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Image: Flying Fish Cove from Territory Day Park, Christmas Island, Indian Ocean. External Territory of Australia.
Below is the first in a series of five monthly reports I sent back to friends in 2007.
Recommend reading them in order to get the best out of them.
Very long.
Notes from Christmas Island (CI)
Chapter 1
JULY 2007
RANDOM OBSERVATIONS AND LIFE EXPERIENCES ON A RAINFOREST COVERED ISLAND, NO WHERE NEAR ANYWHERE AS DESCRIBED IN AN OFTEN
NON-CHRONOLOGICAL, NON-SEQUENTIAL, NON-LINEAR, ALL OVER THE PLACE MANNER!
I imagine the short exchange between Christmas Island International Airport [XCH] Air Traffic Control and our pilot went something like this:
“Inbound National Jet RJ-70 this is XCH.
You are cleared to land, winds 20 knots ESE,
So why don’t you stop messing around and put that sucker on the ground, then we can all go home”
“Groovy XCH, this is inbound RJ-70, copy that, please have a Canadian Club and Dry waiting for me on the tarmac, will have this big bird on the deck in a second.”
Or words like that.
Within ten minutes I became the last person off the plane as the flight attendants smiled nicely whilst, quite possibly, gently cursing my unstressed gait as I alighted the aircraft.
With a nose full of wonderful warm and clean tropical air I glanced towards the smallish aviation terminal building.
The terminal’s primary task was to allow for the lawful and obedient arrival and departure of passengers as listed on the aircraft passenger manifest.
It’s secondary but nevertheless important duty was to hold back a very green swath of rainforest from imminent invasion of the outrageously undulating but clearly useable runway.
This should be the last time I would be requiring that lumpy runway for a little while.
Christmas Island [CI], 10 degrees south of the Equator,
2600 km north, north-west from Perth,
2800 km west from Darwin,
360 km south from Indonesia,
1300 km south from Singapore
900 km north, north-east from Cocos (Keeling) Islands is to be home to Jody and myself for at least the next three months.
This airport is 291 metres above sea level.
For some perspective:
That is higher than the Central Park Building Perth, Australia
Outrageously higher than anything built in Adelaide, Australia
Fractionally lower than Centrepoint Tower in Sydney, Australia
Marginally higher than the Transamerica Building in San Francisco, USA
Almost twice the height of the Washington Monument in Washington DC, USA
A couple of storeys short of Bank of China Building, Hong Kong
Four fifth’s the height of the TV Tower Berlin, Germany
And that's just the height of the airport, some of the island is a third higher again.
As a rock, this island pokes right out of the water.
All the settled areas of CI are either a bit below, quite a bit below or massively far below the airport.
The steepness of the hill is severe in some places, sufficient enough to make a Tour De France rider squirm in his bike shorts and say “Sacré Bleu!”
Cleverly we had booked a 4WD hire car for the first week.
With certain smugness we took this all terrain vehicle out of the airport and down, down, down the hill to our unit.
Our three monthly lease of this unit, signed sight unseen, could now commence.
Let’s see what we have signed up for.
With the six kilometre winding downhill drive completed and the 4WD parked outside our new home, we were ready to collect the key, which was securely sitting on top of the frame of the front door.
Or so we were told!
As expected it was nowhere to be found.
Sleeping in the jungle seemed quite a chance.
This is where old contacts come in handy.
Also where the philosophy of, always make friends not enemies, pays dividends.
The neighbour to our property was a friend of mine in 1991 when I lived on the island.
A quick explanation of our predicament and soon a key was produced.
He had previously owned the unit and only sold it this year.
A spare key to the unit still jangled, if shaken, on his key ring and within moments we were inside.
Who’s a lucky a boy!
We leased this unit, which was to be one of either:
a] furnished
b] partially unfurnished
c] completely unfurnished.
To be frank we were not exactly sure what we were getting, but we knew we had a roof over our head and a front door and potentially a key.
Apart from the water leaking from the shower that drips out in the four cardinal directions and into the crappy carpet and onto the laundry floor, it would be adequate.
It won’t be featured in any of the following magazines:
Homes and Gardens or Design Trends or Architectural Weekly or Architectural Monthly or Architectural Annual.
Can’t see it getting a run in Clean Carpet Weekly but is a very good chance for a major feature in The Bad and Damp Carpet Journal.
On the plus side, the walls were painted, once.
The unit was old, tired, pretty well completely dirty and in summary
‘a bit crap’ however we are really quite happy here.
There was also no mattress on the bed, my friend but also had a spare, so we were soon sorted in that regard.
Because what it does have, is a fairly cool location.
