19 Recent Photos

Jan 31

lindsayrgwattNYC, Random, Travel photos Comments Off

Ten Random Thoughts on Wyoming

Jul 12

lindsayrgwattTravel culture, society, wildlife, wyoming Comments Off

About a week ago, Wen and I got back from our honeymoon in Wyoming (this blog has been dark for two weeks as the combination of honeymoon + moving to new apartment upon return + crazy work has made it tough to blog).  It’s a beautiful – and culturally very different – part of America.  Here are a couple of notes for you:

one We were told by some locals that people in “Wyoming” are family-oriented.  I’m not sure what this is a euphemism for (likely “socially conservative).  After all, I live in the Northeast and people don’t regularly abuse their kids or similar things out here.

Ironically, on our last night in town we sat next to a table of cowboys.  Turns out that they’d made the wives and kids eat at another table in the restaurant.  And one of the cowboys offered the waiter a chance to sleep with his wife in return for 50% off the bill.  Judging by the heavy eyeliner and sagging halter top on her, I’m not sure he was joking.

two Wyoming is the least populous state in the Union, checking in at a little over 500K people.  This means that they also have the most unique license plates in the Union.  Take a look at the generic plate below.  The number on the left represents the county you’re from; the right is a number assigned to you.  We didn’t see one that went above 5 digits!

three Montana may officially be “Big Sky Country”, but Wyoming is a close second:

four Continuing on our license-plate theme, when I was a kid, when our parents took us on American road trips, they’d trick us into being quiet by asking us to try and spot the license of every state.  The place to do this is Grand Teton/Yellowstone.  I’m convinced that I saw every state there; the Lupine Meadows parking lot looked like a governor’s convention, there were so many different states represented.

five the only challenging part of Wyoming is that you quickly learn that people’s ability to drive is inversely proportional to the size of their vehicle-and people in Wyoming like their vehicles big.  Now everyone knows that people with SUVs are vehicularly challenged (witness the gravel road that some people took at 20 km/h: people, you’ve got a 4×4!) but Yellowstone was ridiculous.  People there had land-based aircraft carriers: 30 foot long behemoths with cars in tow – and they took at least as long as an aircraft carrier to turn (I think I saw little tug boats helping them on tight corners).

Note that Yellowstone consists of two lane roads, so travellers: ye have been warned…

six One interesting fact we learned is that Wyoming is Utah’s playground.  Everywhere we went, even remote corners like 10 miles into the Targhee forest, we kept coming across trucks from Utah.  Apparently the state sport there is heading up to Wyoming on long weekends and set up trailers in the middle of the forest and drink beer.

seven English in Wyoming is a living language.  “Buffalo” is slowly transmuting into “Bison”.  More worrisome is the pronunciation of “creek” as “crick”.  I had a great time asking my cowboy horse riding guide the name of yonder crick.

eight Cowboys in Wyoming are a hearty and dynamic lot; they have had no challenge adapting to the 21st century.  We met some who constantly used the air conditioning in their cars and carried plastic water bottles on the trail to stay hydrated.  Nothing too fancy there.

Then they started telling us that they want to get satellite tv in their camp because they’re bored of one another (What!  No songs around campfires every night?) and that they use Google AdWords to buy keywords to advertise their services.  Technology: 1, old way of life: 0.  Now we just need to work on the Amish.

nine Wyoming has the craziest weather of any place I’ve been.  We were told that there is snowfall on record for every day of the year except August 16th.  When we hiked, we came across more snowdrifts than you can imagine; snowball fights on the 4th of July in the mountain are routine.

It thunderstormed every day we were there; the lightning seen across the valley was amazing.  One thunderstorm was followed up with some particularly aggressive hail – nickel-sized balls bouncing off the ground.

ten Jackson is home to the National Museum of Wildlife Art.  It’s a fabulous little museum with a great selection of wildlife paintings; they feature a lot of American art of life on the plains plus a quick historical tour of how wildlife painting has evolved.

