Kathy and Amy's Excellent Adventure

London Calling...

noreply@blogger.com (Kathy and Amy) — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 16:42:00 +0000

(We wrote this from the UK, but posted it when we got home, because of so many internet problems we faced in the last weeks of our trip...)

We arrived in London the evening of Sunday, July 1st, the day all airports went to high alert because of terrorist threats. Although the actual air travel was uneventful, it took well over an hour to hail a taxi as they were required to wait off-site until passengers required them rather than to queue at the curb in the usual manner. Once we were finally aboard, we sped off for our friend Clare’s house in Acton, northwest London where we would spend our first week.

We had a relaxing time and the weather was gorgeous—cool, dry with a light breeze most days—an apparent surprise to all of the UK since there had been record rainfall and flooding to date. In fact, there was so much flooding that we had to cancel our previous plans to join our friend Gillian on a journey out to the English east coast to explore the countryside. Instead we unwound at Clare’s for the week and explored London.

We had a quiet day on Monday and on Tuesday Amy had a meeting in town. Kathy met Amy and Amy’s friend Sally at Gulshan Tandoori, our favorite Indian restaurant on Exmouth Market.

On Wednesday, Conn, who is taking care of Clare’s home until the family decides how to settle the estate, returned from his time with family in Ireland. That day was our first major adventure, including a stop at the Victoria and Albert Museum in South Kensington for the Surrealism exhibition (Surreal Things, now ended). Dali’s witty designs mixed with Miro and Ernst sets created for Diaghliev’s ballets; Schiaparelli’s gowns decorated with raucous crustaceans provocatively accentuating certain particularly erogenous bodily zones, dresses and coats made of fabric cut against the bias in off-angle patterns, a “shoe hat” and many other witty puns turned into sculptures, paintings and interior designs—such as a door painted on a wall between two functioning doors—were some of the more memorable parts of this wonderful exhibition that served, among other things, as a lively reminder that postmodernism antedates Foucault!

On Thursday, after Kathy got her hair cut by Anna (with whom Kathy had originally found the bravery to cut her hair very short and let it go to its natural salt and pepper grey!) at The Klinik on Exmouth Market, we ate jerk chicken at Cotton's, the new Caribbean restaurant on the market and then walked to Oxford Circus to buy new mobile pay-as-you-go phones. Then we headed to the Old Vic to see a mystery-thriller play at old Vic, Gaslight, for which we had gotten half-price tickets at Leicester Square, walking through St. James Park where they were setting up for the London leg of the Tour De France. Gaslight, written by Patrick Hamilton and ably directed by Peter Gill, is a melodramatic Victorian period piece first staged in 1938, on which the movie featuring Ingrid Bergman (for which she won an Academy Award) was ultimately based. This version was brilliantly acted with grace and restraint. Rosamund Pike played Bella with perfect pitch and balance, not over-the-top.

We ate a late light dinner at Tas on The Cut, enjoying several Turkish meze dishes—a yoghurt/cucumber dish similar to tzatsiki, some delightful prawns in garlic, and hummous—and headed back to Acton on the Piccadilly line, which, not unsurprisingly, was delayed in the tunnel, putting us back at Clare’s after 0100. Needless to say, we slept late the next day.

Friday, our friend Gillian came into town from Grantham and we ate dinner with her at Clare’s, catching up on all her news of the last few months. The next day, we moved to Carlton Court, a studio apartment located in central London on Maida Vale, part of the Interval Hyatt Timeshare system. A great location, (right next to Jude Law’s house! whom Kathy spotted in front of his house twice on her walks around the area) we nonetheless found the facilities below par and wondered if we would make it through the week.

Later that day, despite having vowed not to venture into the center of town over the weekend, we somehow found ourselves right in the middle of Tour De France activities as we attempted to meet Gillian at the Gourmet Pizza restaurant on the South Bank before seeing Shaw’s St. Joan at the Royal National Theatre. A high energy and timely production of Shaw’s interpretation of the story of Joan of Arc, we found the play both imaginatively staged and ploddingly tedious. Ann-Marie Duff plays the role convincingly; her very physical acting is an inspiration. But Kathy felt she might be coming down with a cold and so we left at intermission and made it an early night.

Monday we awoke with great enthusiasm. Eager to be free of our less than adequate housing situation, we decided quite spontaneously to head out to the Cotswolds to stay at our longtime favorite B&B Farncombe in Clapton-on-the Hill, run by Julia Wright. We were in luck and booked our usual room overlooking the valley and Bourton-on-the Water for two nights.After an old fashioned roast chicken and chips dinner at the local pub, The Manse, and a great night’s sleep and Julia’s full English Breakfast, including her home-baked bread, we set off for what amounted to an 8 mile walk.

The fields were a bit wild, wet and overgrown as we hiked down from Clapton. Luckily Kathy had borrowed Julia’s knee high ‘Wellys’, and we made good time along the river into Bourton-on-the Water arriving before the buses of tourists swarmed in for the day. The fresh air smelled wonderfully clean as we trotted through fields of poppies and wild flowers, no other humans in sight. From Bourton, we crossed the fields working our way up river first to Lower- and then Upper-Slaughter. These smaller villages are postcards of the rural English countryside where it seems as if little has changed in the last hundred years or so. Suddenly we encountered a bus load of smiling, bowing Japanese tourists making their way single file along the country path that leads from Upper to Lower Slaughter.

Having worked up quite an appetite, we lunched in a flashback-in-time, The Westbourne, a several hundred year old, low-ceilinged pub with a beautiful outdoor patio right abutting the Windrush River. Amy enjoyed a blanched pear stuffed with gorgonzola cheese set upon a glazed onion salad and Kathy had a sandwich of bacon, brie and avocado with chips and then we finished off with lovely cappuccinos as birds chirped overhead.

Wednesday we hired a car to take us to Oxford and the train back to London. But before leaving Farncombe we enjoyed a delicious French toast breakfast and took one last hike, accompanied by Julia’s two dogs, energetic stick-chasing Rex and Bess, the old black. We left the Cotswold’s at noon and, after dropping Kathy in town in Oxford, Amy paid a visit to a colleague in the village of Iffley, who will be celebrating her 90th birthday later this year.We reunited back in town later in the afternoon for a light dinner, sitting outside in the afternoon sunshine at the Head of the River Pub and then headed back to London.

Our last days in London were quiet days spent in the British Library, with the exception of a fabulous performance at Sadler’s Wells of the new Matthew Bourne dance The Car Man. Loosely based on Bizet’s Carmen, the production was a high energy, mesmerizing tour-de-force, exactly the sort of show that makes you come back to London again and again, despite the noise, the expense, and the incredible rudeness one encounters merely walking down the street.

Friday was our last night and we met friends Valerie and Rawdon at Les Trois Garçons, a chic, pricey restaurant in the Shoreditch area of east London, recently turned into a trendy, bustling center of night life. Our reservation was for 730 PM and after a challenging effort to get to the street on which the restaurant is situated, turning and returning through a maze of one-way streets, we settled into our table and took in the high kitsch atmosphere that the ménage-a-trois of antique dealer/owners has created. Bric-a-brac decorate the walls and from the ceiling in the center hangs a “chandelier” of antique evening purses that dazzle and sparkle in the candlelit interior.

Amy selected a dish of bream, steamed and served with fettucine, while Kathy, Valerie and Rawdon enjoyed Roti du Porc, which came arrayed on a bed of delicate seasonal vegetables. We were all set to share the tarte Tartin, but the waiter informed us that it took twenty minutes to prepare; our time at the table had expired. Kathy couldn’t resist explaining that, in the future, customers should be informed of such time constraints in dessert ordering, which in any case, she added, wouldn’t have been encountered if the main course had arrived on time…The waiter didn’t seem moved to contrition and we left to explore the LoungeLover bar around the corner, owned by the same trio.

Saturday we packed and happily left the overly hot and disappointing Carlton Court for the peace of Ireland, the last leg of our journey....

Hej, Fran Stockholm

noreply@blogger.com (Kathy and Amy) — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 10:53:00 +0000

(NOTE: We are posting these from Ireland, in a part of Donegal that lacks broadband access, making adding images difficult to upload...more photos to follow...)

