Thursday, March 31, 2005
Whew! Finally home
I'm doing this last post from home - just to wrap up this little diatribe.
Monday, I took the morning off from gazing at art to do a bit of shopping. I had been trying to think of something to bring back as a gift for Chris. I wanted something special (not that the others gifts I picked up weren't) - perhaps even extra special. I had been really missing our weekly get togethers and so had he. So I got a brilliant idea and found a store that might have what I was thinking of (but no, I'm not going to give it away. Chris told me he was reading this blog and it'll be a few days before he gets the item). After a long walk, a bus ride, a train ride, another long walk, getting lost and asking directions and finally yet another long walk, I reached the special store (actually Fry's - a famous store for a particular type of item - that's the only clue Chris). The item was available and I bought it at an excellent price and it's now in my bag waiting for Chris to get it. Note also, I've been back for more than 24 hrs and I still haven't unpacked.
Monday afternoon I went to the LACMA - no that's not the Lactating Mothers Association, it's the LA County Museum of Art. I've been to quite a few galleries over the years, this is the first one in which I have ever had a feeling of ostentatiousness (I hope that's a word). I can't quite put my finger on why. I think it has something to do with that fact that each gallery within the larger gallery was named after some sponsor (e.g The Steve Martin Gallery) and most works in the galleries were gifts of private individuals. Another example was the Raymond and Frances Bushell Netsuke Gallery that had a vast (almost bewildering) array of netsuke (small Japanese carvings) in a room of, probably 400 sq ft. The space devoted to these little pieces seemed out of all proportion to the potential public interest in them. It seemed more like a statement: "Look what I own, isn't that impressive?"
Finally, the photo gallery sucked, big time. They claim to have 5000 international examples of images from the 1830s to the present. The display had six images, all by one artist I had never heard of. They were fine in their own right, but what about the rest?
Shopping and LACMA was all I had time for Monday. Note that going anywhere required me to spend 3-4 hours each day on transit or walking. By the time Tuesday rolled around, I didn't have the energy to look at another painting, let alone a gallery full of them. Thus, unfortunately, I didn't get back to Getty. Hopefully next time.
Getting home was uneventful, except for the fact that I had to get up at 3:30 AM to get to my flight 90 minutes before departure as required by AA. I got home tired and woke up the next morning with a cold.
I guess that's better than travelling with one.
Monday, I took the morning off from gazing at art to do a bit of shopping. I had been trying to think of something to bring back as a gift for Chris. I wanted something special (not that the others gifts I picked up weren't) - perhaps even extra special. I had been really missing our weekly get togethers and so had he. So I got a brilliant idea and found a store that might have what I was thinking of (but no, I'm not going to give it away. Chris told me he was reading this blog and it'll be a few days before he gets the item). After a long walk, a bus ride, a train ride, another long walk, getting lost and asking directions and finally yet another long walk, I reached the special store (actually Fry's - a famous store for a particular type of item - that's the only clue Chris). The item was available and I bought it at an excellent price and it's now in my bag waiting for Chris to get it. Note also, I've been back for more than 24 hrs and I still haven't unpacked.
Monday afternoon I went to the LACMA - no that's not the Lactating Mothers Association, it's the LA County Museum of Art. I've been to quite a few galleries over the years, this is the first one in which I have ever had a feeling of ostentatiousness (I hope that's a word). I can't quite put my finger on why. I think it has something to do with that fact that each gallery within the larger gallery was named after some sponsor (e.g The Steve Martin Gallery) and most works in the galleries were gifts of private individuals. Another example was the Raymond and Frances Bushell Netsuke Gallery that had a vast (almost bewildering) array of netsuke (small Japanese carvings) in a room of, probably 400 sq ft. The space devoted to these little pieces seemed out of all proportion to the potential public interest in them. It seemed more like a statement: "Look what I own, isn't that impressive?"
Finally, the photo gallery sucked, big time. They claim to have 5000 international examples of images from the 1830s to the present. The display had six images, all by one artist I had never heard of. They were fine in their own right, but what about the rest?
