Travelog for: Fiona

Hello everyone,

I'm Fiona - a lovable pink bear.

I've just been activated.  I'm at home with 8 other ToyVoyagers waiting for my adventures to begin.  There are 4 "seasoned" Voyagers who seem to have been on loads of adventures between them and also 4 new Voyagers whoare waiting to be activated.

Here I am with my 4 new ToyVoyager friends all ready for our adventures:-

First on the left is Pingu, then the next 2 are as yet unnamed and waiting to be registered. Then there is me the pretty pink bear and at the other end is Kenneth.

I'm starting my adventures by completing one of my life missions - to go to the southern hemisphere.

I'm off to South Africa.  I'm going to be looked after and shown around by a nice lady called Fiona.

I wonder what I'll see and where I'll visit, and will I ever come back home to Keighley?

I've begun my adventues at the main post office in Bradford.

I've been parcelled up and posted off to South Africa this lunchtime.

I hope the journey isn't too long or too hard and I look forward to seeing a new country very soon.

I hope I have lots of adventures that are reported on here and that one day I'll return home to England.

Where I am? 

Am I lost?

Have I arrived in South Africa?  It's been almost 2 weeks since I left England

Hello!

Well I made it  to the Southern Hemisphere at long last, one mission safely accomplished...
I tell you, I could not WAIT to get out of that envelope, I forgot to go to the bathroom before I left home and I was DESPERATE for a pee. Fi rushed me home (Hey! Did you know we have the same name? What a surprise!) and said I had a choice of three loos.

The first one was so cold...why, oh why, did I get sent here in the middle of WINTER? Thank goodness I have fur...so we went to the next one.

That one was in a mess, I guess children live here.

But the third one, oh, that one was just pink...I mean just perfect...



Much relieved, I explored the rest of the bathroom...
Pink up here...



Pink down there...



Not to mention, pink over here!



Well...yawn...I can see there is no shortage of pink in this house...yawn...but I am just too...yawn...tired to keep my eyes open....zzzzzzz

I had such a deep sleep last night. I shared a bed with the other TV in this house, her name is Pinky Bear. Like I said, no shortage of pink around here!

We were so snug and warm that I didn't get up early enough to meet the children before they went to school.

We did get up in time to join a scrapbook class. This was the page everyone was making:



They sure use up a lot of space just to stick photos on a page...



Oh BRILLIANT! There was a champagne breakfast for one of the ladies celebrating a birthday.

And look... SQUEAL! It is all pink!



Hmmm, scones and strawberry jam...I'm starving!

Scrummy!!!

I found another pink room in the house! Fi said no photos till it was tidy... A four year old girl lives in that room. She tidies up by pushing things to the one side of the room or under the bed! Wow, it was a real mess. I helped Fi tidy up as much as I could but we still didn't manage to finish. Maybe tomorrow...

I didn't get to go out today but Vicki came to visit and she brought two TVs with her.
(L-R) Pinky Bear, GrapeApe, Me of course and Emil



They had come to see the 'Bear Collection' and to drop off more bears, I had no idea what they were on about till we went into the room... GOOD GRIEF!!!!



Isn't that rather bizzare? What on earth do they need so many bears for? I decided to keep my mouth shut and not ask. I'll have a word with Pinky later...

Something else I have to ask her is just who THIS dishy bear is. I found him sitting on a shelf with another bear who was quite obviously his younger brother... swoon... he is so handsome. I REALLY need to know all about him. He introduced himself as Threadbear, and his brother as Buttons. Such lovely manners! He is so charming. Where is Pinky? I must find out more...

I am so sad! Threadbear has a girilfriend...all the best ones are taken.

And she is so sweet I can't even steal him away from her! Well, there is no shortage of bears in this house, must be some other handsome  ones in the crowd...sigh...

To cheer me up Fi took me and Pinky Bear with to her beautician, Claire, this morning. We had to drop the children off at school first, but the power went off, so there were no traffic lights working. What a nightmare. It took 45 minutes to go 6 kilometers (3.7 miles). Of course, as soon as we got  the children into the school grounds the traffic lights came back on! Well we eventually got to meet Claire, she let us sit on the treatment chair.

Then Claire asked if we wanted the same done as Fi...




We were about to say 'of course!" till we found out Fi was having her eyebrows waxed...aaarrrrggggghhhhh! Stay away from my fur you crazy woman!!!!

We decided to have a pedicure instead, Claire told us to choose a colour nail polish that we liked...wow! So many choices...



I of course, chose pink... such a lovely colour, and it goes with my...well everything I suppose!