Heathrow is a nightmare to travel through these days. And a high security alert caused by a self-immolating driver crashing his jeep into Glasgow Airport Terminal that day only made matters worse. We had been prepared for the “one bag” policy, allowing each traveler only one bag of small size to carry on. At the BA transfer desk we explained about the long flight from Hong Kong, delayed even longer by the staff exercise and joked with the agent that we certainly hoped our bags arrived in Stockholm safely. And then we waited three hours for the next flight, having already missed our original connection.

The opposite of Heathrow, Arlanda is an efficient and easy-to-get-around-in airport. Once we cleared immigration, we waited for our luggage to appear on the carousel and weren’t altogether shocked, although we were certainly disappointed, when Amy’s large green bag failed to materialize. Where it had gone would take us days to discover. After missing for three days, a call to BA in London revealed that the lack of personnel, equipment failures, compounded by who knows what other security measures, had created a backlog of some 11,000 bags gone lost and waiting to be delivered from London to whatever final destinations. Miraculously, the bag appeared at our hotel in Löngholmen on Wednesday. We were lucky to have packed smart with enough clothes to attend the conference and be about town.

Löngholmen Island is to the west of the old part of Stockholm. Situated on an island, it is the site of a former prison, now defunct since the sixties, and more recently transformed into a hotel and conference center. Surrounded by a small forest and abutting a part of the river used for swimming, it makes an excellent location from which to explore what has to be one of the most beautiful cities in Europe.

Stockholm’s gracefulness is the effect of a number of factors, including the cityscape itself, which retains the signature architecture of old Europe uninterrupted by the metal and glass structures that have transformed the outlines of London and, to a lesser extent, Paris, for instance. Positioned on the water, Stockholm is actually part of an archipelago that constitutes this part of Sweden, itself dotted throughout its landscape with lakes. (We had hoped to take a boat trip to some of the outer reaches, but didn’t have the time on this trip.) The weather was perfect; even the occasional rain didn’t dampen the mood created by the days of long light, days that begin with a creamy 400 AM dawn that descends into a “night” whose darkest hues reach no deeper than the cool violet of dusk, even at 1100 PM!

The fact of Löngholmen’s former existence as a prison was evident throughout the hotel, in some places more starkly than others, which created quite a subject of conversation and controversy at Amy’s conference. Luckily our room, a double, was devoid of photos of former prisoners which were stenciled onto the walls in some of the smaller rooms, whose dimensions closely mimicked that of the former cells from which they had been transformed. Even the bed linen was grey and white striped!

Each morning Amy woke early for a brisk forest walk and then we both went to breakfast in time for Amy to make it to the “social dreaming matrix”, which is one of the methods of group study explored at the conference. Participants share dreams and associations a way to tap into some of the unconscious workings of the group. Kathy even participated in two of the sessions, which are open to non-members, and found the associations in the second particularly insightful and moving.

Kathy had intended to visit her friend Anna’s summer home, but plans were changed by a family emergency, which took Anna unexpectedly back to Iceland for a few days. For two days, Kathy wandered around the old town of Stockholm, enjoying the gorgeous weather, the wonderful sites and gathering ideas for future art projects. We sampled some of Stockholm’s excellent restaurants, including in Södermalm, the former working class area of the city, which has recently become a mecca for boutique-seekers and café-goers, discovering a newly opened restaurant, Binbadgen, that served dishes from around the world.

On Wednesday, Kathy traveled to Örebro and worked with Anna for one day on the final edits for their new anthology, returning to Stockholm on Thursday in time to hear Amy’s excellent paper and enjoy the stimulating dialogue her work generated, which reverberated over the remaining days of the conference. That night we celebrated friend Bridget’s recently completed and certified Ph.D. in an Italian restaurant, La Famiglia. Reputedly the place that Frank Sinatra frequented when he visited Stockholm, we enjoyed its old world elegance and classical dishes, such as Osso Buco, which Kathy savored. On Friday, there were more panels and an early evening supper at the stunning city hall, site of Nobel Prize award dinners. After a buffet of excellent Swedish fare, including salmon dishes, salads, some fine wines and a selection of cheeses, we sailed along the port and enjoyed Stockholm’s graceful skyline. But Saturday found us both “grouped out” and we opted not to attend the final conference celebration. Instead, we enjoyed a final simple dinner of pizza and salad at a nearby Italian restaurant, and prepared to leave for London the next evening.

ernet

noreply@blogger.com (Kathy and Amy) — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 18:18:00 +0000

Leaving Bali was difficult. Our brief time there had been at once restful, sensual, and culturally stimulating. Yet we looked forward to the new adventures we might have in Hong Kong and making whatever discoveries we could fit into the two brief days of our visit.

We flew Cathay Pacific from Denpasar to Hong Kong, arriving at Hong Kong’s massive airport around 830 PM. After retrieving our luggage, we set out in search of a working ATM and then took a taxi from the island where the airport is located to the main Hong Kong Island.

We used timeshare points to stay at the Hong Kong ‘Grand Hyatt’ and walked into its magnificently stair-cased, circular lobby around 945 PM. The desk clerk, new to her job, was a bit more effusive in her introduction to the hotel and its features than we could appreciate at that hour and Ricky, the bellman, would have been easily at home in San Fran’s Castro district. After a nearly five hour flight and arrival into decidedly hot and sticky Hong Kong weather, all we wanted was a quick shower and some food.

Our room had a stunning view of downtown Honk Kong, which at night was festooned in more than the usual array of neon lights in preparation for the 1 July 2007 celebration of the tenth anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to mainland jurisdiction (an event more consequential for some than others, as we would discover). ‘Las Vegas of the East’ was how we came to refer to it. The next day, we resolved, we had to find a replacement camera (on which these photos ultimately were taken), because the sights were simply too fantastic to be missed.

After breakfast the following day, we set out for Kowloon, where the art museums and main shopping areas can be found. Taking the ferry across the harbor is efficient and cheap—except in our case. We discovered after boarding the boat that we had been short-changed almost $100HK and spent the next half hour explaining to the harbor master what had happened: We had presented a one hundred HK dollar bill to the ticket taker and received change for a ten! Perhaps we were mistaken, he suggested; not knowing the money; wasn’t it possible we only thought we had exchanged the larger bill? Since the only denomination issued by the cash machine was in hundreds, that was impossible, we explained. At that, the supervisor insisted that they would check the end-of-the-day receipts and get back to us.

The heat was oppressive and after walking a few blocks, we dashed into a nearby electronics store to find a replacement camera. We selected a new model that could take both pictures and video and in which we could fit the now-dormant Nikon’s memory stick (still containing our precious Bali photos). Camera in hand, we proceeded toward Linda Chow’s custom tailor shop on Peking Road, which the Hyatt concierge had recommended as one of the best places to find suits made to order.

Linda had been expecting us, but since we were late, she’d gone next door for lunch. Even though her assistant encouraged us to begin by picking out a design, the process seemed overwhelming until Linda, summoned by her frustrated assistant, arrived. A small woman in her late fifties, Linda had a no-nonsense approach to her sales. The price was the price; she had enough business and the quality of her work spoke for itself. If you wanted something rock bottom, you could go elsewhere. And we started to do exactly that, until Kathy encouraged Amy to think about what it would mean to have a suit designed to fit her perfectly for the same price as ready-to-wear Anne Klein; it was an opportunity not to be missed.

Amy picked out an elegant pattern and brown checkerboard fabric. Linda measured, asking precise questions like, "Do you always wear this watch or sometimes another?" and "Where do you like your trousers to sit?" dictating numbers and instructions in Cantonese to her assistant. Around the small shop filled with fabric bolts and dozens of fashion magazines—"Pick anything; I can make any dress or suit to your specifications"-- many photographs hung on the wall depicting Linda with her clients around the world, including university Presidents and US naval officers, which led Amy to comment on the history of her own career.