Shopping and LACMA was all I had time for Monday. Note that going anywhere required me to spend 3-4 hours each day on transit or walking. By the time Tuesday rolled around, I didn't have the energy to look at another painting, let alone a gallery full of them. Thus, unfortunately, I didn't get back to Getty. Hopefully next time.
Getting home was uneventful, except for the fact that I had to get up at 3:30 AM to get to my flight 90 minutes before departure as required by AA. I got home tired and woke up the next morning with a cold.
I guess that's better than travelling with one.
Sunday, March 27, 2005
Getty up
Today I slept in, for Sydney time. I was awake at 5:30, 5:40, 5:50 and finally at 6:00, I got the message and got up. Of course, in Sydney it was probably 9:00 AM on Monday, so two hours beyond my usual waking time (for the last 2 months anyway) and I had turned out the lights (literally and figuratively) about 8:00 PM last night.
I had no trouble getting ready for my $42 bus ride to the Getty (return fare). Aside from the price, the big mistake I made was that my ride back required me to leave at 2:15. Apparently that's all the culture their average customer wants, and that way after the gruelling 4 hours at the Getty they get to go on other package tours such as a bus ride around famous peoples homes. In fact most of their customers appear not to be interested in the Getty at all. The bus depot was packed with buses and hordes of people, but only 3 of us went on my tour. When I complained about the 2:15 pickup, the driver assured me that after 4 hours of looking at paintings any normal person would want to leave (also implying that no real guy would want to go there in the first place). However he did know how much money the Getty foundation spent building the museum, $1.2 billion.
Whatever was spent, it is an amazing resource. The architecture itself is worth the visit, then there's the garden, also worth a glance, and, oh yeah, there's some art too. Most amazing of all is that it is free - even the audio handsets, if you choose to take one. In the galeries, the lighting is subdued but enough to see the objects and seems to be designed to avoid reflections so you don't have to struggle to see things, unlike many other galleries I've been to lately, and there have been a few. The interpretative signage is excellent, there are a number of guided tours with further interpretative info. I'm going on and on I know. It's great and I'm going back on Tuesday.
And the art.... Today I spent most of the time with looking at a special exhibit of the work of 19th century British photographer Roger Fenton. He was one of the early photographers who tried to take photography into the realm of fine art. After a decade or so, he quit photography because he couldn't make enough money from his art to live on and didn't want to to be simply a portrait photographer. Anyway, the images were inspiring, especially given the limited capabilities of the tools he had it his disposal.
The other exhibit I saw quickly (as I was running out of time) showed a collection of paintings by French painter Jacques-Louis David. He was a cohort of Napolean and the paintings shown reflect a lot of Napolean's reign and elites from that society and also some imaginary scenes from Greek classics. To my eye, his paintings have an element of realism (which I like) augmented with a kind of "unreal beauty" filter - to use a photographic analogy. I think I saw a couple of these works when I was in Paris years ago (although there were so many then, its hard to remember). Aside from those this was likely my only opportunity to see these works. Maybe I'll have another look on Tuesday, if I have time.
Well, aren't I blathering on. At least I'm sitting down, because my right knee is killing me. It's been bothering me occasionally this trip. I've assumed it was from too much walking since I've done a lot (partly to counteract the large amounts of beer and wine I've been drinking). For the past few days it has been getting worse. The only thing I can think of is that I haven't been drinking enough beer or wine. In fact, I haven't had a beer or glass of wine since my first meal on the plane. I intend to rectify that shortly - plus take a couple of advil.
TTFN - gotta go have supper...
I had no trouble getting ready for my $42 bus ride to the Getty (return fare). Aside from the price, the big mistake I made was that my ride back required me to leave at 2:15. Apparently that's all the culture their average customer wants, and that way after the gruelling 4 hours at the Getty they get to go on other package tours such as a bus ride around famous peoples homes. In fact most of their customers appear not to be interested in the Getty at all. The bus depot was packed with buses and hordes of people, but only 3 of us went on my tour. When I complained about the 2:15 pickup, the driver assured me that after 4 hours of looking at paintings any normal person would want to leave (also implying that no real guy would want to go there in the first place). However he did know how much money the Getty foundation spent building the museum, $1.2 billion.
