CPT #1 - Castle of Good Hope, South African Museum, Art Museum
The group of us going to Cape Town under the learning component of Spotlight Singapore in Cape Town as students, now that has kept us hyped up for it since months ago! Finally we have...
SQ478 to Cape Town via Johannesburg at 02:30 Hrs on 13 March 2011 (Sunday)
A 13 hour flight, we're still on our way to Cape Town via Johannesburg....
I never requested for a seat next to the wing, I never did but I always get it anyway. Next time I take the plane, please remind myself to request for window seat and not next to the wing!
We finally landed after a how-to-sleep-well-on-the-plane flight and CAPE TOWN HERE WE COME!!!
That's the seven of us who went on this trip together.
Greeted by this side of the world South Africa!
And to be pleasantly surprised by the trolley-friendly escalator, time to get many of these in our dear Changi Airport!
Upon arrival, we've already been greeted by the Table Mountain which we've been wanting to see. Now tell me how amazing is that to have such beautiful mountains at the backyard of your city center?
See! This is what they do to save the earth!
Still can't quite believe we were in South Africa Cape Town but the fact is... WE ARE IN CAPE TOWN!
Finally reached our accommodation called
in the city center along the street called
Mandela Rhodes Place is none other than one of the up-market self-catering apartments, ranging from studios to two-bedroom units, it overlooks the St George's Mall with each apartment's decor differing depending on which tower it's located in. With breakfast included, a pool, gym and a few restaurants to begin with. In the city center, extremely convenient to go around I'd say.
A great welcome for us the students from Spotlight Singapore in Cape Town!
Here's some photos of the hotel:
As a group of 3 or 4, we were given the two-bedroom unit with kitchen, laundry and individual bedroom's bathroom facilities.
Unpacked our luggage and since there was a cycling event in the city that day, certain roads were closed thus city orientation tour was postponed and we visited the Castle of Good Hope instead. A whole lot of history behind this castle, the oldest surviving colonial building in South Africa. From 1678 it was the centre of civilian, administrative and military life at the Cape, until the settlement grew and some functions and activities moved away from the Castle. Today the Castle is the seat of the military in the Cape, and houses the Castle Military Museum and Iziko Museums of Cape Town (William Fehr Collection). (With reference from Castle of Good Hope website)
From the top of the castle, we see:
A clearer overview of how the castle looks like from the top:
We then proceeded to the South African Museum to understand about the region's history further.
There was also a wildlife photography 2010 competition which stirred my heart so much, I wanted to take photos of those photos badly but it wasn't allowed and I didn't take the risk. They were photographs of such strong emotions and life out of them, some of them are still clearly etched in my mind... Talk about how photos could depict a thousand words, they really do.
We then walked a little further to the Art Museum where Ernest Cole, a South African photographer had its selection of extremely rare and unpublished photographs from the Swedish Hasselblad Foundation featured there. Cole's photographs demonstrated what it meant to be black under the apartheid regime. The gallery had such a gloomy atmosphere because of the dark history then, very much wanted to take photographs of those photos that said so much about life back then but I was only left with remembering certain snapshots that triggered my heart and mind.
Walked to the Company's Gardens
and made friends with the pigeons
and also the squirrels!
Now and then capturing snapshots of the beautiful architecture
And this is the St George's Mall with quite a bit of restaurants, shopping and stalls which you could purchase souvenirs back home! The city center bursts out into life as early as 8.30am but closes as early as 5pm as well.
Didn't quite dare to roam around too much on our first day, so I just went out of the restaurant we were dining in for dinner together with a male friend to snap a few photos outside by the roads.
We were all too tired by then, so after dinner was totally time to sleep and be ready to meet the next day in the lobby at 8.30am!