. Fish, so readily available in Mozambique, might be seen as poor people’s food. If you’ve got money, you get steak.
Anyway, after three restaurants not selling fish, we were happy to pass one that advertised “mouelhas” (I forget the exact spelling) on an outside sign. We’re managing, talking to the locals, by mixing up French and Spanish, throwing in Portuguese when we know it. Mouelhas looked and sounded like “moules”, the French for mussels. So we walked in and asked whether they actually had the mouelhas. They did, and looked at us rather funnily. It would take some 20 minutes to prepare.
Indeed, some 25 minutes later, we got our plates of chips, salad and mouelhas. Chicken stomachs (or, perhaps, chicken livers).

PPoT: The geekiest band alive

September 14, 2007 • Blog

World » South Africa » Johannesburg » Fourways » Shingara Sands

If you’re geeky like me (incidentally, did I mention I won the prestigious Highway Africa new media award together with Ismail Farouk?), you might know of the band Press Play on Tape, hailing from Denmark, together since 1999, who claim to be the geekiest band on the planet.
Well, they most surely were the geekiest band in 1999, as they play game tunes from Commodore 64 games. Hilarious stuff, if not ueber-cool.

However, recently, they took it one step further. You see, with bands like the Guitar Zeros, they’ve got quite stiff competition. So what did PPoT do? They now play Commodore 64 game tunes using game controllers. And these include a DDR dance mat and a Suzo Arcade joystick!

So, now, to find their CDs.

http://www.youtube.com/v/F7XiXQ6wEyM

Babak Fakhamzadeh: Winner of the prestigious Highway Africa new media award

September 12, 2007 • Blog

World » South Africa » Johannesburg » Fourways » Shingara Sands

September 11 will live on in infamy! (What? That’s nothing new? Oh well.) Yesterday, Ismail Farouk and I won the prestigious Highway Africa new media award for our creation Soweto uprisings . com. The cheapskate organizers of the event only allowed for one of us to visit the show, so Ismail is currently being dragged from one interview to the next and was on live SABC television. During the show, our website was called “The most innovative site in Africa”. I think that’s a bit rich, but who am I to argue.

The largest media conference on the continent was held in Grahamstown and tackled loads of topics. On late night SABC Africa news, the conference was mentioned, but the five minute segment only talked about how journalists should deal with issues such as South Africa’s terrible health minister being convicted for theft and her generally acting as a total arsehole.

Prizes were handed out in three categories: Corporate, individual/student (which we won) and non-profit. The corporate category was won by Amatomu, a blog aggregator for the South African market. A very decent website, but backed by the guys behind the Mail & Guardian, easily South Africa’s best newspaper. It would be tough for them to crap this one up.
The non-profit category was won by www.islamonline.co.za or islamonline.net, news articles don’t seem to agree. If it’s the former, it’s sad.

Here are a few write ups from around the web:
+ BizCommunity wrote an article about the event, lists the winners and gives some background.
+ AfricaNews has an article and a video interview with Ismail.
+ The Association for Progressive Communication (sounds fancy!) blogs about it.
+ Some Brazilian website on digital culture picked up the news as well.
+ The Dutch newspaper DePers also wrote a nice article on it.

Ismail is at the conference for almost the whole week and is being pushed around from interview to interview, no doubt ending up every night in his hotel room with ten babes on every finger.
Man. Why am I sitting behind my PC writing this, not enjoying the good life? I could be rich! RICH!

Photomarathon, wine and another year

September 09, 2007 • Blog

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World » South Africa » Magaliesberg » Cellar Rats Wine festival

Saturday saw the second African photomarathon, this time in Pretoria. The results are online and there are quite a few good submissions.

Sunday marked the end of my 34th year on this blue rock. We went to the Cellar Rats 2007 spring wine festival. Wasn’t bad at all.

On to a Facebook widget

September 04, 2007 • Blog

World » South Africa » Johannesburg » Fourways » Shingara Sands

I’m playing around with creating a widget. The objective is to make a Facebook widget, in order to conquer the world. Below you’ve got the Flickr babe of the day. The babe should automatically be a different one tomorrow.

Fade into you

Only on exceptions do I post videos. Today’s an exception; the video below screams melancholy and is very well done. Well, it made me sad!

