This weekend a college friend of mine, we’ll call her, “J,” was visiting me.  The weekend started out innocently enough.  We headed to the Boat Basin for lunch and then onto Central Park to enjoy the absolutely gorgeous New York summer like weather and the half naked men.  There was a little chillaxin time thrown in before we headed to dinner at Café Cluny in the West Village followed by stop offs at Waverly Inn, The Spotted Pig, Employees Only and Cabana (where the bouncer was sweet enough to let us cut the line…I’d like to think it’s because we were charming and beautiful, but it’s probably because he took pity on us since by that time our dogs were barking and we needed a cocktail and a seat). My goal was to take “J” to places known for celeb sightings, but we didn’t have any such luck. All in all a busy, but fun night and entirely on the up and up.

Today, however, was a bit of a different story.  Again, we were blessed with fantastic weather and “J” and I set off to meet “K” for brunch in Noho and shopping in Soho.  She had stated that she wanted to purchase um, a discounted “designer,” bag.  As any New Yorker knows rather than trying to locate Africans that are FOB (fresh of the boat) who walk around wheeling dollies loaded with giant boxes with blankets draped over them in midtown (seriously who are they kidding, everyone knows the boxes are filled with fake fendis), the natural choice would be to go to Chinatown and do business with the illegal FOB Chinese (I know this because I’ve spoken to people in the Chinese community who have told me that all your DVD sellers, your sellers of “Rolexes” and “Pradas” are illegals, but that’s a fascinating story for another time).  So, we knew we were going to have to make our way down to Chinatown post brunch. 

So, after popping into some art galleries and high end boutique jewelry store (BTW, what is up with Alexis Bittar’s current collection? Not a fan) and with “fakes” on the brain we just so happened to stumble upon Babeland and our search for “fakes” started a little earlier than anticipated, if you catch my drift single ladies (and ladies with crap boyfriends/husbands…hate to burst your bubble boys, but the consensus among ladies is you frequently don’t get the job done…someone had to say it).  For those of you not in the know Babeland is a special store for ladies in particular (I warned you this blog would at times be a bit “tawdry,” but I figure if Marie Claire can talk about Babeland so can I).  I will leave it at this to say that one product was apparently featured on Oprah (that shocked me…the $185 price tag was also a bit of a sticker shocker) and for those environmentalists out there who hug trees on Earth Day instead of loving the one you’re with, there are ecofriendly toys available for purchase (I kids you not)!  Since when are “good vibrations” bad for the environment?  I shudder to think what the Beach Boys would say.

Where it all began to get a little "seedy."

After spending sufficient time in Babeland largely getting a kick out of certain products and getting slapped around by “K” who kept testing out accessories on me by beating me with them (I’m amazed we weren’t kicked out), and trying to figure out what the point of some of them were, we headed down to Chinatown which is where the story gets interesting.  I’ve been down there thousands of times and have been approached and asked if I wanted to buy a bag, I never do, so I always say no.  Well since one of the members of our crew did, we said yes.  And although I’ve heard of the rumors of back rooms, false walls, and the like, I’ve never cared to explore them so I’ve never been seen them in action…that is until today when I became a passive observer of the criminal underworld.  I can confirm that the urban legends are no longer just legends, but will be forever legendary for the 3 of us.

So, at first we were approached by some guy who then radioed on his walkie talkie to his “business partner” and we were escorted to a van with tinted windows where a Chinese woman was sitting inside with lots of “product” and some odd power source for light (I think she had a battery for the sole purpose of hooking up this handyman’s type light).  We crawled into the van and she shut the door and locked it and gave us three stools to sit on (the proper seats had been removed so basically we were in the perfect child molesting kidnappers car).  Not being in the market for anything myself and along purely for the investigative journalist story potential and while the others were examining the merchandise, in the back of my head I was thinking, “ok this is how it happens…this is how we’re going to be sold into white slavery and end up on a slow boat to Moscow or some other European or Asian country where kiddie porn and S&M reign supreme and we’re spending the rest of our lives in the red light district getting addicted to heroin to get through the day and doing the “me love you long time” routine to married men there to support the sex tourism industry.  It’s a good thing we don’t have our passports on us.”

Luckily we got out alive and were quickly approached by someone else.  I should mention that this is a highly organized operation and they all communicate by walkie talkies and have look outs (I’ve heard they can shut down operations, i.e., hide the goods, quicker than you can say “does this say Prada or Prado?”).   Which begs the question do they ever have to say in Cantonese on their walkie talkies “can you hear me now?”  I have always thought the bag people and the DVD ladies were super easy to spot (it’s like spotting European tourists in Time Square or on Fifth Avenue, which is to say easy) so I’m not sure why the fuzz hasn’t put the kibosh on this with a sting operation, but who knows. 

