Monday, June 21
Johannesburg, RSA
Our last day in Jo’burg was full because we wanted to make sure we saw as much as possible before leaving for Cape Town. After a hearty and delicious breakfast, care of Sylvia, we took a short cab ride out to Melville (an artsy little suburb of Johannesburg). We walked 7th Street, which is lined with cute cafes, art galleries and boutiques. We had no need of the cafes, but we loved exploring the art galleries and shops.
Melville, 7th Street.
We walked all the way down 4th Avenue to Melville center and back before catching a cab (and meeting a nice accountant-turned-cab driver, Kevin, in the process) to take us to Newtown. Newtown is a “suburb” of Johannesburg’s city center. We walked through the FanFest there, saw the Market Theater and MuseuMAfricA (which was closed on Mondays), the Nelson Mandela Bridge, and then walked back through the CBD to see on foot some places we had seen by car with Justice two days earlier. We also got to see some places we hadn’t gotten a chance to see before like Diagonal Street, with the old two-story buildings still nestled in amongst the new skyscrapers.
Outside Market Theater:
Nelson Mandela Bridge:
Awesome graffiti:
Diagonal Street:
By now we needed to find a place to watch the first game of the day. We remembered that the oldest bar in Jo’burg, Guildhall, was nearby and we decided to find it. What we had forgotten was that it was a Portuguese bar serving colonial Portuguese food – so although unintended, this was a PERFECT place to watch the Portugal – Korea game. We settled in there to watch the second half of the game with Castle beers when the score was 1-0, Portugal. With each score the bartender blew his vuvuzela and people cheered. A newcomer would pop in from outside and say “Wow! 1-0?” and the response would be “No, 2-0.” Within minutes, someone new would come in and and say “Yay! 2-0!” but already they would learn it was now 3-0! And so on until finally it was 7-0! The bar was all decked out in Portugal and South Africa gear. It was the perfect setting for such a blow out performance by Portugal!
Guildhall:
Crazy play by Ronaldo:
Ronaldo again, as we are walking back from Guildhall:
After the game was over we walked to the SAB World of Beer museum. We had a great time on the tour. We got to try traditional tribal African beer, from a calabash or ukhamba that we passed around the room. We were served a taster (in a nice keepsake tasting glass) in a replica African Lion Bar – this was a part of their portrayal of Jo’burg’s days as a gold mining town with saloons that kept the men contented. We also saw what a Soweto shebeen would’ve been like. At the end of the tour we were able to fool around with TVs to show all the different ad campaigns for all the different beers in the SAB family of beers. Josh decided he was a Carling Black Label man. Then we went to the tasting room where we each got two more free beers. They had TVs for the World Cup in there and we were able to catch the second half of the day’s second game, Chile – Switzerland. Since we hadn’t had a chance to eat dinner yet, Jeannette gave her second ticket away so Josh wouldn’t have to carry her home. In the tasting room, they made video emailing available, if you were willing to fill out a survey first. So we attempted to send an e-video home to our folks since we hadn’t found any internet opportunities thus far – no word on if that worked or not! Our favorite parts of the tour were the saloon and the authentic African brew that was made special by a lady for the tours.
The African Lion Bar:
We had heard about an amazing restaurant for ostrich and crocodile called Sophiatown – so we walked there after the SAB tour only to find out they had NO power. While it made it very romantic, all candlelight only, most of their entrees were not available – the waitress said they needed the microwave to cook… Then she told us all we could order was the chicken. We decided the safe bet was drinks only. We called up Kevin, our cab from earlier in the day, and went back to Melville where we gave dinner another try. We ate at Wish where Jeannette got to try the Durban-style curry like she had been wanting. There, we were able to watch the entire third game of the day (ESP-HON) before one more short cab ride home for the night to pack up our things for Cape Town.
Tags: Jo'Burg
Love the links in the narrative. Helps answer some questions. There was a Carling Black Label beer here in the US back in the day…but I’m sure it was not the same!
From my searches for good links, I think I learned that it is the same brew, it just isn’t as popular in the US as it once was.