After the fitting, Linda took us to lunch at her favorite Dim Sum restaurant nearby, ordered the food and filled us in on the history of her thirty years in the business while instructing us in the proper eating of baby bamboo shoots (stem in mouth first, then suck the leaves in), those delectable long green stemmed vegetables that resemble baby broccoli plants. As we consumed pork rolls, and shrimp balls, all flavored delicately, Cantonese style, Linda told us about her many trips to the US to visit her daughter and grandson, who live in California. "I’ll be making another trip in the fall; you can come for a fitting then," she told Kathy, who had decided to wait for her bank account to replenish itself before choosing a new outfit.

Assured that the suit would be ready for final fitting the next day, we left Linda at her shop door and headed back into the heat, interrupting our walk to the ferry as often as possible with stops in air-conditioned stores.

Back on the HK side, we were once again reminded of San Francisco as our taxi delivered us to the base of the funicular tram that travels nearly vertical to the viewpoint overlooking the city, known as ‘The Peak’. Along the way, we were entertained by the driver who told us in perfect English about his educational plans to ensure that his three children spoke the best English possible: start studying the language early in school, practice at home and listen to the English-speaking radio stations as often as possible.

As it was late Friday afternoon, the tram was packed but luckily we made it to the top before the largest crowds hit. On the way up, we tried to figure out the new camera and were lucky we managed it because when we reached the summit, we had a magnificent view of the harbor and mainland China in the distance to the west. Stopping for a snack and a drink at, of all places, ‘Bubba’s’ an American franchise, we rode the tram back downhill and taxied to the hotel.

By then, we had given up the ferry money for lost. Yet, when we returned to the hotel, there were no fewer than five messages from the harbor master, requesting us to contact him to arrange a refund of our money. Curiously, even though they were ‘certain no mistake had been made’, they were nonetheless willing to return the cash and we arranged a time to meet the next day, letting bygones be bygones. The heat had so tired us that we decided to order room service. While we waited for dinner to arrive Kathy used the tripod to take some more great shots of the setting sun and nightlights of HK.

The next day was a whirlwind. We checked out of the hotel, leaving Ricky with our growing mound of luggage, and set out to collect our ferry refund, then visited the Hong Kong art museum, and completed our shopping, including Amy’s suit fitting at Linda Chows, in the sticky Hong Kong swelter. By early evening when we returned to the Grand Hyatt to collect our luggage we were near collapse, having enough energy only to take a swim and eat some dinner, killing time before leaving for the airport and our 1230am departure for London and Stockholm.

The flight from Hong Kong to London takes almost fifteen hours and the thought of that was daunting enough. Imagine our frustration when we arrived at the airport to discover that this was the time British Airways had picked to run a check of staff performance in a simulation of computer breakdown! All passengers had to be checked in and their luggage registered by hand, without the use of computerized tagging, etc. As a result, the flight departed nearly three hours late! Even though we weren’t flying in the back of the bus, the trip was the least satisfactory part of our journey, made worse when the two couples seated next to Amy decided it was time (at three in the morning) for a dinner party. Finally, Amy convinced the flight attendant to exercise reason and we were able to sleep for the rest of the flight.

Missing our connection to Stockholm in London, we worried about our bags, a worry that proved well-founded when we learned upon arriving in Stockholm that one of our bags had gone missing. Luckily, it wasn’t the one that we most needed and we took a taxi to the Långholmen Hotel in Stockholm, hoping for the best.

noreply@blogger.com (Kathy and Amy) — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 18:07:00 +0000

After the disappointment at Besakih and the long trip, we took the next day, Tuesday, to rest and recover. That left us only two days more to see what we could on the clearly too ambitious list of sights we had made for our Bali time. All would be photo-less adventures as our jinxed camera proved truly broken.

After brunch, and an attempted yoga session in the room—not very successful because of the stone floor and lack of mats—we spent the rest of Tuesday reading and writing and planning a second trip to Ubud in search of some stone statuary we had promised ourselves we’d find for our San Diego garden.

On the road out of Denpasar we again approached Batubulan where two days before we had seen shops filled with imposing sculptures—Ganesha, Vishna riding Garuda, and assorted other gods and monsters carved into stone statuary made from sandstone, lava rock and other materials. We alighted from the car and began our search for two figures to guard the gate of our house and another larger statue—perhaps Ganesha—to adorn the platform near our backyard fireplace.

It didn’t take long to find what we wanted. Still, we wandered up and down the street to make sure we had chosen well and then returned to the first shop, spending half an hour bargaining over the price until we reached an agreement and arranged to have the three statues—and a few smaller gifts for family—crated for shipping to California. Fingers crossed that we don’t receive a box of crumbled stone six weeks from now!

We drove into Ubud and ate at Wayan’s café, a small outdoor restaurant on Monkey Forest Road, and then walked down the steep street that lead to the monkey forest itself, where these creatures considered sacred to the Balinese wander freely among locals and tourists in a state-supported sanctuary.

At the gate to the forest several women were selling bananas to tourists for monkey-feeding, but we opted to walk and watch without directly participating. No matter how many times you’ve seen monkeys in the zoo, it remains an incredible sight to watch them wandering freely, jumping on the occasionally shocked tourist whose banana in hand proved simply to good to resist.

Taking a trail that led to the south side of the forest, we passed another street of shops and then took a small road that led to the village of Nyunkuning, relatively less trafficked than Ubud itself, but still home to a few villas and small houses for tourists to rent.

As we waited for Wayan to meet us, we sat on a corner at the junction of two main roads and were as much involved in watching village folks as they were in watching us. A warm rain fell. Several children eating sugar cane peered at us over the wall of their home, which was just behind where we were seated. They’d pop up every now and then with to greet us with a giggling "hello" and a big smile when we "helloed" back.

Two women beggars with babies slung around their hips approached us one after the other and we realized we had seen little direct begging in the other areas of Bali we had visited. Instead, most poorer folks mask begging with the offer of something to sell—flowers, postcards, trinkets, whatever.

We decided against visiting the museum in Ubud’s center since our drive back would be slowed by the weather, now falling heavily. But we did stop to see two of the other properties managed by the same company that operated our villa. One was situated in the middle of a working rice field, and the other larger villa, once owned by an ex-pat German artist, was located on a hill overlooking the bay.

Clearly, one needs a lot more time even to scratch the surface of this region rich in history, culture and art. The next time in Bali, we’ll probably choose to be based in Ubud.

One day more in Bali to indulge in massage and manicures and then finish packing, preparing for the journey to Hong Kong, and, after two days there, a long flight would take us to Europe and the start of Amy’s conference in Stockholm.

noreply@blogger.com (Kathy and Amy) — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 17:21:00 +0000

We’ve been neglecting the blog for reasons both technical and physical—our camera broke only a few days into our Bali week and then a deep tiredness overcame us. It was time to unplug for a rest.

(We are catching up with entries about our further adventures in Bali, our two days in Hong Kong, our time in Sweden and travel to London …)

The first Sunday in Bali, and the day after our first venture into Ubud, we spent in quiet reading and writing at the villa, watching the clouds shift to reveal Mt Batur in the distance. That night, we enjoyed a lovely dinner of grilled fish with sauce sembal, a tomato-based chili-spiced sauce for the fish and accompanying rice and vegetables prepared by Nyoman, the cook.

We awoke to a pool of water near the front door, the result of a malfunctioning air conditioner, which was to be repaired while out of the rooms, and then set out early Monday for the long ride into the Klungkung region of Bali, considered the traditional center of power and the location of one of the most sacred temples—Besakih. A complex of temples developed over many centuries, Pura Besakih is dedicated to the triumvirate of Hindu gods—Siwa, Wishna, and Brahma. Each of these three major deities has a large temple and an additional nineteen temples complete the complex.

That day the traffic was unusually heavy and it took nearly three hours to reach Besakih. But we had lengthened the journey further by asking Wayan, the driver, if we could visit his village in the Klungkung area, a side-trip he was more than happy to take with us. Leaving the more densely populated regions surrounding Denpasar, we drove along the southeastern coast and then turned inward and headed north passing through an area dense with rice fields. The lush green vegetation was interrupted by small villages, each with its own now familiar maze of temples, houses, storefront cafes and small craft businesses.