One thing that became eminently clear is that when men paint pictures of bears, they turn into imbeciles.  How else can you explain William Dunton calling the following “Monarch of all he surveys”:

Or Charles M Russell calling this “To the victor belong the spoils”:

The museum also reminded me of what a small world it is.  The museum has a prized (and fantastic) collection of art by Carl Rungius.  In 1910, he was invited by Jimmy Simpson up to Banff to hunt; he subsequently painted many of the hunts.  Later in his life, Simpson would build Num Ti Jah lodge – where I had been married less than a week before.

Piety & Punk

Jun 05

lindsayrgwattRandom, Travel Books, Music Comments Off

I just finished reading The Tawqacores (taqwa = piety) by Michael Muhammed Knight.  The book is referred to The Catcher in the Rye for muslims.  It was fascinating to read an ex-Catholic Muslim convert try and lay out his view of what Islam could be and use punk as a metaphor to do so.  (The book is only 256 pages so rather than my discussing it further, just go read a copy)

The book is also notable for it’s extensive name-checking of punk bands with a little bit of hip-hop and ska/reggae thrown in.  Here, thanks to my Kindle (which makes this sort of note-taking trivial), is a list of all the mentioned songs.  Feel free to use it as a way to determine if it’s worth reading:

Agnostic Front – Skate Rock
Billy Bragg – California Stars
Billy Bragg – Joe DiMaggio’s  Done it Again
Blanks 77 – I Wanna be a Punk
Crass – Fuck All Government
Dead Kennedys – Kill the Poor
Descendents – Suburban Home
Dropkick Murphys – Boys on the Docks
Duane Peters and the  Hunns – Blood on the Sun
Feederz – Jesus Entering from the Rear
GBH – Sick Boy
Germs – Fuck  You
Iggy Pop and the Stooges – I Wanna by Your Dog
Jim Carroll Band – People Who Died
Minor Threat – Salad Days
Minor Threat – Out of Step
Propagandhi – Fuck Religion
Ramones – Rock and Roll High School
Rancid – The War’s End
Roger Miter and the Disasters – New York Belongs to Me
Rolling Scabs -  We’re the Scabs
Sex Pistols – Who Killed Bambi
Sham 69 – Hey Little Rich Boy
Sid Vicious – My Way
Specials – Rudy Ska
Swingin’ Utters – Next in Line
The Slits – I Heard It Through The  Grapevine
Transplants – California Babylon
U.S. Bombs – Ballad of Sid
UK Subs – I Live in a Car
Uncool – Finale
Weasel – Anthem for a New Tomorrow
Youth of Today – Disengage

Brand Nubian – Allah U Akbar
Method Man – PLO Style

Desmond Dekker – It’s a Shame
Prince Buster – Judge Dread

Torontonia

Mar 09

lindsayrgwattFood, Travel Toronto Comments

I spent the weekend in Toronto visiting my bro and checking out his new place.  Here are a couple of thoughts about it.

Toronto’s Got a Big Building Boom

I haven’t lived in Toronto for a few years now, but it is unreal how much the city is changing.  The skyline is dotted with cranes – and almost all of them are making condos (why, oh why, do I feel like I’ve heard this story before and I know how it’s going to end…).

Two items signify just how extreme this is.  The first, is the pit for the new Shangri-la hotel/condo.  It’s about 10 stories deep:

The other is a dilapidated house near Chinatown where someone has graffitied it with turn me into condo daddy.

Toronto’s Got Some Great Public Buildings

In the last few years, Toronto’s upgraded a lot of their institutions: a new opera house, an addition to the ROM and a complete reworking of the AGO.

The ROM now has a brilliant facade – a rotated cube that juts out over the street:

Just a few blocks away is the new and improved AGO.  It’s now got a blue cube on the back…

…with a Frank Gehry-designed galleria on the front:

The inside of the galleria is just as beautiful:

One of its entrances is from the Henry Moore gallery and the effect is spectacular:

The central atrium is possessed by an anthropomorphic, soothing, wooden staircase (made less soothing by Andrew standing in front of it):

If you climb to the top of the stairwell, you can sit under forty foot ceilings, surrounded by contemporary art and sip an espresso with a killer view of the skyline:

The most important part of the AGO is that it is not simply archiporn.  It has the single best collection of Canadian art in the world.  Period.  There are more Krieghoffs, Colevilles, and Group of Sevens here than you will find anywhere else.  You can visit this gallery and then feel like you know Canada.

