Charles Apple

So Thursday, I finally got a little adventurous.

We had a fabulous day in the classroom. We moved away from the lectures-plus-live-work format of earlier in the week and got into brainstorming graphic ideas and preparing for huge events that a great graphics department might want to cover.

One of the artists, inspired by the Bob Voros movie graphics I showed earlier this week, did something he’s never tried before: He cooked up a nice graphic to explain certain elements of the movie District 9 — which was filmed and set in Johannesburg, opened in the U.S. two weeks ago but debuts the the South African public today — and managed to sell it to two of the three daily papers in the chain.

It’s a terrific start to all the stuff we’ve been talking about this week: Researching your own content, proactivity, Dominant element, sophisticated color palettes and so on.

At lunch, we elected to skip the company canteen where we’ve been eating. We went downstairs to a little restaurant located on the first floor. I had planned to order the always-safe burger-and-chips, but some of the artists talked me into trying a native dish on the menu: Bobotie (bu-BOOH-tee), a spicy mincemeat kind of thing, topped with an egg coating. Think of it as meat loaf with a topper that’s similar to Southern-style macaroni and cheese:

And, you know, it was quite good. The only part I didn’t care for was the huge bay leaf. That didn’t feel so good going down. By the way, that’s a salad on the left and a rice on the right.

I got back to my room last night just in time to catch the sunset I had missed the last two days:

This was the third night in a row in which I was on my own for dinner, but the first in which I wasn’t totally exhausted. I decided to take advantage of that by taking the free airport shuttle over to the tourist area at the waterfront, where I expected to find a variety of restaurants big and small. The hotel restaurant is pretty good, but it was time for some variety.

So off I went to the waterfront which is maybe a mile from the hotel.

Even from that distance, Table Mountain looms over the shuttle drop-off point:

An old Victorian-era clocktower greets visitors on the East Quay:

From there, you walk across a pedestrian bridge to where most of the shops are, on the west side:

The weather’s been so nice here that I keep forgetting it’s supposed to be late winter/early spring. I wore short sleeves all evening long and wasn’t in the least bit chilly.

There were all sorts of wonderful little shops and craft houses. I didn’t have time to look in even a tenth of them. Hopefully, I’ll have time to go back later.

This one is a gift shop specifically for the harbor/sea rescue team — presumably, similar to the U.S. Coast Guard:

There were street performers, musicians and all sorts of cultural texture. For the first time, I felt like I was actually seeing part of the real Cape Town.

It’s not, however. It’s a fairly new tourist destination and it’s quite nice. But it’s designed to be nice. In fact, the center of the entire place is a giant shopping mall:

And, as nice as it is and as unique the setting, it’s just like any mall in the U.S.:

You see some things here that you don’t necessarily see in the U.S. …

We have Apple stores, but do we have stores specifically devoted to iPods and iPhones? I don’t think so.

Here’s another site familiar to American mall-goers: The Build-A-Bear Workshop:

It’s not until you look closer at details before you get clues you’re not back in the United States. They have bears in the store, for example, but they’re really pushing stuffed giraffes, rhinos, lions and water buffalo…

…and the beloved Bear Bucks my nieces in Augusta, Ga., collect are called Bear Rands here:

After hearing the folks in my class speak so lovingly of Nelson Mandela Thursday, I decided I couldn’t go back home without reading more about South Africa’s great national hero. This is an illustrated version of his autobiography:

On the advice of one of my students, I chose to have dinner at Spur — a chain restaurant, but one that specializes in kind of a quasi-fast-food steak. I sat outside on the patio and had a couple of beers, enjoying the view:

When they brought my food, I couldn’t believe it. The steak was about the size of Soweto:

And man, was it delicious. Flame-broiled and tender and just perfect. The beer made it even more so.

As I tallied up my bill, I figured a ten or fifteen percent tip and realized the meal had been so cheap that the tip was way too small for all the attention the waitress had lavished on me. So when she dropped off my charge card and said her farewells, I slipped her a hundred-Rand note. That’s the equivalent of about $12, and it seemed appropriate.

She thanked me, took about three steps and then peeked into her hand to see what I had given her. She came to a dead halt, squealed loudly and then ran into the restaurant, howling the whole way.

Hmm. Must have over-tipped.

On my way back to the shuttle pick-up point, I spotted these signs, which amused me greatly:

I presume they deal with parking. But what could the “S” possibly refer to?

I got back to the hotel in plenty of time to sit down and call Sharon via iChat. However, as I spoke with her, I discovered all these tiny aluminum balls rolling around on the carpet:

They came from the rollers in the desk chair. Apparently, the chair has lost its ball bearings under the weight of supporting me the past four nights.

I seem to have the worst luck with chairs.

Sharon and Elizabeth were glad to see me and glad I had a little more energy tonight than I’ve had the past couple of evenings.

I asked them to pull a hard copy of one of my old graphics, photograph it and send me the jpegs. One of my students asked about it, but I found I didn’t have an electronic copy with me.

At 11:30, the hotel took down the internet system here for maintenance. It didn’t come back up until around 7 a.m. And this morning, they informed us that the lobby restaurant — where breakfast has been just incredibly terrific — will be closed Saturday, Sunday and Monday. We’ll have to eat breakfast in the Executive Club, up on the 19th floor.

Got to get ready for Day Five. We’ll be looking at graphic ideas, research techniques and how to talk an editor into running one of your wild visual creations.

This weekend, we’re talking about possibly driving down to the Cape of Good Hope. I’d also like to go up on Table Mountain, possibly. There’s plenty to see, but only two days to see it all.

Whatever we do, you can bet you’ll read about it here.

—
EXPEDITION TO SOUTH AFRICA

You’re reading chapter nine of my journey to Cape Town, South Africa. Previous installments:

• CHAPTER 1: Preparing for the journey.
  
• CHAPTER 2: I made it as far as the Dulles airport bar
• CHAPTER 3: Getting really bored sitting at Dulles
• CHAPTER 4: Safe and sound in Cape Town
• CHAPTER 5: Day one in Cape Town
  
• CHAPTER 6: Day two; No effects at all from jet lag
• CHAPTER 7: A tour of the Westin Grand
• CHAPTER 8: Dealing with little things like money and electricity

This entry was posted on Friday, August 28th, 2009 at 1:54 am and is filed under Charles Apple, Travelogue, Trip to South Africa. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.