Cape Town Day 11 (Vlog) | Imhoff Farm + Cape of Good Hope

This is the last day of 2014! What’s better than going to the Cape of Good Hope?

For breakfast we ate at Knead again. I had their house salad, which has different greens and pumpkin in it, healthy is the way to go. Before heading to Cape of Good Hope we went to Truth Coffee. It’s the best coffee place in Cape Town, and also one of the biggest coffee bean providers for all the coffee shops in Cape Town. I actually hate coffee because it’s so bitter. But I tried Truth coffee’s latte and it was amazing. There’s almost no bitterness, but what is left is the aroma of fresh made coffee in a liquid form. They also serve tea and alcoholic beverages. It didn’t really seem like a typical coffee shop or a bar. The interior had really creative decoration with this industrial and vintage theme. It’s as if I walked into a coffee factory in the past. Even the baristas are dressed in all leather.

After finishing truth coffee our Uber driver drove us all the way down to Cape Town. It was around $1,200 Rand for 2 people ,which is equivalent to a tour price. But what’s best is that we can go anywhere we want and stop however long we want if we take an Uber. So before going all the way down south to Cape of Good Hope, we stopped by Imhoff farm. I actually found this place online by searching animal petting. But the thing about Imhoff farm is that it’s a bit out of the way and no tours would go there. So taking uber is perfect! Some safaris are offering petting baby animals, but Aquila is still planning that and it won’t open till late 2015.

Pulling up into Imhoff farm, the first thing you see if people riding camels! For some reason I just think camels are very elegant with their long eye lashes, at the same time they look so chilled and almost have this smirk on their face all the time like “you have no idea how happy I am”. In the petting area there are a lot of different animals you can pet, including chickens, guinea pigs, ducks, geese, ostriches, turkey, ducks, and bunnies. I’d say don’t attempt petting an ostrich, they might poke a whole in your hand. In my video you can see footage where we attempted to feed one, and they are freaking scary! On the back side of the farm there are other animals that you can pet through a fence like goats, sheep, pigs, and Llamas (they are so adorable!!)

After Imhoff farm, it’s about another hour till Cape Point. You have to pay around $100 rand per person to get into the national park area (including the taxi driver). I actually didn’t know that Cape Point and Cape of Good Hope are two different spots. So Cape point is on a really tall hill, and there’s a lighthouse on the top looking out to the ocean. You can either take the overly priced tourist rip off tram to the top, or you can walk to the top (probably around 15 minutes?) The thing is it’s really high up but really windy at the same time. There are no walls on the side so you always feel like you will fall off the cliff. Behind the lighthouse you will see a sign with distance to different big cities around the world. Cape of Good Hope is back down on sea level beside the beach. There’s actually a lot of people wind surfing at this beach, which makes sense since the wind is really strong here. By the end my hair was a complete mess I didn’t even bother. But I'm really glad I went to Cape of Good Hope. I can feel 2015 is going to be really good!

(I'm serious, I'm not trying to pose, it's way to windy to not look like a crazy drunk homeless person)

For the last meal of 2014 we had steak at this family owned steak place. Besides Belthazar, this is probably the best steak place. It has a really cozy homey feeling. The interior looks like a cabin in the mountains with carpet floor, the tables and benches were wooden, and there’s candles lit on the tables. After dinner we just watched the countdown outdoor party outside our hotel. Cape Town itself is amazing enough that getting wasted partying just doesn’t interest me at all. But then again it’s still nice to get a perfect view for the countdown to the near year! 2014 has been such an amazing year.

Cape Town Day 9 & 10 (Vlog) | Chilling at the Waterfront

- Day 9 -

These two days were really chilled mainly because I was still feeling sick from my flu.

After waking up, we went to the Waterfront to have some breakfast, and then headed to Pick n’ Pay supermarket located inside the waterfront mall to pick up some pills. One thing I noticed and I really like about South African supermarkets is that all the price tags are electronic displays. That’s much better than paper ones because it really wastes paper, but also I can imagine that’s much more convenient when updating prices. You don’t need to type up some prices and print out more. But it was also really nice to shop at the supermarket. It might sound weird, but because supermarkets in Hong Kong are really small, the one in South Africa really reminds me of life back in the states where there are isles and isles of food.