Just beyond the border of Klungkung, Wayan turned off the main road and made his way through a small village, greeted on the road by cousins and other relatives and friends who recognized him. As we continued out of the village, the road narrowed until it became a narrow dirt lane winding into the hills and ending perched at a vista point above the village where we had a view through the fields to the sea beyond. As we got out of the car we heard a group of children singing. A summer camp of kids had traveled from Denpasar to the countryside for a day’s walk in the rice fields and forests above them.

The children were as curious about us as we were about them and while they sang traditional songs, several turned to us, hoping we’d snap their photo. We obliged and then walked along the path to the well-hidden temple that had served Wayan’s family for three generations. The children followed us and we stopped at the steps of the temple to take a group portrait.

At the point in the road where we had parked the van, Wayan’s cousin was working in the peanut patch nearby. "Have you tried fresh coconut juice," he asked in perfect English, which he had learned from spending several years in Australia. When we told him we hadn’t had the pleasure of that experience he gestured us toward the rear of his plot and shimmied up a tree to retrieve the fresh fruit. Nearby, a pot of peanuts was boiling and a few minutes later we were enjoying a snack of fresh peanuts and coconut juice.

Back in the car, we drove the remainder of the way to Besakih. After stopping for tickets, Wayan thought he might avoid the road that led to the much touristed main entry, but a guard stopped him and, after confiscating his license (which was later returned for a bribe), insisted Wayan drive us on the ordinary road to the main gate.

We had been warned that it was essential to take a guide into the temple and at the very moment we presented our tickets to another guard at the front entrance, a young man offered to lead us into the temple. Haggling over the price was merely the opening gambit in an unending series of entreaties by itinerant traders to purchase some trinket or passing mopeds whose drivers offered to ride us uphill or from our guide himself who attempted to renegotiate the agreed price of the tour. It wasn’t long before we realized that this holiest of places had been transformed into a zone of commercialized exchange.

As we entered the complex we saw dozens of tourists, who wandered with and without guides, among the maze of temples. But there were dozens more ragged and mangy dogs than tourists. From time to time, groups of worshippers entered one temple or another and, as we climbed to various levels of the complex, the guide explained which rituals were being observed.

The guardian statues at temple entrances usually are sheathed in black and white fabric, symbolizing the balance of the forces of good and evil. At one entrance, we noticed the statues were covered in red and our guide explained that in this one spot it was possible for people of any belief to enter and make an offering. We did, half-knowing we would be beseeched for more cash at the end of the "prayer."

Nearing the penultimate level, our guide explained that the seventh and highest level was the holiest in Hindu traditions. Ironically, above and behind this most sacred level we saw another—a level dedicated to selling more trinkets, including giant carved penises, whose symbolism in the Hindu pantheon we were at a loss to comprehend.

Finally, we paid the guide—more than we had promised but he still seemed dissatisfied—and left this "sacred space" with the disturbing realization that globalization and its discontents had altered the relationship between the sacred and the profane along Bali’s cosmological axis.
Had we really expected it to be otherwise?

Perhaps our thinking had troubled the gods. Vishna’s revenge: after snapping our last photo at Besakih the shutter on our little Nikon digital camera wouldn’t budge. That ended picture-taking in Bali...for now.

On the Road to Ubud

noreply@blogger.com (Kathy and Amy) — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 05:48:00 +0000

On Saturday, we set out in the morning for the area of Ubud. Situated near the center of the island, besides being a rich agricultural region, it is also known for its rich repository of Balinese arts and crafts.

Following a busy road out of the Denpasar region, which itself is lined with rattan and teak furniture makers, wood carvings and stone works, we reached Sanur, another center for Western tourists. Near Sanur, at what we came to call the intersection of Kentucky Fried Chicken and Dunkin Donuts, we stopped for a coffee and then continued along another less-trafficked artery away from the beaches and into green hills filled with lush palms and other tropical foliage and many rice paddies toward Ubud.

Along the way, we wanted to visit some of the cottage industries in villages whose now blurred boundaries were once distinguished by the different crafts represented—batik, wood, painting, silver and gold metal work, etc. Yet the art that every one in Bali seems to practice of necessity is balancing themselves—and sometimes the whole family—precariously on a motor bike while weaving in and out of Bali’s never-ending stream of traffic.

Given the lack of public transport, the motor bike is the main form of transportation for the Balinese. Along every road one sees small petrol stops where, for a few rupia, you can buy a quart of fuel in a bottle, dispense it through a red plastic funnel into your tank and continue on your way. One also notices machine shops for repair and other places to wash this essential vehicle. Each bike is carefully maintained and in all seasons is the primary mode of transportation for getting to work, for whole families—often four to a bike—getting from one place to another, as well as transporting goods for many forms of retail industry.

We saw people carrying everything imaginable on these vehicles. One man had a small kitchen on the back of his bike, the basic implements and food products for what must have been a mobile warung (the Indonesian term for snack food restaurants, which are, in function, a little like Western cafes serving as hangouts both for locals and anyone interested in a quick snack). Many folks carried sacks of rice at their feet, or bundled palm fronds for basket-weaving. Several bikes had been outfitted at the back with special carrying cages holding up to five five-gallon plastic bottles filled with mineral water for delivery to area homes and restaurants.

Some folks on motor bikes wear helmets, others don’t. Some children stand on the middle footrest, others sit in front of the driver. Some women and men in sarongs ride “side-saddle” on the back. One bike carried a family of three—father drove, mother sat on the back nursing her infant wedged in the middle between them!

Cars and motor bikes signal each other with two short beeps of the horn when attempting to pass and one to acknowledge the attempt. That is part of the choreography that keeps this dance at the right tempo and pace, mitigating collisions. Yet the most amazing sensation one perceives from those riding motor bikes is of tremendous calm; despite the frenzied flow, the cacophony of sound and overwhelming smell of diesel exhaust everyone seems to stay focused. Is that what allows them to pass each other as well as cars and trucks in spaces in between, places the uneducated eye cannot even see?

Our first stop on our Saturday journey to Ubud was at a batik-making factory. Outside, under an awning, several large looms had been set up to display the traditional craft of making the threads and weaving batik. Women wove threads into colored clusters and then into meters of patterned fabric, while on the stairs approaching the store, a man sat pouring beeswax onto a delicately patterned cloth in preparation for the several stages of dying and layering of color that would create the final elaborate and complex designs for sarongs and other garments. Since we planned to visit a temple, where the wearing of a sarong and sash is mandatory for women and men, we couldn’t resist buying some of the beautiful fabrics here.

Back in the car, we headed toward the region of Celuk, home for centuries to metal artists and jewelry makers, but stopped to visit and make an offering at our first temple—there are thousands all over Bali, since every home has a temple, as does every neighborhood, village, and region, not counting the national treasures of Besakih and Tanah Lot.

Wayan, the driver, had a sister who owned a shop in the region of Celuk and we stopped there to watch silversmiths—both old and some very young (under ten)—working machinery to craft silver strands to be cut and heated into tiny balls for the creation of some traditional Balinese designs.

The shop itself was an architectural wonder—designed around an inner court with marbled paths leading across ponds filled with koi and lotus blossoms and into the interior where displays showcased some remarkable jewelry ranging in price from inexpensive to haute and (conveniently) priced in dollars for Western buyers. A search for the rest rooms yielded this interesting sculpture indicating which door to choose to find what we needed. We picked up a few items in the shop as mementoes and gifts and continued to the next village, whose crafts were concentrated in wood.

Bali’s tourist industry has been recovering from the setbacks that both natural; and human explosions caused in 2002 (Kuta bombings) and 2005 (Indonesian tsumani). But the recovery has not been rapid enough. Our American presence seemed to amplify the sense of desperation we picked up from shopkeepers who had buoyed by the anticipation of a sale that our mere walking into a store apparently implied and were deflated if we left empty-handed. When we finally arrived in Ubud, the “quiet” in the shops ratcheted up the impact of the lack of tourist sales to such an extent that Kathy began to answer in Swedish when someone accosted her on the street with items for sale.