We are unit two, of a set of four.
Where unit one is separated from the ocean by the main arterial road on the lower part of the island.
Not unexpectedly unit two is behind unit one.
Our ability to live in properties adjacent to main roads continues.
However this road is not really busy.
Sometimes fifteen minutes can elapse between cars and after midnight possibly hours between one lot of traffic and the next.
Of a morning there is no good reason, not to sit out on a chair, on the lawn near, but not under, the adjacent coconut tree and have my bowl of cereal and watch the ocean move and the traffic go by.
CI , an Australian external territory has a population of around fifteen hundred with eleven hundred being adults.
Life is unhurried and casual.
In a city all tasks seem to be done quickly or required to be done quickly.
That is not necessarily the case here.
Not everything can be done quickly, as shipping and flying things in and out have their own schedule, such as:
Monday has a flight from Perth to CI.
Thursday has a flight from Singapore to CI.
Friday has a flight from Perth to CI.
Postage leaves here on Mondays and Fridays direct to Perth.
Postage to CI on Thursdays goes from Perth to Singapore then changes airlines to fly from Singapore to CI.
So theoretically if a letter was posted from a person in Singapore to someone here, the letter would travel from Singapore to Perth to Singapore to CI.
A ship arrives around every six weeks or so to restock the non-perishables and larger items.
Crime is virtually unheard of, perhaps the occasional minor issue but any offence is unusual and certainly the talk of the town if it happens.
We think the cops, mainly go fishing.
Cars have the keys left in the ignition all the time.
So much easier to find the car keys when they stay in the car ready for use.
No one locks their car.
More often than not during the day we do not lock our house.
It took a week or so to get comfortable with this.
At night, we do, while we are sleeping but at some point that will probably change.
Jody gave up her handbag on the second day and my wallet has been ditched.
In it’s place is a small tough plastic bag, to hold some cash and now and then my plastic card to get cash out from the bank.
Fresh food comes in three times a week.
On Monday from Perth, Thursday from Singapore and Friday from Perth and occasionally on Saturdays from Perth, if it is school holidays.
Anything that comes via a plane is pretty pricey such as refrigerated items, fruit and vegetables.
We switched immediately to long life milk, which comes up via ship instead of the "short life milk" that comes up on the plane.
Items from the ship seem to be only about 20% more expensive that in Perth.
Not bad considering where we are.
Similar situation for the fuel, here it is AUD$1.41ltr when in Perth it is AUD$1.31. Could be worse.
The ship did arrive end of July, despite being due in the middle of July and is kind of a big event as restocking occurs.
Also on this ship were our mountain bikes which will give us more capacity to get around if vehicles are not handy.
The wildlife here is fantastic.
CI is known for the red crabs and their accompanying migration around December.
Which is a world class natural event.
The red crabs are kinda nice, in a crab type of way.
Not aggressive at all and in general, a peaceful type of creature.
Out in the jungle there is about one crab per square metre or two, which makes about 60 million of them or 480 million legs if you were to count them that particular way. But why would you.
Then there are the other crabs, the blue crabs that hang out in freshwater stream areas and the awesome robber crabs plus another ten or twenty other varieties that scuttle left and right.
The robber crabs are massive, sitting about six inches / 15cm off the ground.
Apparently larger ones can be 70 years old.
They prefer coconuts and can grind away at them with their claws until they get them open.
Allegedly their claws are so strong they can snap a broomstick in half, not that anyone has ever seen it happen, but looking at them it seems a fair call.
To see a crab weighing two or three kilograms suspended from a tree trunk eight feet in the air, is a formidable sight.
There are plenty of other amazing creatures, more on them in the next chapter.
For a small population there is a wide array of outlets for food and drinks.
There is one large supermarket similar to any well stocked shop in a small town on the mainland.
Three small Asian supermarkets whose aisles are so narrow that your shoulders barely fit between.
For meals there are two Chinese restaurants, three coffee shops, three pubs and a Chinese noodle house.
Add or possibly minus from that list a Malay Restaurant that doesn’t seem to open!?
Due to the nature of the geography most places have an ocean view and a cooling breeze.
Other items of note for a small, extremely remote island is the sensational hospital (ocean views standard), an 18 million dollar recreation centre with 25m swimming pool, children’s pool, basketball court, coffee shop and a brilliantly resourced gym.
Half way up the hill is the outdoor cinema, with great ocean views before the sun goes down and a lovely breeze when the movie is on. Unless it is raining.
There is one movie per week at AUD$5 per person, movies get to the island just as they are leaving the cinemas in Perth, so they are reasonably current.
