Lighthouse, Penguins, More Shark Pictures

Okay, so here we have some more pictures - the first one is kind of dark, but it's at the lighthouse at Cape Point and it points out that it is over 12K kilometers to New York.

Here is a flower that is native to South Africa - someone in our tour bus wanted to get out and take pictures. This is from my seat in the tour bus - check out my zoom on my camera!

Here we have another penguin from our visit on Friday, Mina has a picture of me apparently being aggressive with one - we'll send those out another time.

Here is Laura getting into the shark cage from our dive on Saturday - she's ready to go!
And finally, our last shark picture - it was honestly quite cool - if anyone is coming to Capetown, we highly recommend it - the sharks are quite friendly except when they try to gnaw on the cage, but whatever.

That's all for today! I'll check back with you all in a few days! Or tomorrow. Happy Mother's Day to everyone.

New Pictures

Today, I am in a new Internet cafe - faster and cheaper - good stuff. A win win if you ask me.

Laura and Mina are hiking up Table Mountain, and I am in the tourist office - I just booked us a wine tasting tour for Tuesday. Ann arrives tomorrow. I think we'll just putter around town tomorrow. I think Wednesday, we are going to Robben Island. Friday, Ann, Mina and I begin our 19 day overland tour - camping! I've been testing out my sleeping bag, I think it'll do.

Anyways, I am going to try and post more pictures. Here is a video I uploaded to YouTube of a shark diving for bait around the cage yesterday - it's super short.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T-sd1QL9P0

By the way, in yesterday's pictures, the girl next to the Cape of Good Hope sign is Mina. Laura is a tall brunette. And I'm Chinese - in case anyone forgot. Oh, and I got my bangs cut really short right before this trip - so don't be shocked when you see some more pictures below - I've warned you! They will be normal in about 3 weeks - I hope.

Here are two photos from Chapman's Peak - during the drive along the coast to Cape Point on Friday.

Apparently, I am going to start a new entry for other pictures. This is annoying.

Capetown and Pictures!

So, I got my act together and am putting some pictures up for you all to see. The past few days have been really fun.

First off, here is a view of the mountains from the patio of our apartment on Kloof St.


That's nice, no? Anyways, yesterday Mina, Laura and I took a 1/2 day tour down to the Cape of Good Hope - except we wound up going to Cape Point - which is almost the same thing - but not quite. We saw all these ostriches and penguins along the way. Here are some nice pictures of them.
The internet connection in capetown is pretty horrible, so I am going to upload minimal pictures - I have been here for 40 minutes already! Anyways, that was yesterday and then today, we went DIVING WITH GREAT WHITE SHARKS!!!! Surprise! I didn't want to say anything earlier or else my mother might have a heart attack. But it was really safe - in fact, quite benign. We were put in cages, 4 at a time, and we were only dipped like 6 feet underwater - and the cage was like 8 feet tall, so 2 ft were above water. We essentially were in wet suits and masks and just went underwater whenever a shark came by and held our breath. That's how it worked. For the first 3 groups, nothing serious happened, the sharks just swam around, came somewhat close, but were bored by us. Somehow, the last group that went got all the action! One shark came up and gnawed on the cage, and another two were really violent with the bait that was thrown out and dove for it and rattled the cage. And a final shark came by again to bite the cage. It was awesome - watching from the top of the fishing boat. Here are some pictures of the cage and sharks. This will take me another 30 minutes. Maybe 45 since it just crashed on me. I would upload more of us, but I don't think I can afford the Internet time.
And finally, one last one! Scary! Kind of. In a far away type of setting - more if I were actually in the cage at that time:

Tomorrow, Laura and Mina are going to hike up Table Mountain, as I am scared of heights, I will not be joining them. I'll probly sleep and go do some sightseeing and window shopping. And come back here. To upload more photos. and a shark video. Because now I'm getting hungry and cranky.

Capetown

So I arrived in Capetown on Tuesday evening and got to my apt with no hassles. Capetown is really nice - it's a relaxing city - no real hustle and bustle. The weather is a lot like SF - foggy and cool, but when the sun comes out it is quite warm.