Once we were all prettied up, we got back in the car and headed off to Fi's friend's post box for her (Fi is the unofficial postmaster general among her friends!) She collects all their post for them. No one gets street delivery, it all goes to post boxes like this..



Fi's post box is at the main Post Office in a huge shopping centre, so that is where we headed next...

She parked on the roof to show us the view.

It is funny that on this side it is all farms but directly behind us it is all urban (but a great big wall blocks the view of that)



This is part of the shopping centre. It is called Northgate -there is also a Westgate, Southgate and an Eastgate oddly enough. All service the four corners of Johannesburg, with dozens, probably even hundreds, of smaller shopping centres in between and a few other massive ones too. Because of the crime in Johannesburg, people feel safer in big shopping areas rather than at little corner shops. She says this is a false sence of security!



This is the Coca - Cola Dome, where Expos are held. It is absolutely massive. They hold concerts in there too. This weekend there is an extreme motor show. Guess we won't be seeing that then.



We did a bit of shopping looking for "Bear spares", don't worry I am not falling apart! Threadbear needs them for all the bears coming into Bear Central. Lots of them are damaged in some way or other. Our next port of call was the animal shelter (the SPCA) thrift shop where we were (but of course) looking for more bears (Fi is obsessed with bears at the moment).

I remembered that this was where Threadbear was found , so I was kind of hoping that we might find someone else as interesting... no such luck on the bear front...but I did find this lady dressed in my favourite pink and guess what her name was? Fiona! Can you believe it?



Hmm I wonder what's for lunch. All that shopping has made me hungry...

This afternoon, Fi’s son Shane, had an away soccer match. We sat and watched for a while…



But then we got bored and had a wander around the school. It was so hot in the sun that I had to take my T-shirt off, it was making my fur itch.

If you look between us you can just see the Dome that we were at this morning. I didn’t realise that we are so far away!



The school is on a farm and on farms you need these…



This is the school hall.



Aha! Pinky Bear dared me to ring the bell…but there was a padlock on it! Obviously someone got tired of it ringing when it wasn’t supposed to!



There is a river running through the school property, but it is fenced off to stop the children getting to it I suppose. It also stopped us getting to it…



Oh well we’d better get back to the match, it is about time for Shane’s team to play.

Yesterday was one of those funny days where so much was happening there was no time to photograph it all. Lots of visitors came to the house, first off the breakfast crowd. Fi and some friends have a 'breakfast club'. They used to go out for breakfast, together once a month. Then someone had a 'wise' idea that each family should host breakfast at their home once a month instead.

Wow, what a flurry of activity, starting with Fi waking up early to clean the house quickly (I have mentioned that two young children live in this house?) Then the cooking begins and setting the table. Ooohh! The smells... My tummy was rumbling like mad with the bacon fumes! And black cherries on waffles are my new favourite meal. Fi said I'd have to learn to make them myself if I wanted them more often. No sooner had we cleared up than another lot of guests arrived.... and then another lot! Eventually they all went home and more friends came over for supper.

Fi told me that her husband's grandmother (they don't see eye to eye) once commented (not positively) that the house was like a hotel, with all the comings and going and meals on offer. If you ask me, it is more like Paddington station!

Any way, today was a lot more relaxed. We slept in a bit and then we all had a yummy Father's day breakfast.

After that we climbed into the car, got strapped in and set off for Fi's Mom. We were whizzing down the highway at 120KPH (about 75MPH) when she took these photos so excuse them if they are a bit fuzzy...

First up is Sandton City. Which is one of the biggest and most exclusive shopping centres. It caters mostly to tourists and the wealthy...



There was a large police presence on the roads because it is a long weekend here. South Africa has a shocking road death toll.



This is a typical sight... usually they are even more overloaded. (This was taken on the way back home - you can see the sun is starting to set)



Fi's husband drove past her Mom's off ramp and she wondered what he was up to... he was taking Pinky Bear and I on a little tour! First we drove up a steep winding hill.... (see the tall walls and electric fence? Very typical in Johannesburg)



We stopped at the top to look down...



We are in a part of Johannesburg called 'Upper Houghton' (old wealthy area) If you look behind us you will see a large group of buildings. That is Killarney where Fi's Mom lives. It used to be a predominantly Jewish area, but with everybody immigrating these days (or dying off... it was also full of elderly retirees!) it has become just as cosmopolitan as the rest of Johannesburg. At one stage it was also quite an exclusive suburb and some of the blocks of flats have been very well maintained. Most were built in the 1920s or 30's and were designed in an art deco style.