Although we visited several shops three stick out in my mind.  One is literally in the subway system.  It’s behind a locked door (security is uber tight at these places). I wonder if the NYC transit authority knows this is going on. 

The second shop was a highly sophisticated outfit where we were passed off to various people via the walkie talkie system and walked about 5 minutes from our original location and were let into a locked store that was the money laundering “front” for the real money maker.  It totally looked legit.  It was a dress shop (kinda one of those everything is $15 and under shops)…the girl walked to the back of the wall where boxes of men’s shoes were located…selected one pair of men’s shoes and NO JOKE pressed a secret button in the shoes and a door opened.  I was like OMG, WTF, those are totally inspector gadget go-go gadget shoes!  I thought I imagined it but when we passed on the selection of the products and came out empty handed (a common theme of the day), another guy asked us if we wanted to see another room and he used the go-go gadget shoes too to get in.  Incroyable!

This was the closest I could get to go go gadget shoes.

The third store that stuck out in my head did so only because there was a sign that said “we are not responsible for lost or stolen articles. ”  I thought about writing graffiti style “no, but you sell them.”  I would’ve loved to have taken a picture of that, but I figured considering the circumstances they’d probably freak out if I whipped out my camera (these days I’m refusing to leave home without a camera). 

Anyway, no laws were broken as no purchases were made, but it was sure one heck of a fun day!  And to think the Italians were basically driven out of Little Italy as an effort to break up the mob only to be taken over by a highly sophisticated Chinese outfit.  Oh and if you don’t think there’s a Chinese mafia that exists then you need to google the deaths related to the rival el cheapo bus services from NY to Boston. 

So there you have it my first foray into the word of the Chinese underground.  

There are days when I wake up loving this city just a little more than I usually do.  It’s like when I wake up feeling like it’s Valentine’s Day and New York is my Valentine who just gave me a giant princess cut diamond engagement ring (btw feel free to tell my future finance that’s the kind of ring I want).  My mood rarely changes on these days, even when I have momentary lapses of rage like when I’m at work and there’s a 30-90 minute period of time where I could rip my hair out (or better yet someone else’s) because someone is moving too slowly or is being incompetent or is just generally grating on my frazzled New York nerves!  Today was one of those insanely lovely New York days where even though I hadn’t slept more than 4 hours in two days due to the not so pleasant sound of garbage trucks repeatedly visiting the business across the street from me at all hours of the night making it impossible to sleep (seriously Bloomberg where’s your noise violation citations now?). Side note, when I first moved into my apartment I had apartment rage after about 3 sleepless nights of hearing the garbage trucks.  On the third night I reached my breaking point and threw open my window at 3 a.m. and yelled like some psychopath “MUST YOU BLOODY DO THIS NOW?  EVERY FREAKING NIGHT YOU’RE HERE.  IT’S NOT HUMANE!”  Just like the Madagascar penguins, the garbage man’s attitude was all “smile and wave boys, smile and wave,” because he just looked at the lunatic leaning out of the second floor window and then smiled and waved.  

 So, after two restless nights, I was hopped up on coffee (I was practically freebasing the stuff at one point) and I was walking to work and passed by an AMC TV pilot being filmed called Rubicon.  Although it wasn’t like seeing Don Draper on set, I still thought to myself how cool it is to live here.  Sure, sometimes we get so used to seeing things filmed in New York that we’re like “whatever, I’m hungover and late for brunch, I don’t care,” but it’s one of the things I try to still enjoy and try not to be jaded about (I’ll save the jaded part for dating).