Whatever was spent, it is an amazing resource. The architecture itself is worth the visit, then there's the garden, also worth a glance, and, oh yeah, there's some art too. Most amazing of all is that it is free - even the audio handsets, if you choose to take one. In the galeries, the lighting is subdued but enough to see the objects and seems to be designed to avoid reflections so you don't have to struggle to see things, unlike many other galleries I've been to lately, and there have been a few. The interpretative signage is excellent, there are a number of guided tours with further interpretative info. I'm going on and on I know. It's great and I'm going back on Tuesday.
And the art.... Today I spent most of the time with looking at a special exhibit of the work of 19th century British photographer Roger Fenton. He was one of the early photographers who tried to take photography into the realm of fine art. After a decade or so, he quit photography because he couldn't make enough money from his art to live on and didn't want to to be simply a portrait photographer. Anyway, the images were inspiring, especially given the limited capabilities of the tools he had it his disposal.
The other exhibit I saw quickly (as I was running out of time) showed a collection of paintings by French painter Jacques-Louis David. He was a cohort of Napolean and the paintings shown reflect a lot of Napolean's reign and elites from that society and also some imaginary scenes from Greek classics. To my eye, his paintings have an element of realism (which I like) augmented with a kind of "unreal beauty" filter - to use a photographic analogy. I think I saw a couple of these works when I was in Paris years ago (although there were so many then, its hard to remember). Aside from those this was likely my only opportunity to see these works. Maybe I'll have another look on Tuesday, if I have time.
Well, aren't I blathering on. At least I'm sitting down, because my right knee is killing me. It's been bothering me occasionally this trip. I've assumed it was from too much walking since I've done a lot (partly to counteract the large amounts of beer and wine I've been drinking). For the past few days it has been getting worse. The only thing I can think of is that I haven't been drinking enough beer or wine. In fact, I haven't had a beer or glass of wine since my first meal on the plane. I intend to rectify that shortly - plus take a couple of advil.
TTFN - gotta go have supper...
Saturday, March 26, 2005
Java then MOCA
Well, it's amazing what a coffee can do. It's 5:30 PM and I'm still up and I even have enough energy to add to this blog. After signing off from my previous post this morning I had my coffee and went back to the hotel to see if I could get a room. It was only 10:00 AM and no rooms would be ready for 2-3 hours, so I decided to see if the LA Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) was open. I had travelled downtown to it twice when I was here in Feb and both times it was closed.
Today I was in luck. I resurrected my limited knowledge of the LA transit system and headed downtown. It takes about an hour to get there by bus and then train. The bus travels through a black/hispanic area of LA and there are a lot of "characters" on the bus. I just sat there as quietly as I could (near the front of the bus) and listened to all the "blanguage" and "spanglish". If it had been night, I might have been a bit more stressed.
Anyway I reached MOCA without difficulty or incendent. The MOCA had two shows going:
A selection of abstract art from the collection focussing on artists of the 40's through the 60's. There were lots of really famous names (i.e. ones that even I recognized) such as Alfred Steiglitz (the only photographer I found), Jackson Pollock and Franz Kline. After reviewing their MOCA web site while writing this blog, I see there are some artists I missed. The gallery was very poorly laid out and didn't have a map.
The other show was abstract sound and light shows of various kinds (and mostly was not interesting) - one was a reflector ball like those found in a night club with various computer controlled lights - coool! not.
The other disappointment was that there was almost no interpretive or contextual information. For art ninnies like me, that made any comprehension of the works shown virtually impossible. Too bad because there were definitely some important pieces of art to be seen.
Anyway, I won't go back to MOCA. Tomorrow I have booked a tour to the Getty. I go at 9:00 AM (I'll probably have been up for several hours at that point) and get back at 3:00. It will cost $42 for the transportation but it will save me hours on the bus and trains, not to mention the likelihood of getting lost or mugged.
Time to close. LA is the pits, but it is definitely nice to be closer to home.