Before heading back to the hotel to relax, I picked up 2 new books from the bookstore. One is an infographic facts book called “ Knowledge is Beautiful”, and another book is a pretty famous book called “The Power of Habit”. I basically spent the whole afternoon at the poolside reading these two books.

Knowledge is Beautiful has a lot of facts packed into one big book of infographics. The knowledge in the book ranges from health, food, transport, science, tech, society, pop, history, business, nature, to space. At the end of the book it also gives you all the icons, fonts, and the infographic layouts they’ve used in the book. It is really a book that represents my interest – learning new things in a visual way. Some of my favorite pages include “Ingredients to add to a sandwich depending on the main meat”, “Best tasting and worst tasting animals”, “Substances from beneficial to the most harmful”, and “Most cliché titles used in Journalism”. It’s definintely worth the read.

The Power of Habit is a book combining neuroscience and consumer behavior, another book that really speaks to my interests. It talks about how habits are formed, and that habits are stored in a special part of our brain. We switch into auto pilot mode for habits we’ve formed. But for a habit to form there are a series of steps you go through and a trigger point, and that is exactly where consumer behavior comes in. An example the book uses is toothpaste. In the mid 20th century, it wasn’t normal for Americans to brush their teeth every day. But marketers managed to convince the public that having a bright smile is the way to go. But changing just the concept doesn’t work; you also need a trigger and a reward. So that’s where the minty taste comes in. Those two things trigger you to think “ok, now my teeth are clean.” In fact toothpaste doesn’t need to be a minty taste. Same thing with body wash and shampoo, they don’t need to foam to serve its cleaning purposes. But regardless of that, if a brand of soap doesn’t foam, no matter how effective it is at cleaning, people won’t buy it. Because we have all been conditioned to associate foaming with cleanliness.

For dinner, we returned to Belthazar at the waterfront. This time I ordered an ostrich skewer. It was actually pretty good! Another unique meat on the list of “Things I’ve tried in Africa”. It is actually pretty common to just buy ostrich meat and BBQ it yourself in South Africa. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen ostrich meat being sold in the US or in Hong Kong.

The waterfront during sunset time is really nice. There was a live band playing, and also in the water I spotted some seals just laying with their belly facing up!

 

- Day 10 -

Today is a super sunny day! We had breakfast at a place called Arnolds. It’s a small breakfast shop located on a quieter street up towards Table Mountain direction. I had salmon salad and “green juice” which is a healthy juice with ingredients like kiwi, green apple, and cucumber.

The next day was New Years’ Eve so there were a lot of check-ins and many tour groups arriving at the hotel today. I was just chilling and reading at the pool again but were disturbed by a pack of noisy tourists waiting to check in because they’ve arrived before check in began. Outside the hotel they were also building the outdoor stage for the NYE countdown party. It’s summer time so I guess it’s very popular to have outdoor parties. A lot of the streets were blocked for street party stages, especially the ones in front of hotels. I overheard some staff planning the NYE party and it seems they’re going to have a DJ, Sax player, as well as a female singer for the event. All hotel guests will get free tickets, but I can see the stage pretty clearly from where our room is anyway.

Tomorrow, which is the last day of 2014, we will be visiting The Cape of Good Hope!

Cape Town Day 8 (Vlog) | Aquila Safari

This day was one of the most important days in the entire South Africa trip, we’re going on a safari!!! Having lived in big cities most my life, I haven’t been surrounded by a lot of animals and nature, especially not these types of animals. We were up by 5am, ready to go see if the Lion King was accurate! (Ok, more like seeing wild animals not locked up in a cage in a zoo somewhere). We booked our safari trip with Aquila Park. They are the closest safari park from Cape Town city center. Although it isn’t 100% nature since it is a reserve park (meaning it’s a gigantic piece of private land with animals that were brought in from somewhere else), but at least it is still much more natural than zoos, and animals get tons of land to roam on. It was around $2000 Rand per person, which includes transport from hotel to the park and back, breakfast & lunch buffet, and a 2.5hr safari. There’s also more expensive options to choose a whole day safari, a horseback safari, and a helicopter ride to the park

