2011 was indeed a Perfect Year for the family and I, for it was the year that we spent our mid-year, bi-yearly, two months at what we like to call:

Our summer home.

‘Summer home‘ because it’s the time of year that we escape the fierce Hong Hong heat and humidity for the cold, wet climate of Cape Town.

A Cape Town where indeed all four of us were born, but only the parents were raised.

A Cape Town where the Missus and I have (emotionally and physically) built a home that we have kept for as long as we have been married. A home where we escape to once every two years when Hong Kong gets waaay too hot.

Friday, 30 December 2011

As we are in this reflective mood, 2011 New Year’s Eve… I put together this collage of images I took during our 2-month sojourn in Cape Town in 2011.

Just to say Thank You, Baie Dankie and Trammakassie.

May God Bless you… Cape Town.

Till we see you next time.

Have a Perfect Year.

The Mother City is raking in awards!

Shortly after being named at the top of TripAdvisor’s Travelers’ Choice Best Destinations, Cape Town was named as the continental winner of the International Olympic Committee’s Sport and Environment awards.  The honour was bestowed on the City for it’s 2010 Green Goal Programme.

The IOC Sport and Environment Award is presented every two years to members of the Olympic Movement for their contributions in the field of sustainable sport and the environment. The Host City Cape Town Green Goal programme was nominated by FIFA in its capacity as a sporting federation affiliated with the IOC and was supported by the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Commission (SASCOC).

The Green Goal team ensured that the 2010 FIFA World Cup in Cape Town was an environmentally responsible event that was measured against international good practice and found to be “outstanding”.

IOC President Jacques Rogge, who gave an opening speech at the Conference in Doha, applauded the winners for their dedication to the environment.

“Sport is a powerful tool for positive change,” President Rogge said. “Our task is to ensure we use that tool for the benefit of the planet we share. We owe that to ourselves and to the future generations who will inherit this earth. The winners here tonight have embraced this concept and are worthy recipients of the IOC Sport and Environment Award.”

(Source: SA Good News)

Dignitaries at the World Conference on Sport and the Environment in Doha

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Cape Town has once again seen off the challenge of cities like New York (6th), Paris (4th) and Sydney (2nd) when it was crowned as Number 1 in TripAdvisor’s Travelers’ Choice Best Destinations.

TripAdvisor is one of the biggest travel websites with millions of visitors flocking to the site for reviews and other travel tips.

The site rates Table Mountain and it’s myriads of walks, as well as the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens as “Top-Rated Things to Do,” while it’s Review reads:

Cape Town glistens at the southern toe of the African continent.

Amazing sites, from Robben Island, Nelson Mandela’s former prison, to tourist brochure-views at Blaauwberg Beach and Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens, are within easy driving distance of “The Mother City”.

Sun worshippers, surfers and divers flock to nearby white sand beaches and azure waters under Table Mountain. The Cape of Good Hope Nature Reserve provides sweeping sea vistas, hiking trails and wildlife encounters.

Well Done to the Mother City!

Have you Voted for Table Mountain Yet?

While typing this story, I’m also listening to TheTaxi.co.za where Soli Philander & Colin Jones are chatting to Dean Liprini, a South African independent Archeo-Astronomer/Researcher/Author/Geomancer. Have a look at Dean’s website to read some amazing facts about Cape Town and Table Mountain in particular.

Some time ago we posted about the campaign to get Table Mountain appointed as one of 7 New Wonders of Nature.

We were even moved to make a video about the Cape Town landmark; the song in the clip was written and performed by a son of the Cape Town soil, Charl Pilwan.

In fact, the Campaign managers liked the video so much, they posted it on the Campaign website!

Voting is open until July 2011 and winners will be announced in November this year.

PLEASE get your vote counted.

It is the right thing to do.

For all South Africans.

Read this article by SAPA:

Cape Town could benefit to the tune of R1.4 billion a year if it is named one of the New7Wonders of Nature, a tourism hospitality and leisure research company has found. (Read the article here)

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Listen to Table Mountain Ambassador Soli Philander only on The Taxi

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Just under a month ago, we alerted you that Table Mountain needed you vote.

The iconic Cape Town landmark was recently named on the shortlist of the 28 finalists in the New 7 Wonders of Nature competition.

Coordinators of the Vote for Table Mountain have been calling for South Africans to cast their vote to have the mountain declared one of the new 7 wonders of nature, and on our previous post, we showed you how you too can cast your vote.

We were pleasantly surprised to see that a video that we made after listening to Campaign Manager Fiona Furey speaking on The Taxi, was posted on the homepage of the Vote For Table Mountain campaign!

If you visit the site (here), our video is the one just above that of Arch Bishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, a patron of the campaign.

Excuse me if I dwell on the issue of Table Mountain and Cape Town, but I just found this fantastic time-lapse video of Cape Town featuring some amazing footage of the clouds (table-cloth) moving over Table Mountain. (Cheers Seth)

From Wikipedia:

Time-lapse photography is a cinematography technique whereby each film frame is captured at a rate much slower than it will be played back. When replayed at normal speed, time appears to be moving faster and thus lapsing. Time-lapse photography can be considered to be the opposite of high speed photography.

If you have a look at the website of the producers Silver Bullet Productions, you will find some more of their creative efforts.

I watched the following time-lapse video in full-screen (HD) on my 27-inch iMac and I can promise you… you’ll be blown away!

Enjoy the awesomeness of the Mother City:

Seriously Beautiful Cape Town – Timelapses from Silver Bullet Productions on Vimeo.

Some of my greatest memories from Cape Town involve Table Mountain.