After lunch, we walked down Monkey Forest Road toward the Monkey Forest, a sanctuary for some of the most revered animals on this island, but first stopped in a small shop. Here was the kind of wooden carvings for which we had been looking. Out of a single piece of acacia wood, one of the shop owner’s family had carved an amazing statue of extraordinary intricacy, vitality, and expressive grace depicting the god Shiwa being transported by the god Garuda. Behind the shop stood a temple overlooking working rice paddies, which we viewed while the owner wrapped our purchases and told us about his family’s generations old craft. He clasped our hands as we left: we had clearly given him more income than he had had for a while. And knowing that gave us a kind of bittersweet satisfaction brought on by this frequently repeated reminder that you travel with your social position more firmly attached to your person than the pack on your back.
On the way back to our apartment we decided to return to Ubud for at least one more day to see the monkey sanctuary and other areas of artistic interest, knowing there would not be enough time, even if we had weeks more, to explore fully this fascinating area. And we also decided that the next day, Sunday, would be a day to catch our breath with time for reading, writing, and reflecting.

Bali High

noreply@blogger.com (Kathy and Amy) — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 08:45:00 +0000

Friday was our first full day in Bali and we settled into our villa apartment located on the southern part of the island in Bakung, part of the wider region of Bali called Bukit Badung. On the map of Bali, this is the part that looks like a small outcropping south of the main part of the island.

Situated on an elevated area in the hilly region on the road to Uluwatu, the famous hilltop temple, our villa looks north, toward Jimbaran and Kuta beaches. On clear days we can see the runway of the airport to the left of the narrow strip that connects this part of the island to the rest of Bali. If it’s not too cloudy, the top of Mt. Batur, a still active volcano that last erupted in 1963.

On its slopes sits a complex of temples, Pura Besakih. Dedicated to three key forces in Balinese Hinduism—Siwa, Brahma, and Wisnu—it is situated in what is considered the cosmological axis of Bali. Kathy wanted to take the early morning volcano hike, but since it meant getting up at 100 AM to drive two hours before the hike even begins, we won't make it this time!

The weather in Bali is tropical—balmy and humid, but here on the hill it’s cooler than at the beaches visible in the distance below us.

Our villa is luxurious and large with a chef, a butler and two assistants. And tightly guarded. (All a bit overwhelming reminder of the bombings of only a few years ago at Kuta...and of our privilege). There is a canopied king-sized bed, a large Jacuzzi in a bathroom that opens into a courtyard where we can shower under the stars. We dine outside on the balcony above the companion apartment below ours, which has a pool. Luckily for us, since it is unoccupied for now, we have been given access to the pool by the managers of the complex, an unexpected plus.

The day after arriving, following a Western-style breakfast of bacon and eggs and toast, prepared by staff to comfort us with the familiar, we decided to orient ourselves slowly with a half day tour of Nusa Dua, exploring the beach. We set out around 1000 AM with an assigned driver and, after a walk along the beach, and a sneaky dip in one of the pools at Nusa Dua Beach Hotel and Spa, we returned to where the driver had parked and came back to the hotel—through the heavily secured front entrance this time.

Passing inspection from a set of very diligent guards who checked for explosives, the second reminder of the 2002 bombings (the first was the security evident at our Villa) , we made our way to the Chess Bar and Restaurant and enjoyed lunch at the beach, watching swimmers and other water sports enthusiasts, including parasailors and crazier folks who were harnessed to parachutes only to be launched into the sky and then kept airborne for a few harrowing minutes by fast-moving motorboats to which they had been tethered. Definitely not for the back-injured or faint-hearted.

Back at the villa later that night, we enjoyed an Indonesian dinner of delicately flavored Green Papaya soup, chicken and shrimp satay skewers with peanut sauce, and Nasi Goreng, a classic, traditgional savory and spicy rice dish with egg, chicken and vegetables prepared by a chef of the complex. (By the way, the detailed descriptions of tastes and foods are to satisfy the particular request of Valerie Berry, our London friend who is a chef, cookbook author and general foody).

Tomorrow, Saturday, we have planned a trip to Bali’s cultural and art center—Ubud. Stay tuned...and please, leave comments.

It's easy. Click on comments and you will be taken to a page to enter a google account, and if you don't have one, then you can sign up for one in a minute or less, using an existing email account and your imagination for the creation of a screen name. Voila! your comments will appear at the end of an entry and you can be in dialogue with us that way.

Thanks!

K & A

Pura Desa Statuary, Bali

noreply@blogger.com (Kathy and Amy) — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 04:03:00 +0000

Pura Desa Statuary, Bali, originally uploaded by writerkbj.

an interior shrine in a neighborhood temple on the road from Denpasar to Ubud

Melbourne-Darwin-Bali

noreply@blogger.com (Kathy and Amy) — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 02:38:00 +0000

The day and a half “trek” to Bali was tiring but well worth the effort. After shipping our winter clothes home from the Carlton area post office on a boat that will take almost as long to get to California as the original ships took to arrive in Botany Bay some two centuries ago, we sensed the need to get on the road and left Melbourne on an earlier flight than originally planned, traveling back through Sydney and then on to Darwin, arriving after 1:00 AM.

We were delayed taking off waiting for mechanical repairs and got this great shot of the QANTAS fleet tails at sunset in Sydney. Sunsets are one of the most stunning natural features in this part of the Southern Hemisphere. Something about the angle of light makes the whole experience familiar yet disconcerting and in this moment of intense beauty what is magnified is a sense of wonder and disorientation at being 8000 miles from our California coast home. It’s a little like standing upside down in a garden of bougainvillea at dusk.

The nearly five hour flight from Sydney to Darwin courses north from the southeastern corner of this vast country. It was late when we cut across the interior outback and too dark to see the great desert whose craggy, austere landscape in the center and western parts of Australia artists such as Sidney Nolan and Aboriginal Artists such as Eubena Nampitjin have represented in their paintings.

We could see nothing until we neared Darwin and the captain alerted us to bush fires visible in the near distance. Below us fires dotted the landscape every fifty miles or so with amoeba-shaped outlines blazing vermillion and gold in the low bush and the next morning we read in the news that the dry season in this region was expected to bring more fire. Residents of Alice Springs and nearby areas were warned to clear perimeters around their homes to deter fires from spreading.

Darwin is the most northern territory in Australia. Known locally as the Top End it was named after Charles Darwin because of his expeditions in the region. For us, it was a disturbing bit of a blur. After a disappointing breakfast of poorly made coffee and the predictable imitation English Breakfast at the hotel (which followed a disappointing sleep) we ambled along the Esplanade that meanders above the bay of the port of Darwin leading into the Timor Sea and toward the city centre, discovering a few interesting sites, including this monument to American WWII service members killed defending Australia’s northernmost point from Japanese invasion. The current population of Darwin is an odd mix of student backpackers and other tourists—mostly white Australians from the southern regions, Asians, especially Japanese, some Europeans, and a few Americans—in search of a “genuine” Outback experience or, like us, about to use Darwin as a gateway to Asia, and Aboriginals. Near the center of Darwin, some Aboriginals had congregated in Tamarind Park making them seem at once more numerous and nearly invisible. Was it they or we who were ghosts wandering the streets, engulfed in a commercial blur?

The question became almost unbearably haunting; we retreated from it to lunch at an Irish Pub and then a nearby movie house and into the fantasy (or was this reality?) of the con game of Ocean’s Thirteen. Later, we walked toward Mindil Beach to catch its much-reputed sunset, along with hundreds of other tourists and locals, including Aboriginal artists and musicians there for the weekly Thursday night market at the beach. Finally, it was time to take a taxi to the airport. At midnight we left Australia behind with a promise to return and departed for Bali’s Denpasar airport.

The Queen’s Birthday

noreply@blogger.com (Kathy and Amy) — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 14:05:00 +0000

Monday, June 11, was a holiday in Australia, the Queen’s Birthday. We set out for a long walk in Melbourne to familiarize ourselves with the city’s layout and after some twenty minutes from our apartment ambling toward the city center we came upon a stately, definitely British-official looking building. Climbing its steps, we were surprised to find ourselves in the state library whose stacks and exhibitions were open despite the holiday.