This collection is better than what is in the National Gallery (and I’m an Ottawa boy originally, so I should be looking down on a Toronto gallery).  Thank you Ken Thomson.

Kensington Market is Still Great

We spent a lot of time bombing around Kensington Market.  On Friday, Andrew and I had dinner at La Palette.  The steak and frites are amazing; sit at the bar to eat and humour the bar staff.  We asked one what a beer was like.  Her response: smooth – comme le petit Jesus dans un cour de velour.  She’d picked that one up from a French Canadian woman; it translates as ‘like the baby Jesus in a velour suit’ – quite the image.

Later on in the weekend we picked up some cheese at Global Cheese…

…plus a quick bite of tacos at El Trompo.  Go there for some authentic mexican.  The building might not look like much but the food holds its own with the best:

City Center Airport is the Only Way to Travel

I flew in to the City Center airport right at sunset and it’s the only way to travel.  Here’s what the flight in looks like:

You can then walk into the city (when was the last time you walked to an airport?) and if you go at sunset you’ll see something like this:

Final Shots from Australia

Jan 08

lindsayrgwattRandom, Travel australia, photos Comments Off

Now that I’ve blogged about what I did in Oz, here are a couple of shots of other things.

This is the tree canopy in Hyde Park:

Here’s a shot of the Anzac bridge:

On the way back to the Manly ferry we saw this cruise ship in the harbour:

The sky just before a storm:

Here’s where we would catch the ferry in Manly:

A close-up of a leaf in the botanical gardens:

A couple of cockatoos in the botanical gardens just before a storm hit us:

This ridiculous penthouse was visible from Wendy’s parents’ flat:

The Sydney harbour bridge:

The forest canopy scene from above the Blue Mountains:

The sunset in the Blue Moutains:

Here are a bunch of photos of the scenery on the way to Mudgee:

Look closely and you can see the harbour bridge walkers:

Finally, a shot of the Three Sisters in the Blue Mountains:

All Day in the Cafe

Jan 07

lindsayrgwattFood, Travel australia, coffee Comments Off

Another surprising pleasure in Australia was their cafe culture.  The country is dotted with cafes and it’s almost impossible to find a block without one.

The national coffee ‘dish’ is the flat white.  It’s like a latte but with less froth on the top (and good luck ordering one in NYC, except maybe at Ruby’s).  The difference between a latte and a flat white remains in dispute, but here’s a photo of one from the Cafe Steyne in Manly:

As we explored the city we kept coming across different neighbourhoods with great cafes.  The ones in Glebe reminded me the most of the cafes I grew up with (Possibly because I grew up near a neighbourhood called Glebe – but a lifetime away from Sydney):

In the slightly more posh neighbourhood of Paddington, we found the funky bookstore/cafe AllPress Espresso:

Nearby was the cafe Lilifields.  If you want to escape the city, it is the place to get a coffee.  It’s located in a garden behind the shop and the only thing you’ll hear is the sound of the water fountain:

If you leave Sydney you can still get great coffee.  We caffeinated ourselves on quite a few in Katoomba and  Mudgee:

And rest assured that it’s not just a land for coffee (and dingo) lovers.  There’s great tea too; the following comes from East Cost Coffee (don’t hold their name against them):

Australia: The Food

Jan 06

lindsayrgwattFood, Travel australia, dim sum, pie Comments Off

One of the surprising pleasures of our trip to Australia was how incredible the food was.  Here are a couple of things we noticed:

Quality of Ingredients

The Aussies have incredibly high quality food, particularly produce.  Check this out:

That’s fresh ginger and each piece at the grocery was the size of a coconut.  All the fresh produce looked great; the only place I’ve seen that’s comparable is Vancouver.

Beets & Pumpkin

It turns out that Australians pride themselves in their ability to put beets and pumpkin into everything:

That’s a beet, feta and tuna shooter amuse bouche at Whitewater in Manly.  Beets and pumpkins battle for ubiquity.

