Tag Archives: city center

Jo’burg in Long Street

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Jo'burg in Long Street
It's a little ironic for a bar in Cape Town to be called Jo'burg - well, at least I think it's ironic. Anyway, reports have it that Jo'burg is one of the noisier bars at the top of Long Street - very vibey, and filled with a diverse group of young people who are out to party.

I've often seen the bar, but I can't say that I've ever felt the desire to visit. Noisy and cramped bars aren't my scene, you know. Well, that's me, but if you're visiting Cape Town and want to get a feel for the local bar scene, then this may be a place to start.

If you visit this area at night, take care - while the top part of Long Street is reasonably safe, this is a city... so keep an eye out, and avoid weirdos - okay? :)

Loop and Buiten Street

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Loop and Buiten Street
In my previous post I asked for you to guess where I'd taken the photo. Well, it was right about here, on the corner of Loop and Buiten Street - which quite close to the top of Loop.

If you're looking for a quiet coffee-shop-type restaurant, there's quite a nice coffee shop and bakery (that sells great cakes) right about here. I can't recall the name, but you can't miss it - it's not like there are a lot of restaurants in this part of Loop Street. :)

Good sushi in Cape Town’s Long Street

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A new sushi spot in Cape Town
If in the past you've been a great fan of Sawadee (that little restaurant just off Kloof Nek Road) then perhaps you'll be pleased to know that their sushi chef has move and opened a restaurant lower down on Long Street, where it intersects with the brick-paved Waterkant Street (map).

We met up with a friend at Phad Thai on Saturday evening. The sushi was as great as it had been at Sawadee, and the restaurant wasn't as noisy or crowded as I believe it can be during lunch hours.

It's not a pretentious restaurant by any means - the décor is modest, and there's no need to haul out your best Levis, or most plush dress. If you've never been, you'd probably do yourself a favour to visit pay Phad Thai a visit for a late lunch or early dinner.

Cloud crawls in from Table Bay

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Cloud crawls in from Table Bay
The Northern Suburbs (where I live) were beautifully sunny this morning, but while driving in to the city I noticed a huge bank of low-lying cloud crawling in from Table Bay, through the V&A Waterfront, and into the city center. It looked perfectly eerie.

I arrived in the city - the mist was thick and the sun shone brightly from above, silhouetting buildings and bridges though the cloud. It was the strangest feeling driving from a place that was sunny and warm (only 25 kilometers away) to a chilly city filled with cloud.

Doesn't the cloud out in the bay look awfully ominous?

The girl with the green umbrella

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Woman with the green umbrella
I shot the photo on Thursday - our last rainy day for a week or more it seems! The image reminded me of a movie that I saw a year or two ago in which the lead actress wrote a newspaper column under the name The Girl in the Green Scarf.

This perhaps isn't the most appropriate photo for 25 December, given that much of South Africa celebrated Christmas - sorry about that. :) Still though, if you also celebrated Christmas, I hope that you had a peaceful day, commemorating the occasion with those you love.

The Civic Center’s knot of red tube art

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The Civic Center's knot of red tube art
I could find little information about this piece of art located near the Civic Centre in Cape Town. The piece has no inscription and there's little information on the Web.

What I could find out is that the work was commissioned from the renowned South African artist, Edoardo Villa, in 1981. What's interesting is that in 1981 the National Party won a majority of the seats in government, 131 of the 165 seats. I wonder if the work was commissioned to commemorate this event?

Is that building on fire?

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The city from the sky
Well, no, even though it looked like it could have been the building wasn't on fire. The Terraces office block on Bree street appears to have unusual highly reflective pyramids on each corner of the building's roof. You can see what I mean if you take a look carefully at this photo taken by Damien du Toit.

If you're unfamiliar with Cape Town, then for reference, that's the V&A Waterfront in the top left corner; the colourful houses on the left (towards the bottom) are in an area known as Bo Kaap; and the CBD is slightly larger than the lower right quarter of the photo.

MARVEL – it’s a bar, not a comic

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MARVEL - it's a bar, not a comic
I can't help but think of Captain America, Ironman, and The Incredible Hulk when I see this bar. Located at the top of Long Street in Cape Town, Marvel is rumored to have the friendliest staff and most chilled beats in Long Street.

I've never visited Marvel, but I think that I'll make a concerted effort to do so in the not too distant future. :)

“Whites Only” benches – a bizarre era

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Apartheid benches outside the High Court
I captured today's photo at the doors of the Cape High Court in Queen Victoria Street, during yesterday's Worldwide Photo Walk. The plaque next to these two benches reads:

"In the 1960s a room in this building was the scene of hearings of the most bizarre and humiliating kind as ordinary people came before an appeal panel to argue about what 'race' they should be labelled. Between 1950 and 1991 apartheid's Population Registration Act classified every South African as belonging to one of at least seven 'races' - and accordingly granted or denied citizenship rights on a sliding scale from 'White' (full rights) to 'Bantu' (with the fewest). The classification was subjective, and families were split apart when paler or darker skinned children or parents - or those with curlier hair, or different features - were placed in separate categories."
- The Times

Don't you think the word "bizarre" describes this practice fairly accurately?