Flash forward to three cups of coffee later and I’m willing myself to go to an international pro bono event that I had been excited to attend.  I took the 4 train and expected to be in Grand Central in no time.  Au contraire…I didn’t step off the train until an hour later.   I “may” have dosed off for 5-10 minutes after the train conductor announced that we were stuck in pergatory, i.e., between 28th Street and 42nd due to a sick passenger on the train ahead of us.  My memory flashed to an A.M.NY article that claimed that a lot train delays due to sick passengers are a result of skinny girls who starve themselves and passout on trains.  It was dinner time.  You do the math!  I wanted to point out to anyone who would listen that I hadn’t slept in 2 days, but I wasn’t screaming for a medic?  But it’s NY and no one cares, which is one of this city’s greatest attributes and greatest downfalls.  So I decided to shut my eyes and took a nap and I was awoken to a panhandler’s Comedy Central stand up routine in which he was impersonating the train conductor’s sick passenger announcement and the sound that the train doors make when closing.   Then he started saying he needed money/food for his kids, you know, the typical New York panhandling subway spiel (there’s another woman who has been riding the Lex line for years and who uses different names, sometimes she’s Andrea, sometimes she’s Colleen, but she’s always a widow with two kids who recently lost her job and always has a better manicure than I do and who once had the chutzpah to ask me if I could give her dollars in exchange for her panhandled change.  Do I look like Chase Bank lady?).  But here’s where Mr. Comedy Central does a weird thing…he whips out a picture of his “dead wife” wrapped in a ziplock bag and says, “this is my wife…I spoke to her on the phone on Easter, she hung up the phone and dropped dead.  Right there…she dropped dead.” Almost in the same breath, he turns to some white girl who gave him money and said, “Thanks white lady…you’re not bad for a white woman…you and me could go out and maybe get married and then create another little Obama.” Letting the “not bad for a white woman” comment slide for a moment, um, I thought you were the grieving widower?   While he was emptying people’s pockets, the subway started to move and I started thanking Jesus for getting this show on the road because it was taking all I had not to jump off at Grand Central and hail a cab back home and crawl into bed.  Unfortunately, we move all of 30 feet before the conductor got on the horn again and said, “so, um, yeah, we had a sick passenger on one of the trains ahead of us at Grand Central…they took her off and then the train directly in front of us had a woman on it that had a seizure.”  There was about a 3 second pause and then the entire train started laughing.  I even said to the guy next to me, who by the way was laughing like Santa Claus with a bowl full of jelly, that it’s unfortunate and we shouldn’t laugh, but it was funny.  And I thought about how all type-A most of us here are and how we can’t stand delays and then something like that causes all of us heartless bastards to have a collective laugh because seriously, what are the odds?  

I caught the eye of this hot latin guy at the end of the car (I was mid-car so no chance of conversing) and we started smiling and holding eye contact longer than is appropriate and then played the eye looking game for the rest of the trip (kinda made me think of the Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson Wedding Crashers church exchange about the, um, eye flirting).  When I exited the train at Grand Central I knew we would lock eyes again and when we did he waved bye.  I had considered staying on the train and continuing onto the UES with him, but that would’ve been awkward and stalkerish.  Side bar, I have got to come up with a plan of how to deal with these situations.  Maybe I’ll make up business cards to slip to hot guys like they do in the bars in the movies and say all sultry and suggestively, “call me.”  Speaking of movies, one thing that has bugged me is the filming of the first kiss between a couple…the “I’m not sure if we’re going to kiss, but we’ll both lean in and then pull out and lean in and pull out” kiss and then we’ll have the most amazing first kiss ever?  Has ANYONE ever had that happen?  I doubt it! It might be awkward and it might be bad, but it’s not that cliched first kiss thing.  Ok, off on a tangent again (sorry, lack of sleep)…so I got off at Grand Central and I ran smack dab into another camera crew.  It’s possible I’m going to end up in some random movie or tv show or SNL skit sometime in the future looking vaguely confused and extremely tired, but thankfully still tan. Anyway, moral of the story is even though it’s a chaotic and unpredictable place, there’s no place else I’d rather live.

Today I had a day without much of an agenda.  My goal was to go to the top of Table Mountain and possibly sneak in some shopping and have high tea if time permitted.  I woke up to a clear, warm Cape Town day with not a cloud in the sky, which signaled the perfect viewing conditions to go to Table Mountain (the mountain that is in the middle of Cape Town).  As luck would have it, the cable car which transports visitors up to the top was closed due to dangerously high winds.  Bummer.  Weather can change quickly, so I stalked the cable car information line while enjoying a leisurely barefooted stroll along Camps Bay beach.  At some point I decided to plop down on the sand with coffee in hand, dig my feet in the comfy sand, watch the waves crash, and reflect upon how lucky I was to be enjoying such a beautiful vista.  I finally wandered over to my favorite breakfast place, Kauai, also located on the beach, where I grabbed their delicious breakfast burrito.  I became addicted to this damn burrito while I was there and it was if I was physically incapable of not ordering a burrito and cafe latte on a daily basis. Perhaps, I was overcompensating for the fact that it was the closest thing Cape Town has to a burrito and I was having near pregnancy like cravings for Mexican/Latin food, which is nonexistent here (disclaimer, seeing as how I’ve never been pregnant, I can only speculate as to what it feels like to have an overwhelming and irrational craving for a particular type of food and while I was down there it was all things Latin).  