I had pumpkin served as part of a pasta sauce, with Thai duck and even packed into a spinach, feta and pumpkin pie.  This isn’t however your traditional North American pumpkin:

You can see that there’s a lot more meat, they’re smaller and the skin is green.  There are also many different types of pumpkin, although, frankly, they all taste like pumpkin to me…

Asian Food

Since Australia considers Asia to be it’s sphere of influence, it’s only appropriate that it has great pan-Asian cuisine.

At Mamak we found true Malaysian food, with an emphasis on satay and rotis – including the first authentic Murtabak (a roti filled with onions and meat; served with curry) I’ve had since I left Singapore:

The other fun thing about Mamak is that as you wait you can watch them make rotis.  It’s like watching the equivalent of Asian pizza-making:

Mamak also gets bonus points for having Ayam Berempah (a dish where a breast of bone-in chicken is diced and cooked in whole spices like cardamon, cinammon, cloves, star anise, onions, chili and coriander) and teh tarik (sweet Malaysian tea).

We also had great Char Siu Bao (pork-filled dumplings) at the Chinese fast food chain Wu Da Niang Dim Sum (How often can you go to a Chinese-owned Chinese food fast food chain?):

I was also super-excited as I found buns with pork floss for sale in Chinatown:

Much like the Murtabak, I haven’t had floss since I left Singapore.

The Humble Meat Pie

Australians love their meat pies (probably that British influence).  One of the classic places in Sydney to get a meat pie is Harry’s Cafe de Wheels (it’s been making pies next to the Woolloomooloo pier since 1945):

I had their curry meat pie; hunks of beef mixed with curry sauce; quite spicy:

In Manly, the place for meat pies (and amazing cheese sticks) is Hamlets Coffee and Pies (apparently it used to be called “Shakespeares”; they’ve left a photo of the Bard on the wall, but changed the name) on the Corso:

They’re home to a wide selection of unique pies:

These include the above-mentioned pumpkin, feat and spinach plus delectable chicken satays and a mince/bacon/cheese combo.  There’s nothing healthy about these pies, but they taste great (especially after a day of hiking).

Wine Pairings

Australia is famous for its wine and the have developed a food culture paired around the wine.  If you go to wine country (we went to Mudgee) any restaurant can give you great recommendations on what wine to have with the meal.

We had lunch at The Wineglass and here’s the cheese plate that came with the wine:

The Longest Day of my Life

Jan 05

lindsayrgwattTravel australia, Travel Comments Off

This morning started at 6am with a quick run along the beach in Sydney.  In Manly, the surfers were already out, catching the morning breaks before grabbing the ferry to work.  I reached the North Head at seven and had it all to myself as I watched the surf break below the cliffs.

About 18 hours later – and still Monday – I had the unique vantage point of 37,000 feet to watch the sun simultaneously rise over the Santa Monica Mountains (snow-covered and beautiful) and light up the oil rigs offshore of LA.  In case you’re wondering, yes, there was a ridiculous amount of traffic snaking along the LA freeways at that hour.

Now it’s 9:30pm – and still Monday –  and I’m back in New York, happily satiated after a Patsy’s Pizza and enjoying the comfort of our apartment.  By my calculations, it has been almost a 32 hour day and it’s still going strong…

Various Aussie Thoughts

Jan 04

lindsayrgwattRandom, Travel australia Comments

So Wen and I are about to head home from Australia, but before we leave, here are a few thing I’ve noticed/been ruminating over for the past few days.

1

Australians love the sea.  In fact, Sydney isn’t so much a city as it is a collection of neighbourhoods located around the water.  However, the greatest indicator of how much Aussies love the sea is their money.  It’s waterproof:

However, this love of water also causes our Australian friends to do some silly things off the water.  For instance, this basketball course is grassed in:

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2

I have no idea why, but almost all the houses here seem to have names (This place is very British).  Here are a sampling from around Manly:

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3

For some reason, there is also stained glass everywhere.  It’s in all the houses and most of the older buildings.  I’ve no idea why; perhaps it’s that British thing again:

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4

The taxis here all look like police cars:

And the police cars, well – they look like toy cars:

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5

The Aussies are incredibly serious about taking care of their ecology.  Some examples:

• When you go through the airport you pass through “quarantine” where your bags are checked to make sure there’s no meat, cheese, veggies, etc.
• We drove up to Mudgee and there were signs warning you not to bring grape vine cuttings as they do not want to contaminate the viticulture up there
• Lake Burragorang is a man-made lake in the Blue Mountains that provides 80% of Sydney’s water – and no one is allowed within the catchment area of the lake.  If you’re caught trespassing, you’ll be prosecuted

6

There are two challenges to driving on the left hand side of the road in Australia.  The first is that you drift left as you drive, as in North America that’s the center; alas here it’s the curb.