The song is Fade into you and the visuals are from two Fred Astaire dance movies. The whole thing is called a mashup. The song, I think is by Mazzy Star and is from as far back as 1993.

http://www.youtube.com/v/_7e-CpDQdac

Horse racing

September 01, 2007 • Blog

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World » South Africa » Johannesburg » Turffontein race course

Early last year, when Betsy arrived in South Africa, she really managed to get on well with the girl/lady responsible for making sure her batch of Dutchies would settle well in the country. The lady, Cathy, seems to be busier than an anthill, but still we occasionally managed to hang out or do some activity. Cathy’s father being extremely knowledgeable on horse racing, one of the things we had planned on doing was to visit the Durban July, South Africa’s premier horse racing event where it’s just as much about the horse race as it is about looking cool. Incidentally, I was told today (not by Cathy’s father) that at ’round 13′, at the Durban July, it’s customary for spectators to run around the track naked.
We didn’t make it last year, and neither did we this year.

But, with only four weeks left, Cathy invited us to a master class, run by her 80-year old father, at the Turffontein race course in JHB, today. And it was quite a bit of fun. We had an extensive lunch, drinks, and more, while watching eight fast paced horse races over the course of the day. The number of types of bets you can place is astounding and it’s almost surprising it’s possible to lose. But losing we did. Well, only tens of Rands, at most, but still.

Meanwhile…

A week ago or so, I was interviewed by the production team behind joburg.org.za in relation to my creation of Beeldenstad.net/Johannesburg. Currently two articles mention the site.

And on the spam front

In the past two weeks or so, the number of spam messages I received during the previous 30 day period has increased from just under 3000, to now nearly 7000. Someone is back on the spamming machine.

Social networking and social news

August 31, 2007 • Blog

World » South Africa » Johannesburg » Fourways » Shingara Sands

Come October, I’m relocating from South Africa to Thailand. You know, to bring some more spice to my life. Well, actually, it’s because for my next steady job I will be based in Chiang Mai. Indeed, I hear you thinking: “Steady?”; this is my first steady job since working in Afghanistan, two years ago.
And I keep surprising myself how, with the rather limited cash I make, I keep getting fatter year on year.

I’ll be working for an NGO called HDN, Health & Development Networks (in June, I set up their new website, but that hasn’t gone live yet), which basically busies itself with facilitating NGOs in developing countries who work on HIV and TB education.
Quite a bit of HDN’s support for these organizations goes through two online platforms they created. One is fairly recent, TheCorrespondent.org, but lacks functionality. The other has been going for some 8 years, HealthDev.org, but is badly in need of an upgrade.
You feel it coming, I’ll be combining and structurally upgrading these services come mid-October.

I’m looking at reconfiguring these two services into a socially driven news website, focusing on the developing world and AIDS and TB. Socially driven news? The most well known socially driven news website is Digg, but the one which pretty much pioneered it is Slashdot. However, both of these more typically link to stories, instead of hosting or facilitating news makers. One that allows for members to create their own news and one which I actually use is Newsvine.
But, for HDN, I will have to create something that holds the middle between a Newsvine-like website and a Digg-like site, as members need to be able to post links to stories on the web (which is basically what’s happening at HealthDev.org) and post stories themselves (which is happening at TheCorrespondent.org).

So I’ve been scouting for existing solutions which I might be able to build upon. The obvious choice would be Pligg, an open source Digg clone, but that also has its disadvantages, being modeled on Digg. And it’s currently going through turbulent times.
Two solutions out there that have caught my attention are Plime and Thoof, both doing personalized news (this one links to Thoof). Both are similar to Digg in many ways, but with the powerful difference that the content is basically open. That is, anyone can manipulate the extracts which are listed on these two sites. As this is functionality I want to implement, it’s these two websites which I find the most interesting of the (very large) bunch that offer similar stuff. The problem? Neither has open code, so I either have to convince HDN to start using either one of these websites (which I don’t think is too smart as it would make the organization too dependent), or build my own.
You see, I got my work cut out for me.

Finding not finding a cheap place to stay in Cape Town

August 28, 2007 • Blog

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World » South Africa » Johannesburg » Fourways » Shingara Sands

We came back yesterday from a long weekend in Cape Town. It was good fun, but surprisingly more expensive than I anticipated. At Betsy's work, all the 'Kapies' (that is, people from Cape Town), claim that the Cape is so much more affordable than Jo'burg.
Indeed, Jo'burg can be pricey, so we were looking forward to a relatively inexpensive stay in the Cape.