The part we are looking down on here is lower Houghton, and somewhere down there is the house of none other than the most famous South African, Nelson Mandela. Fi is sorry she doesn't know exactly which one...




Jo'burg is recognised as an urban forest (the largest in the world.)You can see that clearly, behind us! Wall to wall trees...and believe me when I tell you that under the canopy of trees, it is wall to wall houses too...



The road that we are on is called The Munro Drive, it is a National Monument and is listed on the very important sounding "One Hundred Places of Outstanding Cultural, Historical, Architectural, and Natural Interest in Johannesburg" (which sadly reads like a list of places to avoid in Johannesburg if you wish to live to an old age)



On the way back we passed St John's College. A very old, internationally recognised, Church school. Fi's Granddad went there a long, long, long time ago. I bet there was no electric fence in his day...



Then we popped out onto Joe Slovo Drive, which up until recently was known as Harrow Road. Fi says we will soon learn how the present government is obsessed with changing the name of everything! Joe Slovo was a "struggle hero", an anti-apartheid activist, and the street was renamed in his honour to commemorate the tenth anniversary of his death. This is a new bridge that was built across the road. There are a lot of these bridges, which are very cleverly designed. They are put in place at the side of the road and then swung over into place by a crane to minimise traffic disruptions. A massive one was built at the side of a highway and swung over once, which was quite an engineering feat.



This is a memorial for those in the South African Scottish Regiment, who lost their lives in the Great War. It stands in front of the head quarters of the 'Transvaal Scottish' (who haven't changed their name even though the Transvaal is now known as Gauteng Province)



We eventually got to Fi's Mom (it took over an hour to type this up with my tiny little paws but the trip round Houghton only lasted about 15 minutes!) I was very excited to see PINK flowers and some PINK Caithness glass (see a Scottish theme?)

When we got tired of sitting around at Fi's Mom, we all got back into the car and took a little drive down to the Zoo Lake (so named because the 'river', more like a stream, that feeds it, runs through the Zoo which is adjacent to the Lake.)




Oh look! Boats! Please may we have a boat ride?



The two of us were sitting peacefully, enjoying the view...



And the nasty geese got closer, and closer...



Okay, time to leave! Dump the bread and run!


 
Heh, heh! Look what we found!



Red boat or yellow? Red of course! It is nice and pink inside!



My hero!



Okay, it's not quite the Titanic...but my heart will go on!!!!!



Okay, goose, have some bread...just leave me alone now...




That dreadful monstrosity on the horizon is not a stack of Lego; it is in fact the Johannesburg General Hospital. It was built in the 1970s which explains the concrete ugliness. The three tall buildings are the Nurses Residence. Fi used to live in the one on the left...on the 13th floor. The old hospital was so beautiful....



Hey! Not too close... it's a lovely day but it's not hot enough to get wet...



Oh, how pretty! A rainbow...

Fi says she remembers that fountain in the 'old days' when it used to be higher and fuller.



Oh Help!!! Pirates!!! Johannesburg IS a terrible place...you can't even row a boat in safety... Unhand me now you scabby seadogs!



Thank you, Natalie for rescuing me and comforting me. Row us back to shore!



Ah, the boat house. Safety at last... oh no, another killer goose!!!!



This is a very famous restaurant called Moyo, on the lake side. It is an African experience more than a restaurant. There are a few branches through out South Africa.




The waiters were a little odd though...so we had an ice cream instead and went back home...



On the way we passed this...



Then it was back on the highway...do we have these in our country?



We definitely don't get this! My goodness, what an intense sunset!

Well today I witnessed a national institution: The Braai (known in other countries as a barbeque).

The following are valid reasons to have a braai: the sun is shining, there is an important sports event, there is a non important sport event, it is a special occasion, there is more than one person that needs to eat, there is a power failure, it is a day of the week that ends in 'y'. Yep, they pretty much use any excuse.

This is how a braai works:
The woman/women go into the kitchen and prepare a selection or all of the following: potato dish (baked, creamy, salad-whatever), garlic mushrooms, sweet corn, salad (a few types preferably), garlic bread, rice, desert ( a few if possible), tea, coffee all other drinks.









One man braais the meat while drinking a beer. Any other men will form a crowd around him. They will stand and gossip talk about important things like cars. The man will call the woman from the kitchen for another beer, braai tongs, a dish to put the meat on, another beer etc.



The woman will set out all the food that she has prepared: plates, cutlery, glasses, serviettes...

Several decades later the meat will be ready and lunch is served!

Everyone congratulates the man on the wonderful meal he has cooked. He takes full credit. They eat too much red meat and slather butter on everything.

The woman clears up the table and they have dessert.