As it turned out, one of the exhibitions that Kathy had hoped to see was still on—How I entered there I cannot truly say—and we wandered through displays of limited edition prints and handmade artists’ books, extraordinary collaborative works of visual and graphic artists and writers who had worked together in a special program, Edition + Artist Book Studio created at Australia National University in Canberra under the leadership of Diane Fogwell. Although the forms of books represented were less innovative than on display at some of the exhibitions at the Athenaeum in La Jolla, where Kathy once took a class, many of the works warranted extensive reflection. One in particular caught her attention—Jan Brown and Ian Templeman’s collaboration entitled Icarus/A Father Remembers (2004). With Ian Templeman's poem as the anchor, the work showcased Jan Brown’s etchings in a concertina book designed by Diane Fogwell that vividly and poignantly captured Icarus’s father Daedulus’s bittersweet memories of his son’s desire and ultimately fatal flight.
Upstairs, we wandered through another exhibition—Mirror of the World—Books and Ideas, which included materials from the rare books and special collections housed in the library, including sacred texts, geographies and cartographies, beautifully illustrated second editions of Audubon, and continued into modern Australia pulp fiction, the contemporary novels of Peter Carey, and digital books.

But the library itself was an exhibition. Standing several floors above the main reading room made us long for nothing more than a good research topic, a library card (which Kathy registered for and now can be welcomed back for year!), and a quiet seat in the corner. The magnificent lemon light washing down from the dome gave an ethereal quality to the place.

That afternoon, we lunched at Mekong, a famous, local Vietnamese Pho restaurant where Bill Clinton is reputed to have consumed two bowls, and we enjoyed a bowl of vermicelli delicately enhanced with the subtle and gentle flavors of fresh coriander, bean sprouts and perfectly crisped vegetarian spring rolls. We walked home and spent time preparing for our last lectures. That night, Amy joined her colleagues at Café Italia, across from our apartment, and finished the evening with a plate of rigatoni with beef ragout and a glass of Kangarillo Shiraz from Australia. We returned to the same place the next evening and enjoyed a dinner of the same dish for Amy (why not repeat a great thing?) and a “Three Bean Risotto” for Kathy, along with the same Shiraz.

Tomorrow is our last work day and then it’s off to Darwin, and then on to Bali!

To the Yarra Valley

noreply@blogger.com (Kathy and Amy) — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 07:08:00 +0000

On Sunday we had another free day and contacted Amy’s friend, Brigid, who had volunteered to drive us into the Yarra Valley, lush countryside surrounding Melbourne and home to wineries, forests and an animal sanctuary in Healesville nestled among the cool Yarra Ranges. We left the Clocktower Hotel around 1030 AM and set off in search of a good hike and some kangaroos! (Amy has been obsessing about kangaroos).

After an hour or so of driving, we arrived in Healesville and inquired about the best routes for hikes in the Rainforested area of the Yarra Ranges. The tourist information booth folks guided us a few miles out of town and we followed their routing into the national park driving toward the higher peaks. Unfortunately the road to the top was already closed for winter, given the (slight) possibility of snow so we parked the car and set off uphill on foot, surrounded by stately gum trees that provided canopied views into the valleys below. Oddly, we heard few birds until we had walked about two miles and then the sounds of twittering in branches above us began. One strange sound we were expecting (strange from a Californian’s point of view) is that of the “bell bird” whose call is the literal tinkling of a bell signaling its presence. We had heard it in the near outskirts of Melbourne, but found none in this forest.

Another mile or so took us onto the dirt path leading deeper into forest of fern and gum tree. Amy commented along the way how difficult it must have been to traverse this terrain thick with trees and assorted animal life.

After a couple of hours we descended back into Healesville, thinking we’d stop at the nature preserve/animal sanctuary. But the crowds and hefty entrance fees—and our own hunger for lunch—dissuaded us. Instead we made our way to the town center and stopped off at Beaz’ café, where we ate some veggies burgers and chips while two beautiful Gla birds—grey/pink parrot-like creatures—flew in to lunch on the seeds provided in the bird feeder adjacent to the porch where we sat.

On the way back to town we stopped at TarraWarra winery, known for its chardonnays and pinots. And lo and behold, there among the grape vines, now dormant in the Southern Hemisphere’s winter, we spotted a family of kangaroos nibbling on the grass in the hills above (only faintly evident in this photo). The winery boasts fantastic architecture and a contemporary art museum showcasing the recent works of Australian artists re-imagining still life in painting and sculpture.

Astonishing views through the museums windows onto the natural world surrounding us, re-sculpted into vineyards, provided an unexpected synergy between interior and exterior representations of “still life.”After sampling the lovely reserve Pinot Noir, the top-of-the-line at Tarra Warra, we took the road back to Melbourne and were rewarded with another pack of kangaroos sighted in a nearby estate—a family of eight grazing on the hills, but still too far for the capacity of our little Nikon to capture.

Another wonderful day! That evening, we feasted on another pizza and salad from one of the dozen Italian restaurants on Lygon street while Amy tried to decipher the intricacies of AFL—Australian rules football, originally specific to Melbourne, but now played more widely. A little like basketball crossed with soccer that goes on for hours—though not as interminably as cricket—it’s a demanding, energetic, and utterly Australian game, otherwise known as “footy”.

Monday, June 11, is a holiday here, which we will enjoy navigating Melbourne’s city centre on our own, leaving one more working day here before we pack and head to Darwin on Wednesday and then we are on to Bali to enjoy tropical weather and relaxation, beginning on Thursday.

From Sydney to Melbourne

noreply@blogger.com (Kathy and Amy) — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 23:44:00 +0000

Amy has been busy in Melbourne for the last several days, working on staff in a non-residential Experiential Workshop, Authority, Leadership, Innovation and Collaboration, directed by Professor Susan Long of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) University. The workshop provides participants with the opportunity to “explore group, inter-group and organizational dynamics” in the context of a “temporary learning organization,” which has neither set rules nor roles. In other words, hold onto you hats as you enter the vortex to discover things about groups and authority that you didn’t know you knew!

Meanwhile Kathy has been completing her lecture series in Sydney and enjoying being introduced to the city’s sights by Vras, whose knowledge of literature and history combined with a great sense of humor provides a uniquely delightful running commentary, while meandering from campus to bookstore to city centre. “Australia is a nation designed by Chekhov,” Vras says, “attentive to detail, sometimes missing the big picture.” The Museum of Contemporary Art’s exhibit of aboriginal art has gone traveling and instead we take a quick tour of its permanent exhibits and eat a fine lunch on the terrace near The Rocks, part of the historic district of Sydney.

Wednesday morning, Kathy awoke in time to see sunrise in Sydney and make her way for one last yoga session on Bondi Beach.

An ex-surfer saw Kathy snapping photos and offered to take this one to commemorate Kathy’s last downward dog experience by the surf.

Back to Sydney and ready for her Arendt seminar in the late afternoon (well-received) and then home early enough to pack, Kathy arranged an earlier flight and left for Melbourne around noon the next day. The rain delayed flights but was a much welcome event for Sydney, since all of Australia has been suffering from the biggest drought in the last 100 years.

After one lecture and the end of Amy’s experiential event, we have a day to enjoy the city and walk around Lygon Street, an area with a large concentration of Italian immigrants, one of several populations, including the Chinese, who made their way to this country in the early twentieth century and whose cuisine and aesthetics have shaped the cultural experiences characteristic of this part of the Antipodes. (Immigration continues to be a hot topic in contemporary Australia and the coming elections, some time later this year, will undoubtedly reflect ongoing debates about this and other topics not unlike those in the US.)

A long ride on the #112 tram (accidentally free for us, as we could not figure out the method of payment until after arriving at the destination) took us to St. Kilda’s, one of Melbourne’s historic resort areas and home to the hundreds of penguins and river rats who flock each night to burrow into the rock mounds near the end of the pier, now a nature preserve.

We watched the sun set from the deck of the restaurant near the pier’s end and then walked toward the preserve hoping to sight one of these creatures. A small boy pointed out for us the location of one of the penguins, an early arriver nestled in between a stack of rocks so deeply that we had to stare a long time before our eyes adjusted enough to catch a glimpse of a small patch of white fur. Only a few others waited with us on the wintry pier near the sea’s edge, all quiet in the calm of the night. And then a ripple in the water followed by a kind of purring/cooing sound signaled that the creatures were slowly making their way into their burrows. We watched for a little while until the rising wind and brisk, damp air drove us back into the city and after some take away Thai food for dinner and a little reading we were ready for bed.