We were picked up at 6am in an 11 seater van among with other people going to the tour that day. From Cape Town to Aquila was around a 2-hour drive, so by the time we got there it was around breakfast time! You get a very long 1hr breakfast break and also good for you to look around. There are a lot of huts for people staying overnight it looks like you’ve walked into elf land or something. They also have a small gift shop and a cozy little bar on the side. Outside the huts you just see miles of land, hills, and mountains. And occasionally elephants will come walking by to get to some trees for shading. The funniest thing was that the office has this peacock pet, it always blocks the exit from the office to the restaurant, so some people get startled when they try to open the door and all they see are feathers. 

After breakfast we were assigned which safari truck to get on, there were about 5 trucks that fit around 25 people each. We were assigned pretty late so I sat at the very back, which is actually a pretty good seat because you get to look at what’s behind the truck and also see in front without being blocked. Since the driver is sitting on the right hand side, it’s also better to sit on the right because they will tend to drive more towards animals on the right hand side, so you’ll get to see more. The first animal we saw were hippos. Even though they seem cute and chill, they’re actually pretty dangerous and responsible for a lot of deaths. This is mainly because of the speed at which they run and the strength of their bite. After that we saw some more chilled animals like giraffes, spring boks, zebras, elamd, and ostriches. Funny fact I learned about ostriches: their brains are smaller than the size of their eyes. This probably explains why they stick their heads to the ground when they’re scared, but they don’t think about the fact that their whole body is still sticking out. Some people also ride ostriches for fun, but it’s actually pretty dangerous. You could get seriously injured if an ostrich kicked you while you try to get on, so when getting on the ostrich needs to be held down by a couple of people (like 4-5).

The highlight of the trip of course is the big 5. The big 5s are Rino, Cape buffalo, African elephant, Lion, and Leopard. We did manage to see the first five up close, but the Leopard was in the sanctuary under care so we couldn’t see it. The Rinos were surprisingly chilled. They do look really intimidating up close, but even when one of the truck’s tire exploded (which sounded like a gun fire) the Rino just got up and slowly walked away. It’s absolutely adorable though, with tiny eyes, tiny ears, and then big chunky feet. The Cape Buffalo is actually the most dangerous animal amongst the big 5, the reason being that it doesn’t give you a warning sign before it attacks. Usually for other animals they will have a physical warning sign but the Cape Buffalo just charges. If you haven’t seen one of the most famous safari videos on YouTube, you have to. Someone captured Cape Buffalos fighting off a pride of lions and alligators at the same time. The elephants were really chill, they were just munching on my dry bushes (I really don’t get why they find that tasty but they seem to be enjoying themselves). One thing that elephants do is that they fan their ears to cool off, it is really cool to see that up close. Lastly we saw lions, the highlight of the highlight. We saw around 5 female lions and 1 male lion just lounging around. We went there around mid day so I think they were pretty lazy at that point.

 

After the lions we went back to the main office where there's a cats sanctuary. Because some of the animals that are in the park are actually rescued. There were leopards and cheetahs that were still under treatment and observation. Some were injured from being hunted or just hurt in the wild. But after they've recovered they'll be free to roam throughout the reserve. 

After 2.5hrs of safari, we have some free time. There's another lunch buffet, and then after that we went to the bar beside the restaurant. It's a nice little cozy bar with a lot of sofas throughout the room.  

On the way back we were exhausted. But the weather was amazing and there was a blanket of cloud over Table Mountain. On the very right side of the mountain you can see where there's less clouds right before the drop, there is a small block sticking out. That is the top of the station for the Table Mountain cable car, where I looked out below at the view of the city and Camps Bay. 

 

Four more days of adventure left in cape town! 