Popcorn is available, but if four people have ordered popcorn before we get there then we have to wait eight minutes before ours is actioned.
Two minutes each packet in the microwave.
Practical solution to a practical problem.
Movies can be sponsored, so if I wanted to make the film
“brought to you by Keith and Jody” then we just have to lay the money down, rumour is, about AUD$300.
A local radio station is transmitting along with a few FM stations from Perth, ABC Local Radio plus Triple J that transmits Australia wide.
TV has ABC, SBS, WIN being a local version of Channel 9 and GWN country TV that takes combination Channel 7 and Channel 10.
Sadly both WIN and GWN suffer from the Western Australian country commercials varying from low quality to really low quality.
We convinced the landlord to supply a new mattress as the old one borrowed was pretty knackered.
We found a suitable one at the supermarket and arranged purchase.
For delivery the supermarket manager, who I knew from 1991 helped me lift it on the back of his ute, gave me his keys and said to drop the ute off in the carpark when I was finished and to leave the keys in the ignition. Fantastic. That’s how business should be done.
Vehicle transport is a necessity to get up the hill.
I do go running up the hill but I am the only one I know who does, my chances of having Jody run up the hill are about one degree.
That is, in every 360 times I ask she would probably agree to run once.
From the beginning of August we have hired a car from an old friend, or to be nice, a friend from a long time ago.
Not everything on the car works but if it did then the deal I got wouldn’t have happened.
The car is for sale and I can hire it until it sells.
Who knows I may have been able to get it for free, maybe, maybe not, but one needs to be fair here so some payment was necessary
Normally a newish car for hire would be about AUD$300 hundred per week.
My weekly hire rate is one carton of Boag’s Lite beer and one bottle of Champagne. Total cost $44 per week.
Those who know me and thought I possessed a minimum level of sophistication then the following will clearly shatter that illusion and those who believe I have no sophistication will be vindicated.
When I enquired what type of champagne was desired, the reply was “Brut”.
Easy then, off to the supermarket I headed to stock up on the grog.
Alcohol and cigarettes do not attract the mainland duties and taxes.
These items are ridiculously cheap.
Bottle of 1 litre spirits that would be $30 - $40 on the mainland are $14 here.
Cigarettes, for those filthy smoking bastards are around $2.50 a packet instead of the advised figure of $12 (so I am told.)
Even if I have my smokes prices a bit wrong, it’s still damn cheap.
I should start being a chain smoker and become an alcoholic, I would save sooooo much money!!
Back to the Champagne, I scoured the Champagne section of a very comprehensive alcohol section, juxtaposed to the dishwashing powder and washing machine liquids.
No brand of Champagne called Brut here!
With a bowed head and dragging of feet I slunk out of the supermarket like an abject failure.
I would be unable to fulfil my end of the “grog for car” regime.
Later Jody in a calm and quiet voice took me gently aside and explained that Brut was not a brand but a variety.
With a spring in my step I located a nicely priced bottle of James Hardy Champagne.
You can see my confusion, the words “Brut De Brut” located under the brand were not obvious and the whole thing just looked like a plain old bottle of wine to me.
Maybe this is not my area of expertise.
Jody was kind by saying it wasn’t my fault given that it is a "chick’s drink" or that it is "women's business" and I had no real right knowing about that type of thing anyway.
Sounds like the perfect disclaimer for me.
If I haven’t said so already, we are loving life here, sure the mosquito’s are impressed with Jody’s fair skin and tasty new blood.
They don’t get fair skin much like that too often, so they are making hay while the sun shines.
The mosquitos are not as bad as I thought, though, going thoroughly through a thoroughfare throughout the jungle like a thoroughbred where it is damp, mozzies can be an issue but in the settled areas, no worse than on the mainland.
We came prepared with a wonderful white mosquito net to cover us while sleeping.
Looks quite romantic really and keeps those buzzing mongrels away.
I once read, never skimp on two things when camping (extend that to remote areas) those being toilet paper and mosquito nets.
Go cheap and you will regret it.
This advice is being taken.
Before I go, please allow me to talk about the weather.
Those who might read this should be in the following listed locations and regions.
As I write this, early August 2007, it is winter in Australia and summer in the northern hemisphere.
On the “mainland”, as continental Australia is succinctly referred, we understand the situation is thus:
Perth, has been raining virtually all month since we left.
Adelaide, varies from miserable to cold and miserable.
Melbourne, is well, Melbourne and enough said there.
Sydney, would be similar to Perth, but with delusions of grandeur.
Hong Kong, let's mark you down as hot and humid with afternoon rain.