As a boy scout back in the days, our troop regularly took part in orienteering competitions at various locations around the mountain.

Later, as a member of my university’s Mountain Club, I had the privilege (several times over) of rock-climbing a couple of routes to the top.  A favourite “act of madness” by the fitness-fanatics in the Club was to run up AND down the Mountain via Platteklip Gorge as fast as possible.

In case you were thinking: Yes, we did that stone cold sober!

The best experience, however, was the many nights I spent at the SA Mountain Club’s hut… on the ‘Table Top” as I always like to say.  Staying behind while tourists and other visitors are advised that the Upper Cable Station will be closing, as well as seeing the sun rise over the Hottentots Holland mountains while watching from the top of Table Mountain are priceless experiences that few people are privvy to.

Nowadays, as an expat for a decade, my family’s best experience when flying home once a year, is undoubtedly seeing the Mountain as our plane approaches the Mother City.

That is when we feel like we are finally home.

Priceless experiences indeed.

Recently, Table Mountain was named on the shortlist of the 28 finalists in the New 7 Wonders of Nature competition.

The Cape icon successfully beat legendary sites such as Mount Everest, K2 and Mount Olympus.

I have cast my vote and you can too:

Read more about the campaign to get Table Mountain nominated by clicking on VoteForTableMountain.com or joining the FaceBook Group here

In the meantime, have a look and listen to this clip I made yesterday while listening to Soli Philander & Fiona Furey talking about this campaign on The Taxi:

(We used the picture above in our video clip. Tasaline Pamela Martin informed us via The Taxi that the view in the sketch above was her family’s while growing up and that the picture is by her 16-year old brother, Philipus van Rensburg from Heideveld. Thanks for allowing us to use it, young man.)

Those who have known me since my TaiwanSaffies.com as well as CapeTownTalks.info (now defunt) days back in Taiwan, will know how much I love and miss (and my commitment towards) Cape Town and South Africa.

However, those who really know me will also know that there is one thing about life in Asia that I would not give up on easily:

Broadband.

More specifically:

Fricken’ fan-tastic broadband.

Mac, PC & Big Mac… I call this Howzit Online Media HQ. Home of Howzit-HongKong & BlitzBokke.com

Where-ever you are in Hong Kong and what-ever means you use to log on.

It’s omnipresent; 24/7 and at high speed.

Nuff said.

It allows me to live in Asia and travel all over, without losing my connection with my home.  It’s been said many times and it’s probably true: before most people in Cape Town know what’s going on, I do. (It probably also has something to do with that fact that Hong Kong is a whole six hours ahead of South Africa.)

Cape Town will always be my home.  It is after all where my family and I were born (though my kids have lived in Asia for longer than they have in the Mother City) and we still maintain a family and holiday home there.

Here in Hong Kong we have a 100Mbps connection (though there are adverts locally for 1000 Mbps) and I’ve set up a 100 mbps wireless infrastructure for the family in our Hung Hom apartment. We do not know that evil thing called internet “caps”

Let me tell you how we use internet use here in my place:

My kids log onto their schools’ intranet daily for their homework and any other worksheets as well as notices to parents,

they have online video or voice conferences with classmates when they have to do group projects,

we as parents interact with the kids’ teachers,

we watch movies and TV programmes online (when we have time),

we Skype our family back home as well as in Australia in New Zealand (where else?!)

I run two popular daily Blogs,

read the South African daily newspapers online,

we watch DSTV programmes online via KuduClub.com and

listen to various radio stations… also online.

Talking about online radio stations, this is THE ONE phenomenon that is getting me sooooo excited about South Africa.

I predicted it when Seth Rotherham started his successful 2OceansVibeRadio, a spin-off of his award-winning blog 2OceansVibe.com.

In fact, when he announced that his listeners could tune in via their mobile phones back home, for free nogal, that was it…

Internet-radio was always going to take off in South Africa. (with a few provisos like making it sustainable, etc.)

Since then I have noticed an Afrikaans-music-only station (HoutStok) pop up.

However, nothing made me more excited when I found out that popular Cape Town on-air (radio & TV) personality Soli Philander was about to start his online online radio venture after his departure from Cape Talk.

I have been a faithful listener of Soli’s even since his TV-singalong programme back home called LiriekeRaai back in the days when I still lived in South Africa.  After moving to Asia, I stayed in touch with the “boytjie-from-the-Cape-Flets” via his show on Cape Talk talk-radio, which also streamed via the web.

Since he left Cape Talk, I have been following the goings-on of Soli and his erstwhile Cape Talk-technician called “the gaartjie” (ironically also my cousin) and their new venture called “The Taxi” ever since they launched their test-broadcast last week.

The Taxi started their first official online broadcast yesterday (Monday 10 January 2011) and all indications are that it will only get better as days go by.  Listening to the guys trying to find their radio feet with their own station, one can feel the energy and enthusiasm over the airways and as soon as word get’s out about this unique new radio station, I only see them going going from strength to strength.

If you are at your computer and feel like something OTHER than commercials, never-ending (same-old-same-old) news, doef-doef music and useless talk, tune into The Taxi with Soli Philander, Grant Jansen, (former Anglican Dean of Cape Town) Colin Jones as well as Lerato (The New Gaartjie) and yes…

Prepare to be entertained and be part of history in the South African media landscape.

I am every day.

The Taxi.co.za is nothing like you are used to in a radio station…

The Taxi streams live online weekdays between 3pm – 7pm daily (9am – 1pm SA time) The 4-hour show is then replayed online via streaming technology (Windows and iTunes on Mac).

Oh… and it’s free/mahala/for niks/for fokkol on your phone back home.