Cape Town Day 7 (Vlog) | Old Biscuit Mill & Boulder's Beach

The hotel we were staying at, Protea Fire & Ice, offered buffet style breakfast. You can choose from salads, fruits, eggs & bacon, cereal, and the other usual breakfast items. There's also many flavors of fruit juice and coffee you can choose from. The decor inside the hotel restaurant is also very modern and earthy, with plants all along the walls, jars of seeds on the side and a big tree in the middle of the room.

After a refreshing breakfast, we were off to the Old Biscuit Mill. Our friends picked us up, and it was around a 10 or 15 minute drive to Woodstock. I noticed that South Africans really like to drive cars with no trunks! A lot of their cars have a shaved off back with very limited trunk space. That just surprises me because in a city where land is so spread out, you would probably need to buy household supplies and groceries once a week but where would you put it? Especially for a family of four, there would be no space! Or maybe I'm just too used to the US where everyone drives vans, and big sedans with plenty of trunk space. Back to Woodstock, it is actually one of the most dodgiest places in Cape Town. If you walked there at night time you'll probably get stabbed, robbed, and raped.  Interestingly, when there are places like this, hipsters will go in and start taking over the area because it is so cheap to open a store etc. The Old Biscuit Mill is exactly like that. It used to be a biscuit factory (just as the name suggests), but now it's been converted into a super hipster land. 

 

The Old Biscuit Mill is like a weekend market where they sell produced, food, gadgets, accessories, and creative home decor items. There are hundreds of stalls there so you could easily spend an afternoon there. There were a few stalls that I loved, one was a cocktail bar that made mojitos. Their watermelon flavored one is pretty good, and the guys serving the bar had blue green hair! There's also another stall that sold fresh milkshakes in many different flavors like chocolate, vanilla, lemon, banana, strawberry...etc it's very different from milkshake you get at restaurants around Cape Town. It doesn't taste artificial and they use actual fruit in their milkshakes.

 

After grabbing food we walked around the other stalls. I saw these hand made bamboo wood sunglasses that were $1,400 Rand.. $140 US, that is pretty expensive and probably only hipsters would justify that price! There's also stalls that sell leather goods and even 3D printed accessories. And then there was a store that sold only vintage items, toys/books/furniture from maybe 1950-1970?  

For lunch we drove down to Muizenberg, which is a super windy beach famous for surfing and kite surfing, also it's very colorful little guys alongside the beach.  We had some pizza at Knead and made our way further south to Boulder's beach. Boulder's beach is penguin heaven! There's a penguin sanctuary there where they built hundreds of nests on dry land for the penguins to sleep in. But they usually just hang around in the bushes and sun bathe on the big boulders on the beach. You have to pay around $60 Rand to get in, but it lets you get real close with the penguins since you can swim at the beach with them! Unlike other beaches in Cape Town, Boulder's beach actually is warm enough to swim in, and the view is beautiful. If you aren't planning to swim, you can walk along the top walkway where you don't need to pay. You will still see penguins very close to you, but just between a fence and you don't get access to the beach. 

 

On the way back we drove on the back side of Table Mountain called "Chapman's Peak Drive". It's one of the most scenic drives in South Africa and very often used as a backdrop to car advertisements.  

For dinner, we went to Hussar Grill.  And I actually saw Louis from Fun for Louis again! He was actually busy so I didn't bother him. The Green Point branch was really full so we went to the Roudebosch branch instead. I ordered a game meat kebaab (or skewer, in American terms). It was actually the first time I've had game meat before, it was really interesting. I had Kudu (which is this really big deer with long horns), Spring Buk (a smaller deer), and Wildebeest (a big buffalo type animal). They actually all taste like beef, just a bit more tough, but some have a richer taste. Another thing I noticed that is different in South Africa is that when you pay for restaurant bills with credit card, they actually bring the Credit Card swiping machine when you pay. The reason being there's actually a lot of credit card numbers stolen when you hand it to someone and they walk away with it, so South Africans aren't really comfortable handing their credit card to a stranger.

The next day we're going to Aquila private game park to see the Big 5, so we had an early night.