The second is unique to Australia.  Here, the gauge of the lanes changes all the time.  You’ll be on a road and the lane will be 12 feet wide.  Then you’ll turn a corner and suddenly the lane’s only 8 feet wide!  It’s a blast, particularly when you’re surrounded by trucks (and drifting left…).

7

Australia’s got a drinking problem.  A huge one.  The national sport here seems to be getting pissed (and behaving badly).  I’ve noticed lots of people drinking before 11am – on the Manly Corso, at the airport; the list goest on.

In order to understand this, you’ve got to realize that drinking is totally institutionalized:

• At some bars, if you buy six pints (called schooners down here) you get a free t-shirt.  Yay!
• At some liquour stores, if you buy enough, you save on gas.  I can’t imagine a more perverse incentive to drink…

The government is trying to crack down.  For one, you get this lovely sign in all the bars:

Also, in every car, the back of the registration sticker (the part facing the driver) says “Drink Driving is a Crime”.

If you’re down on Manly beach on a weekend, you can see literally the entire beach getting drunk.  Later that night it’s off to the Steyne hotel on the Corso where you can watch 18 year old girls stumble around with bottles of wine in their hands before entering the bar (it’s technically legal to drink in public here).

And as I’m writing this, an ad just appeared on the tv letting me know that every single police car has a breathalyzer so that “if you’re worried about getting tested for drink driving – you should be.” 

8

This whole city is a zoo.  Everywhere you go, it’s exotic animals.  Around Wendy’s parent’s house, you’re likely to see cockatoos, rosellas and eastern water dragons:

This leads to the following road signs:

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9

This is the only place in the world that has not abandoned the cruck.  In fact, it’s worshipped here and called the Holden Ute.  You can buy ‘em new; if you’ve noticed that there aren’t too many on the road in North America, it’s because the El Camino was discontinued in 1987:

Don’t Pass on this Hike

Jan 02

lindsayrgwattTravel australia, Hiking Comments Off

When I told my friend Dave that we were going to spend a few days in the Blue Mountains, his immediate reaction was “You’ve got to hike the National Pass – it’s one of the five best day hike’s I’ve done in my life.”  Dave is probably the most outdoorsy person I know, so this was akin to Tiger Woods recommending a gold course – you’ve just got to do it.

The National Pass is one three interesting hikes you can do from the town of Wentworth Falls.  The first is called Darwin’s Walk and you literally trace the route Charles Darwin took when he walked to the actual falls.

It’s one of the most peaceful walks I’ve done.  We ambled through a slight valley, following a stream.  There were ferns lurking below tea leaf trees and then up the slopes grew bushes, pines and eucalyptus.  It was layers of green upon green:

Eventually we came to a hollow where an ancient river had carved out an overhang where a ‘hanging swamp’ now grows:

Along the way we saw different types of parrots and marveled at the lack of sound.  When we were there, we saw almost no one and it was completely serene.

We retraced our steps and continued past where we started to find the “Weeping Rock” – a prelude to falls.  Unlike the real falls, we could stand on top of the rock and comfortably look straight down:

From Weeping Rock, we descended a few meters and crossed the top of Wentworth Falls.  This bears a bit of description, as we actually started at the top of trail and hiking down.  This was because the Blue Mountains aren’t actually mountains, rather they’re an escarpment.  All the towns (like Katoomba, where we stayed) are on the top of the escarpment and you actually climb down the rock face; a few hundred million years ago it was a coral reef.

When we crossed Wentworth Falls we walked up to Rocket Point, which required walking through a rock arch.  It was the first place where we could get a sense of the size of the falls.  The scale is massive: the falls drop 100m, form a pool, and then drop 100m further into the forest below.  The scale is made more impressive as Rocket Point juts out over the falls, leaving us with a vertigo-inducing view of the trees directly below.