Our apartment is really nice - it's on Kloof St - which is in an artsy and funky neighborhood. Its not very touristy, but still a popular hangout place. There are a lot of restaurants in our neighborhood. Lang St is the main drag in capetown - the main hostel is there and a lot of bars, etc.

So far, we've taken a city tour on one of those double decker buses. And we took a cable car to the top of Table Mt and walked around the top. I'm kind of scared of heights - we plan on actually doing a full day hike in a few days up the mountain - we'll see if I'm up to it. We also plan on going to Robben Island - where Mandela was held prisoner, and hopefully the Cape of Good Hope.

I took some pics today but forgot to bring my cable with me to upload them - I will try tomorrow so I can add some more flair to this text heavy blog.

Time to go to Africa!

Okay, I'm about to leave for the aeropuerto in 45 min. My backpack is too heavy and I'm carrying two day packs. I figured after a week in capetown, I can throw some stuff out and get rid of a bag and travel like a normal person. Until then, I am overpacked. It's all my toiletries. Seriously.

For those of you who are curious, my schedule is blogged about below - I think it's my 2nd entry... I'm a little nervous about Africa, I'm sure it will be amazing, but the infrastructure and general unfamiliarity makes me a bit stressed. But as most of you know, I'm always stressed about something, so this is normal.

I will do my best to keep in touch and update this blog. I don't know how successful I will be in uploading pictures - as you can see, I've only uploaded one so far. Hopefully I can upload one of a lion. Not attacking me. Or anywhere near me.

I will miss you all terribly (you all being my friends and family, not random ppl reading this blog - although I don't know who would be reading this except friends and family). I'll see you all when I get back! Maybe I will be tan.

Seven Weeks in a Backpack

Now I am trying to fit everything that I am going to need for 7 weeks into a backpack. I've already whittled down to 3 pairs of shoes - including flip flops. I think I'm bringing too many tee shirts. But I'm really grossed out by wearing sweaty clothes. And I think I might have too many bottoms too - do I need 3 pairs of shorts and 3 pairs of pants, and 1 pair of convertible pants? I'm not entirely sure. I'm bringing about 10 Michigan t-shirts, and about 4 regular shirts - we're going to be doing normal stuff in several different towns... and then there's the toiletries and miscellaneous. Do I need 2 bottles of sunscreen and 2 cans of bug spray? Do I really need a mosquito net?? What about my big bottles of soap and lotion? That's probably pushing it, but maybe I'm being spoiled. The fact that I wear contacts doesn't help - saline solution takes up so much room! And socks! How many are enough? My sleeping bag is much bigger than I thought too, or my backpack is smaller than I remember it. I bet I exceed the stupid weight limit on internal flights in Africa and have to pay $100, or something ridiculous. Who knows.

But I'm excited. Don't get me wrong. I'm a good complainer. My flight is tomorrow (Monday) at 5:25pm out of JFK - it's going to be a mother of a flight - I connect in Amsterdam. I don't get into Capetown until tomorrow at 9:30pm - which is 3:30pm here, so I'm traveling for 22 hours. That is going to be awesome. I bet I smell like roses when I get off the plane.

Okay, off to decide which Bermuda shorts I don't need....

Back in New York

Goodbye Ann Arbor, HELLO NEW YORK! I'm so excited to be back - you do not understand. I drove back to NY with Vince on Thursday, actually, he drove the entire way. Not sure how that happened. We putzed around the city yesterday - it was a great day, I bought a new camera, got some more Africa stuff, we lounged around in Central Park - perfect NYC day. Today I shipped Vince back to the AA - sad days, he's off to Seattle to build jets for Boeing.... I also got a haircut - getting ready for Africa - bought 3 new books, I'm a fast reader, I'll finish these in 3 weeks, hopefully the other ladies are bringing tons o' books.

In two days, I'll be on a plane to Africa - for a ridiculous flight, I'm not looking forward to that one... at least I have aisle seats all the way to Cape Town.

My dad's computer is in Chinese... I hope this comes out right.