TTFN
Today I was in luck. I resurrected my limited knowledge of the LA transit system and headed downtown. It takes about an hour to get there by bus and then train. The bus travels through a black/hispanic area of LA and there are a lot of "characters" on the bus. I just sat there as quietly as I could (near the front of the bus) and listened to all the "blanguage" and "spanglish". If it had been night, I might have been a bit more stressed.
Anyway I reached MOCA without difficulty or incendent. The MOCA had two shows going:
A selection of abstract art from the collection focussing on artists of the 40's through the 60's. There were lots of really famous names (i.e. ones that even I recognized) such as Alfred Steiglitz (the only photographer I found), Jackson Pollock and Franz Kline. After reviewing their MOCA web site while writing this blog, I see there are some artists I missed. The gallery was very poorly laid out and didn't have a map.
The other show was abstract sound and light shows of various kinds (and mostly was not interesting) - one was a reflector ball like those found in a night club with various computer controlled lights - coool! not.
The other disappointment was that there was almost no interpretive or contextual information. For art ninnies like me, that made any comprehension of the works shown virtually impossible. Too bad because there were definitely some important pieces of art to be seen.
Anyway, I won't go back to MOCA. Tomorrow I have booked a tour to the Getty. I go at 9:00 AM (I'll probably have been up for several hours at that point) and get back at 3:00. It will cost $42 for the transportation but it will save me hours on the bus and trains, not to mention the likelihood of getting lost or mugged.
Time to close. LA is the pits, but it is definitely nice to be closer to home.
TTFN
Time travel
Today I arrived back in LA. I left Sydney at 8:50 AM on Saturday March 26 and arrived in LA at 7:00 AM on Saturday March 26. The trip didn't feel that fast. In fact, it was a long slog - 18 hours. My first disappointment came at checkin. I found out that my flight from Sydney to LA stopped in Melbourne - a backward treck of about 2 hours and then a stopover of 1.5 hours. The next disappointment was when I learned that the flight from Melbourne to LA was 14 1/2 hrs. I guess you don't always get the best flights when you go on points.
Anyway I'm here now and hopefully will be able to checkin to my hotel before I turn into a pumpkin. I tried to sleep on the flight, but it was hard to get comfortable. Now I'm groggy but reluctant to sleep or I'll screw up the next few days with jet lag.
Anyway I'm half asleep now and if I don't end this drivel soon, all I'll be able to write is zzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzz , huh? What's that?
My coffee's ready
OK, bye.....
Later........
Anyway I'm here now and hopefully will be able to checkin to my hotel before I turn into a pumpkin. I tried to sleep on the flight, but it was hard to get comfortable. Now I'm groggy but reluctant to sleep or I'll screw up the next few days with jet lag.
Anyway I'm half asleep now and if I don't end this drivel soon, all I'll be able to write is zzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzz , huh? What's that?
My coffee's ready
OK, bye.....
Later........
Tuesday, March 22, 2005
Blue is the colour of water
It's Wednesday. I'll be home in less than a week. I almost feel like yelling yahooooo!, but not quite. I imagine I'll miss this a bit - I might even feel a bit blue...although it'll be nice to get home and rest - sleep in even, maybe.
We are now in the Blue Mountains in a town called Katoomba. It's vaguely reminicent of Banff or Stowe except no skiing. The mountains are actually blue in the distance, due, apparently to the high level of water vapour in the air. The weather has lost it's summery feel, more like fall. It apparently will get better in a few days, but I'll be gone. Despite the weather, the scenery is phenomenal, great cliffs with 150 meter drops over dense forest canopies, sculptured rock surfaces, musical birds - quite magical.
We did spend two days in Canberra. Except for the galleries and museums, exceptionally boring.
Tomorrow we return to Sydney. M&B leave on Friday and I leave on Saturday. I probably won't post again till I get to LA, where I'll spend a few days before I get home Tuesday.
TTFN
We are now in the Blue Mountains in a town called Katoomba. It's vaguely reminicent of Banff or Stowe except no skiing. The mountains are actually blue in the distance, due, apparently to the high level of water vapour in the air. The weather has lost it's summery feel, more like fall. It apparently will get better in a few days, but I'll be gone. Despite the weather, the scenery is phenomenal, great cliffs with 150 meter drops over dense forest canopies, sculptured rock surfaces, musical birds - quite magical.