South Korea, possible storm clouds on the horizon, not from the weather but from those crazies next door in North Korea.
Germany, should be lovely and if on the autobahn, then fast.
While not being familiar with summer in San Francisco, San Diego & Palo Alto I expect you have your hottest month right now and I would guess pretty nice.
Washington DC now should be as warmish as it gets and trying to rule the world.
Hope I mentioned everyone.
According to official temperature collection data, Christmas Island minimum never drops below 20 (centigrade) and maximum never gets above 30.
Humidity levels can be neatly described as, humid.
When the local’s describe the water temperature as cold, it isn’t.
It’s a great place.
OK it is late and that’s enough for now.
If I send this when I have written everything I want to say, then it will never be sent.
This is Chapter 1, Chapter 2 is for another day...
If you print them all off then you will have a first edition of this virtual book. How about that!
All replies readily accepted, go easy with attachments, anything larger than 200KB or 0.2 MB takes forever to download and at $8 per hour costs me a fortune.
Hope you are all fine and unless we hear otherwise, we are assuming you are.
See ya
Keith (and Jody who is currently sleeping and missing her 2 cats)
The Agilitynut just reminded me that I have this little number just waiting for a moment to debut. Hutchinson, Kansas.
My wife and I are in Edinburgh today and staying in a lovely hotel ~ overnight and peace and quiet!
It’s cold but lovely and we’ve walked and walked around the city, today and now back at the hotel, relaxing and soon getting ready for dinner! Unfortunately, I left my MacBook Pro at home so all photos remain on my camera but I did manage to catch this shot of Edinburgh Castle with my iPhone 8 Plus.
So, managed to keep on track with my 365!!
No. 6 ~ 365 2018 .... Forgetfulness....
Thanks to everyone who views this photo, adds a note, leaves a comment and of course BIG thanks to anyone who chooses to favourite my photo .... thanks to you all.
Birds on wires in Paull, East Yorkshire. I can't read music, but if I could would these music notes formed by these birds be Leonard Cohen's 'Bird on a Wire"?
by Samuel Musungayi.
Captured with a Yashica T5 and an expired roll of Fujifilm Fujichrome Sensia 200.
CanoScan 8800F.
Notes :
Expiration date : Unknown
Film speed : ISO 200
Shot speed : ISO 200
Note the TV is off. This is one of the great joys of Bogota. Many coffee shops don't even have a TV, and when they do, it's often off. This cancer is coming to Bogota and Colombia in general, of course. Already you see young people walking around staring at their smart phones just as they do in Vancouver and Toronto, but it's far less frequent and I intend to enjoy it as it is while I can.
Note: this photo was published in an Apr 23, 2011 Everyblock NYC zipcodes blog titled "10023."
Note: I chose this photo, among the 10 that I uploaded to Flickr on the evening of Apr 22, 2011, as my "photo of the day." I liked the bright, colorful contrast between the woman's raincoat and her bright polka-dot umbrella.
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This is a continuation of Flickr sets that I created in 2010 (shown here), 2009 (shown here), and 2008 (shown here) -- which, collectively, illustrate a variety of scenes and people in the small "pocket park" known as Verdi Square, located at 72nd Street and Broadway in New York City's Upper West Side, right by the 72nd St. IRT subway station.
I typically visit a local gym once or twice a week, and I get there by taking the downtown IRT express from my home (at 96th Street) down to the 72nd Street stop. Whenever possible, I try to schedule an extra 30-60 minutes to sit quietly on one of the park benches, and just watch the flow of people coming in and out of the park -- sometimes just passing through, to get from 72nd Street up to 73rd Street, but mostly entering or exiting the subway station.
You see all kinds of people here: students, bums, tourists, office workers, homeless people, retired people, babysitters, children, soldiers, sanitation workers, lovers, friends, dogs, cats, pigeons, and a few things that simply defy description. Sometimes you see the same people over and over again; sometimes they follow a regular pattern at a particular time of the day.
If I focus on the people entering the park at 73rd Street, and walking southwards toward the subway entrance, I typically have five or ten seconds to (a) decide if they're sufficiently interesting to bother photographing,(b) wait for them to get in a position where I can get a clear shot of them, and (c) focus my camera on them and take several shots, in the hope that at least one or two of them will be well-focused and really interesting.
While you might get the impression that I photograph every single person who moves through this park, it's actually just the opposite: the vast majority of people that I see here are just not all that interesting. (It's not that they're ugly, it's just that there's nothing interesting, memorable, or distinctive about them.) Even so, I might well take, say, 200 shots in the space of an hour. But some of them are repetitive or redundant, and others are blurred or out-of-focus, or technically defective in some other way. Of the ones that survive this kind of scrutiny, many turn out to be well-focused, nicely-composed, but ... well ... just "okay". I'll keep them on my computer, just in case, but I don't bother uploading them.