Wave crashing on Camps Bay.

After gorging myself on Kauai I decided to do the hop on/hop off bus thing again, but I selected a different route.  I chose this partly because it’s cheaper than taking a cab (the bus costs $12) and partly because I wanted to sit on the upper deck and work on my tan while getting around town.  I couldn’t exactly come to Africa and not pick up a bit of a tan.  Believe it or not it was harder to become the tan greek goddess that I am capable of becoming.  I was in a car for 4 days on Safari and with three days in misty Victoria Falls it was Cape Town or bust for the tan. I headed over to the V&A Waterfront to do some shopping. The V&A is like Pier 39 or South Street Seaport. I seemed to go there almost on a daily basis for one reason or another, which is slightly embarassing because that’s like coming to New York and heading down to the South Street Seaport every day.  It’s just not done!  However, it did allow me to hear my favorite Zulu band once again and grab some last minute souvenirs. 

View of Camps Bay on Top of Table Mountain

Luckily, the wind died down and I was able to head over to Table Mountain and catch the cable car.  It’s possible to hike up to the top.  It takes 3 hours, but for safety reasons people are advised not to do it alone and since I was by myself I paid the $15 round trip ticket and took the easy way up via the cable car.  What was neat about the cable car was that it rotates 360 degrees so your view is constantly changing.  This means that you should not hold onto the handrails, a concept which the Japanese tourist next to me had difficulty grasping.  I kept ramming into him every time the car would move and his hand remained stationary on the moving handrail.  The views on top of Table Mountain were spectacular!  You have views of all of Cape Town.  I took a ton of pictures and of course have now forgotten exactly what shots are of what.  I’m kind of annoyed about a picture that this guy took of me.  It would’ve been great, but upon later close up examination I realized that my eyes were closed.  :(  Oh well.

View from the Top of Table Mountain

From Table Mountain, I headed over to the Five star Mount Nelson Hotel to have High Tea.  Due to time constraints, I abandoned the hop on/hop off bus and arrived via taxi where the doormanopened my taxi door and greeted me by saying “welcome to the Mount Nelson your majesty.”  I could get used to this!  I can imagine the withdraw former presidents must feel when they’re no longer greeted with Hail to the Chief. I probably should’ve had lunch before I arrived for High Tea so I wasn’t acting like a turkey having its last meal before Thanksgiving in front of all the snooty British people, but I was ravenous by the time I arrived.  And seeing as how there was no dress code (much to my surprise), they can’t expect too much from me. I was disappointed that it was buffet style rather than the traditional English way I’ve always had High Tea before, but for the equivalent of $15, I could learn to share with my fellow subjects.  I “splurged” on the gourmet Earl Grey tea for an extra $2 and it was by far the best tea I’ve ever had, which I think says a lot for a former London city dweller.  Because I was ravenous and because everything looked so yummy, I felt like being a gluttonous pig here and I sampled a little bit of everything.  Yes, I know people are starving in Africa and I’m in Africa, but you’ll forgive me if I say, Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn. Plus, I’ve spent the day stimulating the hell out of the South African economy so hopefully it evens out.  The gardens were lovely. I opted to sit in the “veranda” so I could see the gardens, but still hear the piano playing softly in the background. The Way You Look Tonight was one of the songs being played and after two gluttonous weeks in Africa, I’m afraid about the way I look tonight.  Nevertheless, I’m loving my solo honeymoon, so much so that I think I’ll have another mini slice of chocolate cake adorned with gold flakes thank you very much.  I got the feeling that this is what it must’ve felt like during colonialism and I have to say, I’m a fan.  It’s sad that High Tea is also one of the lovlier aspects of British culture that we didn’t adopt. If it wasn’t for that damn tea tax and tea party in my hometown.  I left via taxi back to Camps Bay.  The doorman said goodbye to his “majesty” (seriously, it’s going to go to my head).

Gardens at the Mount Nelson

Today we drove down to Cape Point/Cape of Good Hope.  Although it’s only about a 45 minute drive from Cape Town, the trip takes a full day with all the scenic stops along the way.  Our first stop was Muizenberg beach, a beach located on False Bay, where the water is much warmer than the Atlantic side where wetsuits are required to enter the water.  Muizenberg is popular with surfers and swimmers and is famous for having colorful beach huts and soft “nap worthy” white sandy beaches.  Just watch out for the Great white sharks!  There are “shark spotters” on hand though to warn those who brave the waters of any Jaws sightings.  Are you hearing the Jaws music in your head too? 