We did spend two days in Canberra. Except for the galleries and museums, exceptionally boring.
Tomorrow we return to Sydney. M&B leave on Friday and I leave on Saturday. I probably won't post again till I get to LA, where I'll spend a few days before I get home Tuesday.
TTFN
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
Sydney the friendly giant
Sydney is a big place. We we have been here for 4 days and have barely scratched the surface. When we arrived, we had booked our accomodation for 7 days and discussed shortening our stay here in favour of spending more of our remaining 2 weeks elsewhere in Oz. In the end we decided to go with our original plan and I'm glad we did - Sydney is a fascinating city.
There is lots of old city to explore and even many new business areas with sky scrapers have the feel of the old city. This has been accomplished by keeping the facades of many old buildings and placing the taller new buildings back from the facade so the streets don't seem as cavernous.
Of course, we have seen the Sydney Opera House, and yes I took a bunch of photos - how could I not? Also the Sydney Harbour bridge and combinations of the two. They're icons and they just have to be in the photo file. I also took pictures of large bats haning fro trees at the Sydney Royal Botanic Gardens. I have to go back for a video, the noise they make is amazing.
The main downside of Sydney is: it's expensive. Unexpectedly, one of the most expensive things (given the amount we tend to consume) is beer. Barry is having a major crisis - he has calculated that beer is more expensive than wine! Oh well, in 2 weeks (more or less) we'll all be back to familiar surroundings (and costs).
Sydney has a monorail that travels around the major tourist area near Darling Harbour (our area) and part of downtown. When we went out for supper last night we decided to try the monorail. We got on the train and did a complete circuit of the track before getting off at the station closest to our destination (it was not very close). The trip was mildly interesting, offering a different view of where we had previously walked. It was definitely not rapid transit though, in fact Maureen called it vapid transit. I guess that's a mom joke. We could have walked to the get off point in about the same time we spent on the monorail.
Today, M&B had a together day and I did my thing. In retrospect I'm surprised there hasn't been one of those days sooner. This has been the longest time I can recall M and I have been together since we were living in Noranda. We probably should have had more days apart, although I've been fine with how things have been going - only minor occasional snips.
We will be staying here till Sunday and then leaving for Canberra. Originally I had thought we'd just do the Blue Mountains, but M&B want to see Canberra. I have to admit it does look interesting from a map view. It'll be the only formally planned city I've ever visited. There'll be lots of galleries and museums (musea?). We'll have 2 days in Canberra and 2 days in Katoomba in the Blue Mountains. We had wanted to spend 3 days in the mountains, but the last day is the day before easter and we couldn't get accomodation.
This blog has turned into boring drivel, even I'm falling asleep writing it. Also, I want to go have one of those expensive beers and then some Vietnamese for supper. I'm in Chinatown (I think). There are orientals everywhere here. The computer I'm using brings up all it's prompts in chinese (or Japanese) all I can hear around me at other computers is chinese.
Bye for now.
There is lots of old city to explore and even many new business areas with sky scrapers have the feel of the old city. This has been accomplished by keeping the facades of many old buildings and placing the taller new buildings back from the facade so the streets don't seem as cavernous.
Of course, we have seen the Sydney Opera House, and yes I took a bunch of photos - how could I not? Also the Sydney Harbour bridge and combinations of the two. They're icons and they just have to be in the photo file. I also took pictures of large bats haning fro trees at the Sydney Royal Botanic Gardens. I have to go back for a video, the noise they make is amazing.
The main downside of Sydney is: it's expensive. Unexpectedly, one of the most expensive things (given the amount we tend to consume) is beer. Barry is having a major crisis - he has calculated that beer is more expensive than wine! Oh well, in 2 weeks (more or less) we'll all be back to familiar surroundings (and costs).
