Cape Town, South Africa pt.II waterfront

We woke up early to  visit the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront; unfortunately we missed the free shuttle from the hotel to the harbour. This actually turned out to be a good thing as under the blue skies and lovely weather we took a 20 minute leisure walk absorbing the sights along the way.

Honestly i love this beautiful city! Now to get my penthouse + mini yacht for my weekend home…

 

The V&A Waterfront is partially built on top of the docks of the Port of Cape Town where ships still do enter and leave. On the way we caught the site where Les Miserables shot it’s opening scene. What a contrast as the scene was so dark, gloomy and intimidating while the sun was shinning brightly into it that day. And of course i couldn’t resist fooling around in front of Elliot; the sitting Coca Cola man. Towering at 18m high; its completely made of 4200 coca cola crates! If you’re as curious as I am on how it holds up; its hollow inside where a metal framework is housed…

 

We were lucky as the Food Market was open (Wednesdays to Sundays 0930 – 1930) so we popped in for some sensory curiosity. If was filled with cute stalls of Biltong (very South African! its dried cured meat ranging from beef to game meats), chocolates, hungarian chimney cakes, argentinian empanadas etc.

Further down was the actual wharf filled with shopping and nice eatery areas. Truthfully the vibe was very similar to the waterfront of Sydney; with loads of activities along the wharf and people just soaking up the sun.

 

A local crew recommended Quay 4 for their delicious burgers; however as it was a bustling Sunday we were greeted with a long queue. We couldn’t be bothered to wait so we headed upstairs to the chain restaurant of Ocean’s Basket. Ordered the calamari 3 ways this time; grilled, deep fried and chilli calamari for R83.50/USD10.

Good fresh cheap seafood = happy me. Add beautiful weather to a beautiful city with awesome company; I really couldn’t ask for more.

Cape Town, South Africa pt.I Camps Bay

There’s a thing called the swap shop among the cabin crew. You go online to this application and with 2 willing crew, they could swap duties; the destinations they wanted to go to on conditions that it was legal (flying legalities are a whole complex issue, with calculations so that each crew gets enough off days and rest in between flights).

My first duty swap was a Kuala Lumpur flight to Cape Town in South Africa. Now this will be my first time to the African continent and boy was i excited. Till now my image of Africa are lions calmly munching on silly tourists in safaris and Shakira singing WakaWaka (. . . she’s not even from the African continent to begin with…)

table mountain. say ‘oooo’ with me

Now Cape Town is apparently Africa’s most popular tourist destination; and its famous for its harbour and Table Mountain. This table mountain majestically surrounds the city; almost hugging it in a tight pocket, and its so BIG, FLAT and IN-YOUR-FACE that you could see it when standing anywhere in the city. I was excited to get up onto the mountain as soon as we landed.

However the weather wasn’t favourable for a ride up to the mountain, so we took a cab to camps bay for dinner instead. Yea you need clear blue skies to enjoy it. If you’re covered in clouds blocking every view, whats the point? Anyway Camps Bay is a quick 15 minute ride from the city centre; costing about R120/USD13 one way. Its a hip eatery area and has pretty cool bars overlooking the beach.

check out the ominous clouds hanging about…

 

What happened to my tourist munching lions and african drums? HAHA so i had the wrong impression. Cape Town is famous for their seafood and wines. We popped into one of the beachfront restaurants and got ourselves a platter of kingklip and king prawns for R90/USD10 each. They were really fresh and simply grilled without any fancy-smancy herbs or chilli filled sauces which personally was great because it brought out the natural sweetness of the prawns! Local seafood to try in Cape Town if you ever do get the chance to; yellowtail, cape salmon, kingklip, kabeljou, mussels, oysters, prawns. =)