Colorful beach huts on Muizenberg Beach

After Muizenberg our next stop was Kalk Bay where we stopped at a charming cafe to get our daily caffeine infusion. Kalk Bay is a sleepy seaside fishing town often compared to certain New England towns.  We did some shopping in the boutiques and browsed the art galleries and then headed to Boulder’s Beach, home of the Jackass Penguin.  It’s at Boulder’s Beach where you can get up close and personal to the stinky little guys.  They’re cute, but as far as hygiene goes, you’d think that for a bird that spends a fair amount of time in the water they wouldn’t be so smelly. Unfortunately, you can smell the penguins before you can see them.  Hanging out with a bunch of birds in tuxes was cool!  It was so funny watching them sunning themselves on the boulders, almost like they are working on their tans. We even saw a mommy penguin sitting on her egg and then we saw another one abandon her egg.  Now, I’m no expert and the conditions aren’t the same as they were in March of the Penguins where the eggs constantly had to be held by the parents, but I thought it was weird that she left her egg entirely unprotected.  Someone should call Penguin Protective Services!

Penguins in various states of romance at Boulder's Beach

We said goodbye to the jackasses and continued onto Cape Point.  On the way we saw some baboons walking along the highway and when we finally made it to Cape Point we saw baboons perched on the roofs of buildings.  They particularly liked to patrol the area on the roof above the outdoor cafe and would sometimes jump down and swipe someone’s food.  We also saw ostriches hanging out.  Although there are places in South Africa where you can ride them or watch them race, we preferred to watch them in their natural habitat.  I also preferred to watch them on my dinner plate as well.  The Cape of Good Hope, the Southwestern most point in Africa, was beautiful.  I walked on the nap worthy sand and saw giant sized seaweed that belonged in a Peter Benchley novel that had washed up on the shore.  It was erie how abnormally large the seaweed was…very 20,000 Leagues Under Sea.

20,000 Leagues Under Sea-esque Seaweed

I had another weird foreign language speaking experience while waiting to buy my ticket for the tram that transports visitors to the top of Cape Point.  I don’t know why, but some German guy started speaking German to me and with my 2 years of high school German I was sort of able to communicate with him.  Plus, I think there are enough similar sounding words so that helped.  It was bizarre though. First, the French with the West Africans and now German with some random guy from Munich.  I swear if someone tried to test my mandarin, which is pretty much limited at this point to “Ni hao,” I might’ve thrown myself off the top of Cape Point.  

At the Lighthouse there’s a sign that tells you how far away from certain cities you are.  The Cape of Good Hope is 12, 541 kilometers from New York, just in case you’re wondering.  As I stood there I couldn’t help, but think about explorers like Bartholomew Dias and Vasco de Gama and how they sailed around the Cape of Good Hope in wooden ships.  Kinda made my 18 hour flight look like a walk in the park.  And FYI the Cape of Good Hope is home to the legendary Flying Dutchman (take that Pirates of the Caribbean).

On our way back home we stopped at Fish Hook beach, my favorite beach in Cape Town.  The beach was huge, the sand was once again “nap worthy,” and it was just a gorgeous beach.  However, there was a disconcerting sign stating that people should not be on the beach by themselves because there had been a lot of “attacks.”  Not exactly something you want to read when you’re considering a walk on the beach.  Picture this, you’re having a romantic walk on the beach and your date gets mugged.  Awkward! Not to mention ruins the mood.  So, we decided not to go looking for the shipwreck that was on the beach due to the fact that it was nearing sundown so we headed back into the city at which point our car decided to start acting up.  We pulled into a gas station and tried to ask the attendant if someone could look at the car, but they don’t do those things there and there was a bit of a language barrier with the attendants (this was a common problem I found, as an example, it took two zulu speaking girls at a fast food restaurant called Nandos located in the airport to translate to the third girl who was taking my order what it was that I was ordering in English).   I just happened to ask an Afrikaner if he knew of a service station and as luck would have it his friend was a mechanic.  So, he called his friend and luckily spoke to him in English (I’m guessing so we didn’t think he was saying “yeah, listen mate, I’ve got two young girls here that look good for raping and killing, you game?).  We followed him to the mechanic and the guy looked at it for us, basically said it wouldn’t die and it was safe to drive back home, but that we needed to get it fixed ASAP.  So we went home to Camps Bay, had dinner at a restaurant on the beach, drank some wine and watched some episodes of Lipstick Jungle and passed out! Excellent day!

Fish Hook Beach