The picture below is a little tricky to understand.  Standing on Rocket Point you can look down to the ledge below Wentworth Falls (right) and then simultaneously see the forest a further 100m below that (left).  The shadow gives you a sense of how high the falls are – each of those tree canopies is probably 10m wide:

At this point we started to get confused.  According to our map (“One Day Bushwalks in the Blue Mountains” – $3 at the Paddy Pallin’s in Katoomba; well worth the price), the National Pass was supposed to start there, but we were literally on the edge of a cliff.  As we looked across the gorge we could see a trail hugging the opposing cliff face, but how to get there?  And then it dawned on us – the National Pass literally consists of a set of stairs that take you halfway down a cliff and then clings to the side of that cliff until it spits you out at Empress Falls.

The hike down the stairs is mind blowing.  At times, we were ducking under sandstone ledges with only a guard rail protecting us from a multi-hundred foot plunge:

I peeked over the ledge, and was confused as I felt like I was in a 14th century painting where the perspective is all wrong.  I could see the trail to my left, but then there it was also directly below me – and further below that.  Here’s a photo of what this looks like, taken from the other side of the gorge:

When we got down to the level of the traverse we could look up and gaze at the falls.  Since it’s the dry season right now, there was not much water and the wind was whipping the droplets of water coming over the falls; at times it flowed upwards:

As we followed the traverse we had the perverse sensation that comes from having a 100m cliff both above and below us simultaneously.  It’s unlike most hikes I’ve done.  Normally you hike somewhere and gaze upon something stunning; on the National Pass you have the sense that you are actually part of something stunning.

The walk continued and shortly came to Den Fenella.  This is a point in the trail where it makes a slow curve.  We stopped and looked up and our entire field of view was dominated by a sheer cliff.  It felt like we were standing at the focal point of a vertical sandstone amphitheatre.

Continuing on we were treated to more splendors.  Occasionally a red-breasted parrot or a flock of cockatoos came flying across the valley.  At times we bumbled along underneath rocky outcroppings.  And all the time we just had to look left to see the forest canopy below us, staring back at us from the exact opposite perspective we’re used to:

The National Pass ends at the Valley of the Waters and that’s where we decided to hike to Vera Falls.  This is officially off the beaten track – there’s even a sign that says that the trail is not maintained and not for the faint of heart (Wendy always loves a challenge).

The track down to the falls was noteworthy in that at times we came upon thickets of giant tree ferns.  One group we saw had trunks that were up to 30ft tall and easily the biggest ferns I’d ever seen.  At other times we had to push aside vines hanging down from the trees they were slowly strangling.

Towards the end of the trek, the trail became downright miserable.  Forks appeared in the road and we had to guess which way to go (hint: listen for the falls).  A certain section had eroded to be about a foot wide – and conveniently this was at the point where there was a 100ft cliff (and it goes without saying there were not guard rails there).

However, it was all worth it, for when we got to the falls, we had a spectacle that few will ever get to experience.  We stood on a rocky promontory on a waterfall surrounded by forest with nobody else and no guard rails.  We stared out at the surrounding forest and cliff; looking down we could see a pool of water forming over a hundred feet below.  In the distance were two cliff faces, preceded by cascades of jungle that seemed to blend together into one layer.  The only sound was the water smoothly and coldly flowing over the edge of the falls.  It was a surreal experience.

As we climbed out of the Valley of the Waters we entered a temperate rainforest and passed by multiple sets of waterfalls (Sylvia & Empress Falls).  There were ferns everywhere and everything was coated in a fine mist.  The more adventurous abseil down the falls in wetsuits and then hike out:

At the top it was a short walk back to the car via the Overcliff/Undercliff paths.  Both afforded us the chance to see the valley below in its entirety and appreciate the scope of what we had just hiked:

So was it one of the five best day hikes I’ve ever done?  Absolutely – it would be criminal for you to go to Sydney and not try it.

If you do, here’s a copy of the map so you can get a sense of what it’s going to be like (but buy your own copy: this little picture is not enough to get you through the hike):