Lectures at Sydney

noreply@blogger.com (Kathy and Amy) — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 00:08:00 +0000

Amy is now well immersed in her conference at Melbourne, so I write this report today on hehalf of us both, but with a focus still on my activities in Sydney.

Monday morning was spent figuring out Powerpoint and I report success in the endeavor to translate my presentation for the Sydney U Sociology seminar into an organized seminar paper on developments in feminist theory over the last twenty years. Not for the faint-hearted!

I wandered up George Street in the opposite direction to the one I usually take and there was the University on the hill only five minutes ahead. Crossing a green park, complete with pond and bridge, I approaced the main building where I was to meet my colleague Vras Karalis for lunch and a stroll around the adjacent area.

Back to Vras's office for a while with time to go over my notes and hope that the computer worked for the presentation. (It did!) I then went to the RC Mills Hall and met a group of about a dozen sociologists and other social scientists (including Catherine Waldby, Katriona Elder, Danielle Celermajer, David Marsh and others) most of whom began to break into wide smiles as I launched into the development of the new approach to theorizing gender and politics that Anna Jonasdottir and I have been working on for the last few years. Actually a combination of several strands of what has developed in the field over the last twenty years, we offer what we hope is a way forward, past endless and dead-ending debates and...well, not to bore you with that. Let's just say the seminar went very well, the group raised wonderful questions and I enjoyed a fabulous meal at a Thai restaurant in the New Town part of Syndey not far for the University.

Exhausted, I slept later than usual and will soon meet again with Vras for a trip to the Museum of Contemporary Art to learn something about the development of Australian art. Vras is a genuine Renaissance scholar with amazingly eclectic interests and the language skills to match--Greek, French, German, English....to name the most prominent--and an embracing humanity. And, he has an amazing sense of humor, actually of a very impish sort, if I may say.

Tonight it will be the Sydney Theatre's performance of The Art of War by Stephen Jeffreys and a dinner at the Wharf, with reports later, and then my Arendt seminar tomorrow. Thursday will be preparation for flight to Melbourne later that evening.

I will be sad to leave this wonderful city and great group of colleagues, but with every intention of returning and invitations to do so, the separation will only be temporary.

Bondi by the Sea

noreply@blogger.com (Kathy and Amy) — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 09:44:00 +0000

A reflexive and self-referential fact of traveling so far from home is the tendency one has upon arriving in a place for the first time to compare it to some place it reminds you of back home. Perhaps this is a natural tendency we all have to protect ourselves from the shock of the new; perhaps this is the mind’s way to mitigate the impact of the strange at the heart of the familiar. Or maybe it’s only one way to deal with the shock of finding things so recognizable in a land so far away from home, geographically speaking. But whatever the explanation, there we were in Manly finding echoes of Del Mar, and here we are in Bondi seeing shades of La Jolla Cove.

On Saturday late morning we wanted to adventure into the suburbs of Sydney and chose to bus to Bondi, for its magnificent coastal cliffs and powerful surf. We took two buses to get there, but the system here is so efficient that we alighted at North Bondi after only a forty minute ride. Along the way, we passed Oxford Street, the gay neighborhood of Sydney, replete with pride flags and assorted high end boutiques and bars. A little further along Oxford, we saw the old Sydney barracks and a few miles on, lo and behold, a Westfield Shopping Center loomed, complete with Borders and assorted stores of British and American vintage. Are the shopping conglomerates owned by Americans, or is Westfield of Australian origin, we wondered? Contradictions of capitalism, indeed..

At North Bondi we walked uphill to find what was once a military outpost now transformed into a golf course above the breakers, with extraordinary vistas across the vastness that is the Pacific. Following the road downhill and walking along the promenade, we passed the incredible surfing scene that make this area renowned and as we watched the waves curl in the glorious sun we wondered what winter really meant in Australia.

A little further on we came to one of the historic winter bathing sites along this extraordinary coast: The Iceberg Swimming Club, established in 1929 for winter swimming. A 75 meter pool abutted the ocean and as swimmers swam languidly, the waves crashed into the furthest lane. Kathy spied a sign advertising Yoga-by-the-Sea classes and determined to return on Sunday morning.

Back on the bus and home to the Mercure in time for Amy to catch a taxi to Sydney airport and fly to Melbourne in preparation for her meetings the next day.

Kathy then joined Dany Celermajer, one of her colleagues in political theory, at the wharf, where the 10th annual Sydney Writer’s Festival was being held. Attending one panel on the Ethics of Language wasn’t enough; Kathy stayed for another on memoir and was delighted to learn about two young Australian writers—Alice Pung and Kate Holden—who recently published memoirs on their very different Australian lives--Alice, from a family who emigrated to Australia from Cambodia, and Kate about her years as an addict and prostitute, and now a celebrated writer. Two more books for the growing list.

It was still early, so Kathy made her way to the Wharf Restaurant, hoping for a table; no luck. Instead she made a reservation for Tuesday, her free night, and also bought a ticket to the Sydney Theatre’s production of The Art of War. (Reports on that will follow later in the week).

Sunday dawned and Kathy again took the bus to Bondi, in time for the yoga class by the sea. No false advertising in this case: the class was held on a concrete platform adjacent to the Iceberg Pool overlooking the sea. Sunglasses were an important part of one’s equipment. And as the waves crashed over the railing, splashing the instructor (but not Kathy, positioned well to the back) the group moved into sun salutes, in this case, literally interpreted, and downward dogs and other assorted Hatha poses with the warmth of the sun loosening our muscles and joints. The only thing that broke the class’s concentration was someone’s sighting a school of dolphins swimming along with the "Icebergers", a group of intrepid cold-water swimmers who had ventured down the steps by side of the pool and into the strong surf.

Back to the hotel Kathy went, after a lunch at Bondi beach, to meet Vras, another Sydney University colleague. And then off to the Art Museum for an intended quiet chat. The quiet chat turned into a loud and hilarious conversation with some friends of Vras, including Diane, an American anthropologist of Kathy’s age, born in Brooklyn and transplanted to Australia many decades ago, now teaching at University of New South Wales, whose cousin just happened to go to the same high school as Kathy! Small world indeed!

On to Chinatown for dinner with Vras, and then back to the hotel to prepare for Kathy’s first lectures tomorrow at the University. Very much looking forward to more time with this generous, witty, and welcoming group of academics!

Moon Over Manly

noreply@blogger.com (Kathy and Amy) — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 09:58:00 +0000

No rest for the weary…Actually, we were not so weary when we awoke at 7AM for a yummy early breakfast at the hotel and then off for a jaunt through the Botanical Gardens en route to the New South Wales Art Museum.

We arrived early and waited for the museum along with about two dozen school children outfitted in forest green uniforms complete with caps for the boys and wide-brimmed bonnets for the girls. While their teachers prepared them for the visit we wandered around the grounds and conversed with the Sphinx.

Too many people seemed to heading in the same direction as we and so we spent the first half hour in the contemporary Australian artists’ exhibit. It took us three rooms to finally locate a woman artist. And then there were two…Eventually we made our way to the exhibition of original contemporary Aboriginal art. In many ways, the works we saw were, to our Western eyes, shockingly modern: abstract, brightly colorful, as much about form as content.

And, interestingly, many women have recently been in the vanguard of this art-making, which is as much about making a world through painting as representing that world. We picked up a book by Jennifer Loureide Biddle, an anthropologist from Macquarie University, to learn more about this fascinating art.

The museum was well-designed, with enough room to stand and look at the collections for a good while, but there were too many people there on this particular Friday and so we made our way out and into the surrounding botanical gardens.

Suddenly, we were stopped in our tracks by a strange concatenation of sounds coming from high in the trees above us and looked up to see thousands of fruit bats hanging upside down in the branches overhead. We watched them fighting and flying from tree to tree and stopped a ranger to find out more about them. Apparently, about 10,000 bats live in this garden and every evening they are joined by another 10,000 or so who live on north Sydney and together these 20,000 bats fly across the harbor for their evening haunts. What a sight that must be!