Typically, only about 5-10% of the photos I've taken get uploaded to Flickr -- e.g., about 10 photos from a one-hour session in which a thousand, or more, people have walked past me. There are some exceptions to this rule of thumb, as was the case with this particular set -- but nevertheless, what you're seeing it is indeed only a tiny, tiny subset of the "real" street scene in New York City. On the other hand, it is reassuring to see that there are at least a few "interesting" people in a city that often has a reputation of being mean, cold, and heartless...
A miniature version of our bestselling love note necklace, this one features a smaller solid envelope charm in antiqued gold. The envelope has a nice texture to it and carries a secret love note inside! A small "I Love You" charm is the perfect surprise for a loved one! It hangs on a sturdy antiqued gold chain.
PLEASE TAKE NOTE.....Myself and Wetbag were approached here at this location between Wootton Rivers and New Mill on the Berks & Hants route on Thursday 22 April 2021 by the farmer who does not take kindly to railway photographers on his private land. In the interest of "keeping the peace" with this gentleman, and respecting his request, it might be prudent for anyone else who visits the area to keep away, at least for now? Mark J.
To see hundreds more photographs from the 1980’s, through to today, please go to my main website:
table158photography.weebly.com/
This is 6M15 07:07 Tytherington - Calvert near Wootton Rivers hauled by 66020.
SAN FRANCISCO, CA - March 25 - Sheri attends UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals Notes & Words on March 25th 2023 at Fox Theater @ 1807 Telegraph Ave, Oakland, CA 94612 US in San Francisco, CA (Photo - Drew Altizer)
A note to the people I follow. I am very short on time, and I don't know what happened with the layout. Where is my friends button/link? Is there none anymore? Why make it so hard to find the pics of the people you follow? I am just going to the Flickr home page and will fave whatever I like going through it, but I may not leave a comment, so, please, don't be offended. It doesn't mean any lack of interest. Just consider the fave an equivalent to a like on FB. It does look like that's what they have done in effect. I would have to click through to leave a comment, and then go back to my home page to see the other latest pics of the people I follow. Not efficient at all!
مسَآكم آلله بآليل لوول
كيف حآلكم عسآكم مرتآحين
لآ حد يتخبرني عن الصوره وشسآلفة النظارات خخ مخليني علاقه وانا مآ آدري ><
واذا حبيتو الصوره ضغطو على حرف الـ
F
Ask Me! Formspring
Heathrow Airport, 25/05/1996.
Operating for Aeroflot - note it has their (small) titles below the front door.
Now & then I like to use some Instax, too. I love the colour of this film and the contrasts it can produce, I love its stability... but I hate the bulkiness and the poor maneuverability of the camera. Taking this camera with me is a pain in the backpack, though results are often very pleasant. If you want to see more of my Instax shots, you'll have to visit my LomoHome at bit.ly/ADGlomo.
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Camera: Lomo'Instant Wide
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In the meanwhile visit my Etsy shop for my Instant Art at www.etsy.com/shop/AleDiGangi
Make a discreet impression, ladies, with this cape and dress costume......Nothing too garish, and people will be saying quietly to themselves, ' What an enviable elegance...' ( Image owned by account holder).
New in 1967 as one of the forward-entrance Routemasters providing a dedicated service between the British European Airways (BEA) terminal in Cromwell Road, West London and London Heathrow Airport, NML648E originally carried a turquoise and white livery. Prior to BEA being merged with BOAC to form British Airways, its livery was updated to an orange scheme, and some of the BEA buses came to carry the navy blue and white colours of BA.
All of the BEA Routemaster fleet was made redundant from the mid-1970s and the buses were eagerly snapped up by London Transport for a variety of duties, forming the RMA class. Once BEA 48, NML648E duly became RMA11 and painted in standard LT red.
LT in turn began to sell off the RMAs from the 1980s, with deregulation of bus services outside London creating a new demand for the type. RMA11 was thus acquired by Verwood Transport for a route serving Bournemouth, gaining this most attractive blue livery. Sadly, Verwood Transport did not endure, and by early 1990, RMA11 had migrated to Routemaster Travel to operate a local service in Leighton Buzzard, still retaining the Verwood livery. It is seen here outside Aylesbury station, running a free service to the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre at Quainton Road.
Several later changes in ownership followed. RMA11 remains extant, lately back in London Transport red.
May 1990
Rollei 35 camera
Kodak Ektachrome 100 film.