Not what happened. The restaurants were pricey, the bars were pricey, even parking was pricey. We rented a car, and that was pricey. And our accommodation had every indication of being pricey too: about 180 Rand (some 18 euros) per person per night, in a double room with en suite bathroom. True, we did have an en suite, but this was at a backpackers (and, if you're used to European or American prices, keep in mind this is Africa). So, this being a backpackers, no breakfast included and no daily cleaning of our room.
I booked, the way I always do my booking, through Travelhog.net. So far, I've always been very satisfied with the offers available through this engine.
However, when in Cape Town, what did sting me was that we saw several signs advertising rooms for less than what we payed.

So I stumbled upon a service today, called cheaper than hotels (with, amongst others, hotels in Cape Town, hotels in Johannesburg and even hotels in Sandton, but I find these pages much more confusing than the homepage itself) which, obviously, should be able to compete within the hostel market segment. True, the site looks like crap, but that never stopped MySpace. And since it's advertising only last minute opportunities, it might just be able to offer some good deals.
I checked it out and tried to compare some options. The homepage has a basic but functional search tool where you can drill down to areas within a city (such as Greenpoint, where we stayed last weekend). Taking a similar weekend as the previous one, I wanted to test the period from 7 till 10 September.
I first tried searching only in Greenpoint, but that only returned one (expensive) hotel, so I widened the search to include the whole of the city.

Now, I'm normally a huge skeptic of services like this which claim to be cheap as, usually, they end up being bloody expensive (think Budget car rental, which is generally more expensive than Hertz and Avis).
Imagine the surprise. The cheapest option ended up being a lodge in Somerset West (which is not too convenient if you don't have your own transport) for a total of 96 euros (for three days, for two persons). This is less than what we had to pay for our double room at the backpackers. In fact, four options were cheaper and three more were equally priced, including two in Sea Point, which is a decent place to stay in, when you're in Cape Town.

Feeling like having found the best thing since sliced cheese, I figured that if I'd try and go for something really last minute (the site only allows for booking 21 days in advance as it's a last minute booking site), surely, prices would be even more attractive.
Not so. The cheapest available rooms for tomorrow came in at pretty much the same rate as booking two weeks in advance, around 35 euros per room per night.
Still, it's a pity we'll be leaving South Africa in five weeks time. We obviously could have had some deals here. Three years ago, when we were living in Zimbabwe, we spent quite a bit of time on the road in South Africa, on holiday. For some locations, this could have been useful. Then again, checking for some cities in the Cape, outside of Cape Town, the really good deals don't really seem to exist.

Then again, I also checked availability and prices for both Johannesburg and Budapest. Johannesburg searches only returned one (pricey) hotel, Budapest searches returned lots of hotels, but none that could seriously compete with the hostels in that town.

So, you can sleep for less using the booking engine at Travelhog.net, but that typically means sleeping in a dorm. If you want a good, private room, with facilities, it seems that when you want to stay in Cape Town, cheaper than hotels can be a good place to start looking. But I'll first check the booking engine at Travelhog.net anyway.

(In the end, we paid less at our hostel as they turned out to have a deal where the third consecutive night was free, but still.)

SL

Student Life is a South African magazine aimed at, can you guess, students. I got myself one, while in the Cape, because it was packed with a CD. It's a bit like a sampler, has 15 tracks by as many bands. All of them are new to me, and some are actually quite decent.

The Pigeon Detectives sing I found out, which feels a bit like 80s punkpop. The band The Cinematics also create a similar feel with their track Keep Forgetting, although there's a dash of The Cure in there too.
Midlake, with their song Roscoe feels rather dramatic, in style reminding me of Radiohead and classic rock from the 60s and 70s. It's close to psychedelic at times. Very good.
Then there's Memomena with Wet and Rusting has a bit of a Beatles feel to it. A bit repetitive, but nice.
The first of the two best tracks on the album is by Soulsavers and is called Arizona Bay. It's electronica and reminds me of Godspeed! You black emperor, although the band themselves claim to get their influences from the likes of Public Enemy, Johnny Cash, Tom Waits and whatnot. The second is by Paul Hartnoll and is called Haven't we met before. Hartnoll, together with his brother, formed Orbital, electronica at its very best. The album from which this track is lifted was recorded with a full choir and orchestra.

The great Gatsby: a sandwich to die for

August 27, 2007 • Blog

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World » South Africa » Cape Town » South African museum

Varna has its broodje met een buikje, Durban has its bunny chow, Cape Town has its Gatsby (surely named after The great Gatsby). It’s huge, and resembles the all in one sandwiches I’ve had in Brussels time and again. Think a full meal, now think a full meal on a huge sandwich. We had a hake and chips (with salad and sauce) Gatsby. My estimate was that the whole thing weighed in at about one kg.
The verdict? FABULOUS!