Sydney has a monorail that travels around the major tourist area near Darling Harbour (our area) and part of downtown. When we went out for supper last night we decided to try the monorail. We got on the train and did a complete circuit of the track before getting off at the station closest to our destination (it was not very close). The trip was mildly interesting, offering a different view of where we had previously walked. It was definitely not rapid transit though, in fact Maureen called it vapid transit. I guess that's a mom joke. We could have walked to the get off point in about the same time we spent on the monorail.
Today, M&B had a together day and I did my thing. In retrospect I'm surprised there hasn't been one of those days sooner. This has been the longest time I can recall M and I have been together since we were living in Noranda. We probably should have had more days apart, although I've been fine with how things have been going - only minor occasional snips.
We will be staying here till Sunday and then leaving for Canberra. Originally I had thought we'd just do the Blue Mountains, but M&B want to see Canberra. I have to admit it does look interesting from a map view. It'll be the only formally planned city I've ever visited. There'll be lots of galleries and museums (musea?). We'll have 2 days in Canberra and 2 days in Katoomba in the Blue Mountains. We had wanted to spend 3 days in the mountains, but the last day is the day before easter and we couldn't get accomodation.
This blog has turned into boring drivel, even I'm falling asleep writing it. Also, I want to go have one of those expensive beers and then some Vietnamese for supper. I'm in Chinatown (I think). There are orientals everywhere here. The computer I'm using brings up all it's prompts in chinese (or Japanese) all I can hear around me at other computers is chinese.
Bye for now.
Thursday, March 10, 2005
Winding down NZ
We're now in Touranga, a beautiful coastal resort city on the east coast of NZ with a dramatic sea mount at the end of a peninsula forming part of the city's complex of inlets and bays. Barry has a cousin Keith who lives here and showed us around the city this morning. We went to see the sea mount (Mt. Manganui) walked around it on a nice trail, but infortunately, didn't walk up it. Keith is a bit over weight and didn't feel fit enough for the walk up. We ended up driving around the city instead. Oh well, we can't do everything - another reason to return.
Tomorrow (Saturday) we head back to Auckland to catch the plane for Sydney on Sunday. NZ is definitely a great place for a holiday, but I wouldn't want to live here. It's expensive and too far from the rest of the world, for starters. Also, NZ bread sucks, the beer is OK but not better than Canuck beer and not as good as Belgian for example, and ... well I could go on, but why? I have to leave some complaints for my next trip to NZ. There will be one.
Tomorrow (Saturday) we head back to Auckland to catch the plane for Sydney on Sunday. NZ is definitely a great place for a holiday, but I wouldn't want to live here. It's expensive and too far from the rest of the world, for starters. Also, NZ bread sucks, the beer is OK but not better than Canuck beer and not as good as Belgian for example, and ... well I could go on, but why? I have to leave some complaints for my next trip to NZ. There will be one.
Monday, March 07, 2005
Napier Nonsense
We have moved from windy Wellington to natty Napier. Napier is an art deco mecca. It was devastated by an major earthquake in 1928 which destroyed most of the stone buildings and started a fire that demolished most of the wooden structures. The city residents decided to undertake a massive rebuilding and also decided to proceed in the art deco style (think of pictures of Miami or Santa Barbara). Today the forsight, resilience and hard work of those citizens has created a major tourist attraction.
We went on a self guided tour today of many of the art deco commercial buildings. 4 hours later we gave up, unfinished but too tired to continue. I probably have 50 photos of buildings or architectural details. That should be enough to recall the experience.
Barry, when reading the guide book, told us with a straight face that Napier was an approximate translation of the Maori name for the place - the Maori name being Takitaki.
Good one, huh?
Tomorrow we go back by Lake Taupo (see earlier blog - hole left by big volcanic explosion) on our way to Touranga and the Bay of Plenty.
We went on a self guided tour today of many of the art deco commercial buildings. 4 hours later we gave up, unfinished but too tired to continue. I probably have 50 photos of buildings or architectural details. That should be enough to recall the experience.
Barry, when reading the guide book, told us with a straight face that Napier was an approximate translation of the Maori name for the place - the Maori name being Takitaki.
Good one, huh?
Tomorrow we go back by Lake Taupo (see earlier blog - hole left by big volcanic explosion) on our way to Touranga and the Bay of Plenty.