After a moment's rest on a nearby bench, we considered lunch, but decided instead on taking the boat to Manly again to search for the didgeridoo, one of the oldest musical instruments in the world, used by Aboriginal peoples for communication across the vast lands of the interior of Australia. Finding what we sought, as well as a painting by Julie Rose, an Aboriginal artist, we decided to lunch at a place near Manly beach and spent the rest of the evening sitting by the South Pacific, sipping a nice Australian cabernet while a magnificent moon rose on the horizon, filling the sky and lacing the ocean with glorious silver ribbons of light.

Another ferry ride back to Sydney returned us to the hotel for the night.

Tomorrow Amy flies to Melbourne and Kathy stays behind in Sydney for her lectures…and a possible Beethoven concert at the Opera House, if a ticket becomes available at the last minute.

Arriving Sydney

noreply@blogger.com (Kathy and Amy) — Thu, 31 May 2007 08:03:00 +0000

Alyce and the Mackster (thanks again!) picked us up at the house in San Diego around 8 PM, just after son Jed called to wish us “Bon Voyage.” Qantas flight 108, a 747-400 big bird, took off precisely on time.

We settled in for the long haul: fourteen hours, but who was counting?

Having cashed in almost all our chits, we were lucky enough that this part of the journey included an upgrade! The ability to sleep—Kathy for seven hours and Amy for a record nine—meant that we arrived in Sydney on time and relatively refreshed. We awoke around 500 AM to a glorious sunrise over the South Pacific. What an immense and majestic vastness that ocean is! Balletic clouds drifted across the sky as we approached Sydney and when the plane banked right we had our first glimpse of this magnificent city. All we could do was sit quietly looking out the window in silence for a few minutes, at once amazed and still unable to grasp that we were about to arrive.

Cabin crew Phil and Brendon (pictured here) were superb: gracious and generous with advice and tips on where to go and what to do and how to stay awake on the first day in town.

We checked into the Mercure Hotel, conveniently located in the center of the city and set out in search of an internet café on the way to the harbor. It turns out that Mc D’s is the local internet haunt, but the threat of smelling French fries and burgers at this hour of the morning proved more than we could bear. Instead, we coffeed up at a nearby Starbucks and walked the two miles to Sydney Harbor.

Seeing the opera house for the first time was breathtaking. Even though you’ve seen it in pictures, the sight of this elegant bird of a building perched on the edge of the harbor is a monument to creativity; it is an architectural wonder.

After walking around the harbor, and deciding that we probably wouldn’t do the Bridge Climb—being tethered to the bridge scaffolding for the chance of a stupendous view at the hefty price of $169 Aussie dollars per person just didn’t seem worth it. We’ll walk across tomorrow for free and perhaps take in Luna Park, which is an amusement park throwback to the fifties that has been reopened again, much to the chagrin of the locals who invested in high price apartments on North Sydney and aren’t too happy at the screams and shouts of the tourists riding the ferris wheel outside their balconies.

Then a boat ride to Manly seemed like just the thing. The half hour journey landed us on the ocean side of town and we made our way to the beach’s edge past a row of tacky shops and surfer hotels some of which have magnificent art deco facades that have been recently restored. By this time, the dizziness of jet lag was setting in. Half hour again across the bay for a view of Sydney not to be missed.

So it’s 530 PM and the sun has already set in the southern hemisphere’s winter and if we can make it to 800 PM we are golden. Sleep and perchance to dream...

20 Hours of Pure Flying Enjoyment!

noreply@blogger.com (Peter F) — Wed, 30 May 2007 11:39:00 +0000

Hi Guys-

The gatekeepers of time and space have stolen a day from you as you fly one day into the future. But not to worry, they will eventually return it to you upon your return home. That international time line thing can be quite a head-spinner.

Right about now (8 a.m. East Coast Time) you should be somewhere over Tahiti.

For now, just sit back and relax and enjoy your full day flying experience. I hope you upgraded to business or first class so you can stretch out and relax some. Personally, I hate sleeping on planes. I never could get the hang of it.

Certainly your reading list will help you sleep (Al Gore wrote another book? Who knew?) Had I been consulted, I would have advocated a lighter selection of pulp fare for a long plane ride.

So on the other end of the journey, I hope you get settled in quick and catch up to Australia time with little jet-lag. Do their clock hands run backwards down under? Or is that only the water in the drain?

Let me know when you get to Bali. Marcia and I loved Ubud, and can steer you to some cool places, like the temples, markets, and the Aman Dari.

Bon voyage!!!

O'Pete

Bon voyage! Gute Reise!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 29 May 2007 19:00:00 +0000

Wel, well well, you're both "off the see the Wizard" in the Land of Ozzies! I envy you that, and wish you both good health and good traveling. Also, please send my best regards to all Ozzies whom I know and who may cross your pathes as you meander around the fifth Continent. But, dear Amy, as your Moderator-in-spe, what ever happened to the abbreviated version of the PowerPoint Presentation??? Never mind, that can wait...we have time in Stockholm. Meanwhile, enjoy, enjoy...much love, Ross

Only 14 Hours to Sydney

noreply@blogger.com (Kathy and Amy) — Tue, 29 May 2007 18:32:00 +0000

A grey and vermillion-colored sky outlines the majestic palms that stand in our neighbor's yard...The sunset was not quite as magnificent as this last night but it's a good image to take with us as we depart this evening on Qantas 7366 for Australia. We'll leave this California coast, ascending 39,000 feet into the sky for a fourteen hour (!!) flight to Sydney. It will be midnight when we depart and we're hoping for sleep to occupy at least the first eight hours of it. But we've got some good books to read for the rest of the journey--Suite Française, the recently discovered novel by Irène Némirovsky, a writer who died in Auschwitz in 1942 and whose daughter Denise "discovered" it among her mother's papers and sent it to be published in France; Dear Shameless Death, by Latife Tekin, which is a novel about contemporary Turkey; and some history books about Australia. We might decide to add Don DeLillo's new novel, Falling Man, and The Assault on Reason, Al Gore's new political tract to the collection before we take off. Nothing really very light in the stack, but that's what we like.

And for those of you wondering, we have managed to get everything we needed to take into two bags and one small carry-on each.

We will arrive at 7:25 AM on the morning of May 31 and our journey will have reached its first destination: Sydney, Australia. We're lucky that our reservation begins from May 30 and we'll be able to get into the room and settle ourselves. Or at least figure out what time our bodies think it is!

Amy leaves on Saturday for Melbourne and Kathy stays in Sydney for lectures she's giving at the University, then flies to Melbourne to join Amy on June 7.

Stay tuned for pictures from the flight (maybe) and arrival/first impressions...And thanks to all of you for the wishes for safe travels and much fun.

Packing??

noreply@blogger.com (Kathy and Amy) — Sat, 26 May 2007 19:29:00 +0000

It's late morning on Saturday, three days before we depart on our around-the-world journey and I'm setting up this blog, instead of packing my suitcase. My rationalization is simple: doing this will help Amy and me stay in touch with family and friends while we travel. Photos, snippets of observations, musings, travel tips, travel crises, all these we can log. And, as long as we can manage to update it frequently enough, perhaps some folks will take time to comment on the journey and stay connected with us while we are on the road.

We leave San Diego late on Tuesday night, May 29, and fly to LAX and then Qantas will be our wings to Sydney, Australia and the first stop on this trip-of-a-lifetime. Our itinerary includes two weeks in Australia, for lectures and workshops we are giving--mine at Universities of Sydney and Melbourne; Amy's at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology--and then a week's luxurious rest and recreation in Bali (!!). Then it will be on to Hong Kong for two days and another long flight to Stockholm via London. In Stockholm Amy has a conference and I will spend time working with my colleague Anna Jónasdóttir and finally visit her summer home in Jämtland (pictured here). From Sweden we travel to UK, for visits with friends and consultations on writing and research. After two weeks in London, we will skip over to Ireland, to Donnegal and a week or so with friends there. All in all, we will be gone for nearly two months....

Now, how will I fit all those clothes and shoes into this small bag??