A stop at the South African museum where we finally managed to see the Lydenburg heads as well as the Linton stone, considered the most important example of San rock art.
After that, a quick stop at the muslim cemetery before we headed off to Jo’burg again.

There, almost of course, we found our car with a flat battery and malfunctioning brakes (the rent-a-wreck we have has proven to have pretty much completely broken down over the past few weeks). Some friendly individuals later, we managed to struggle home.
A weekend well spent.

Penguins, Ostriches and bad seafood

August 26, 2007 • Blog

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World » South Africa » Simon’s town » The Boulders

More beasties today, visiting the African penguin colony in Simon’s town (or, more often called Simonstown), where, some twenty years ago or so, clusters and clusters of penguins suddenly showed up and decided to stay. The town was named after Simon van der Stel. The same who started the oldest operating wine estate in the new world, Groot Constantia, and the same after whom the city of Stellenbosch was named.

First considering to visit the Cape of Good Hope, we ended up at an ostrich farm with loads of cute but stupid animals.

We had dinner at a real tourist trap, Panama Jack’s. It’s tough to get to this fish restaurant, located on a reasonably hard to reach quay inside Cape Town’s harbor. Through the restaurant’s marketing, it seemingly positions itself as a restaurant which is down to earth, where you can eat lots of food at very reasonable prices.
Not so. The setting feels low budget, the food is expensive or very expensive and the quality is low. Really low. We each had a starter and a main dish and shared a desert. The desert was average, the rest was bad or real bad. So. Don’t eat at Panama Jack’s in Cape Town. It’s possibly the worst value for money I’ve ever had.

Wine tasting and Turkish food

August 25, 2007 • Blog

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World » South Africa » Cape Town » Anatolia

With the weather gods on our side, we stopped by several wine estates in the Constantia area, very close to Cape Town. Groot Constantia, the first wine estate in South Africa, founded by Simon van der Stel, the first governer of the Cape, and considered the oldest still operating wine estate in the 'new world', was our first stop. A tour and a tasting later, we headed out to Constantia Uitsig for another tasting, but by then had already spent so much time, we found the other wine estates to have closed their wine tasting doors.

In the evening, we had dinner at the extremely excellent Anatolia. A Turkish restaurant (did you guess?), where Ataturk graces the walls and belly dancers adorn the aisles. The waiters come over with a huge board with mezes, from which you pick the ones you want. And then you still have to get through the main course and desert.
We were the first to arrive and one of the last to leave. Again, it wasn't cheap, but it was extremely good and satisfying. You'd be hard pressed to find something better in Turkey.

Going to see the Cape

August 24, 2007 • Blog

World » South Africa » Cape Town » Big Blue backpacker’s

We’ve now lived in South Africa for nearly 18 months. Next month is our last and, in this period, not once have we visited Cape Town. We’ve been there three years ago, but that’s no excuse when you’re living this close. So we spent the weekend there.

One of the first things that struck us were the absurd number of Dutchies around. We had a hard time not feeling like bloody tourists.

On Friday, after getting up way too early to head out to the nearby (for us) international airport of Lanseria, not OR Tambo, one of the first things we did was visit the Two Oceans Aquarium. In a few ways, it’s less interesting compared to the aquarium in Swakopmund, but also has a few huge displays which are extremely impressive. And a tank with what looks like thousands of Nemos.
Another impressive aquarium is the one with the giant spider crabs. They are scary. Although they also reminded me of Zoidberg (from Futurama), their primary resemblance is indeed with spiders. And they’re huge.
The ones we saw were about 40cm high, but fully grown individuals can be up to one meter tall(!!). They live off the Japanese coast, typically at a depth of some 500 meters, so chances of bumping into them are minimal.
But imagine walking down some beach and a cluster of these beasts approaching you from the distance.

(Note: The Wikipedia page on spider crabs maintains they can reach a body size of up to 37cm. If body size means height, we saw the tallest in existence, which I strongly doubt.)

We had dinner at Biesmiellah, a Cape Malay restaurant in the Bo-Kaap area (that is, muslim Cape Town). What makes Cape Malay curries stand out from regular Indian curries, is that they tend to be sweet. My dish, Pienang Curry, was, most likely, the best curry I’ve eve tasted. It was mouth watering from start to finish, if a bit expensive at around 70 Rand.
Approaching the restaurant, for a few seconds, I felt like being back in Kabul. The architectural style, lots of glass, plastic and neon, coupled with the smell of grilled meat and lots of youth hanging around with little street lighting gave me a very un-African impression.

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