In this case, milk tart, another national institution. It is baked custard in a pastry shell with cinnamon on top. (Fi cheated, this is a store bought one.) But, Hmmmm...it was yummy!



Then they all lie around wondering why so many South Africans die of heart attacks.

Fi insists that I tell you that all characters in this story are typical stereotypes and in no way reflect on her husband! And she only lets her family have a braai on rare occasions... with strictly controlled butter rations...ha ha ha!

As a special treat Fi and her friends took their children to the Military Museum as they are all 'army' mad (and it is mid term break).




Now you may wonder what a country at the very bottom end of Africa, continents away from the rest of the world would have to fight about. The short answer of course, would be mineral wealth. European Settlers arrived, discovered how fabulous it was here, decided they wanted it and needed to take it away from the Zulu's (who'd already spent plenty of time warring against other local tribes to reach the top)



Then the Afrikaans people (an offshoot from the original Dutch Settlers) decided they were sick of British rule and wanted to be independent. The British didn't care much for that idea and it led to...



Being a British Colony, South Africa was obliged to lend a helping hand in this war...



And then again in this one....



Then they had a problem with the neighbours (with a little Russian interference)...



Quite a lot of action hmm?

Of course during the Apartheid era they were always on alert for the 'Swart Gevaar' (the Black Danger).

As a result there was compulsory Military Conscription. All men did two years each. The boys in Fi's class at school (1988) were (much to their disgust) the last intake of compulsory military training to do two years(1989). Then it petered down to one year and then it ended all together.

Anyway, here are a few photos from the museum in no particular order (we were running after a crowd of 7 and 8 year olds remember?)

First off, a brilliant intellectual mind Jan Christiaan Smuts (Fi remember's her Grandpa saying was remarkably clever man he was - high praise from Grandpa who was a pretty smart man too!) Read the link to see all of his achievements, including being the Prime Minister twice.



Here is evidence of his military achievments:



Here are the two of us on a tank...



...and a really old fire engine (Fi's favourit exhibit by the way!), called a 'Merryweather'.



Fi found a room full of military musical history that she had never seen before on any of her previous visits... maybe it is a new display.



Me hitching a ride on a cousin of Bokkie...



The Springbok was sculpted by an Italian prisoner of war...



Talking of POW's here are the boots and uniform of a Russian POW from the Border Conflict. Naughty Russians, interfering in affairs so far from home!



And here is another Springbok, called Nancy, she was a mascot for the South African Scottish Regiment in Europe during WWI

"During the battle of Delville Wood, a shell exploded in the transport lines close to where Nancy was tethered at the Quarter Master Stores.  Nancy took fright, bolted and broke her left horn against the wall.  This horn began growing downwards at an angle.  The doctors didn't know much about veterinary sciences and weren't about to set it.  Thus, the horn was allowed to continue growing.  To her honour, a gold stripe was added to the Murray Athol tartan coat strapping that Nancy wore."



Up, up and away!



Fi says she needs one of these mounted on her car... (I think she is joking...)



Phew, it is quite a walk around this place, one of the Moms let me hitch a ride...



The sign says no PEOPLE on the tank, don't worry...



Sing with me, 'In the Navy, you can sail the seven seas, in the Navy... 'What? Surely you know the Village People?



Meet Mark...



He's a torpedo...



I'd make you sing 'Yellow submarine' with me, but your singing skills are clearly dodgy, and this submarine is clearly not yellow...



Are we cleared for take off?



What exactly do you mean by 'hold onto your knickers? I'm a bear I am not wearing anyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy……..



We didn't break it! Honest, it was the gazillion kids that have played on it...



Hop in, I'll get us home in no time, it will be a little drafty though...



Time to go home, it is getting rather cold and dark...

Wait a second, what is this?



Fi says to tell you that the memorial stone was laid in 1999, but the statue has been up top there for as long as she can remember (old stuff she remembers, breakfast she doesn't!) Read all about it here



Here is the Angel of Peace, a little closer.

There was much excitement today! Fi went to the Post Office and came back with a large parcel from Russia...

We were dying to see who was inside...



Then we thought, hang on, the box is too big for a TV, this is clearly a parcel for Threadbear so we called him over to open it... I am still getting over him and Eloise...sigh...



As we suspected! More bears! From Kristl



Well we left Threadbear chatting to the new arrivals and headed to the dentist..yikes! 6 month checkup...

Natalie, very bravely went first to get it over and done with... she had a little company though! Go on Nats, open your mouth!



I climbed up to get a closer look... but the the instruments made me nervous, I had to look away.



All clear, no holes for either child, let's get out of here!