Broome Festival

  This is a great time of year to pick up a broom. A Broome pearl, that is.  A second business trip to this vacation oasis in the far north of Western Australia could not have been better timed.

   There is a big festival going on – the Shinju Matsuri.  It is commonly referred to as the Broome Festival.  This is a celebration of the Asian and Pearl culture in the area.  An industry once highly dangerous for its shark-infested, oxygen-depriving ‘naked dives’  has evolved into  a high-science, cultured pearl industry.   With the trials and tribulations of those early days long gone, a highly diverse population embraces its past and celebrates the gold-colored nacred beauties  that have put Broome on the map.

Broome Fest Dragon parade

   The Festival starts with a bang…literally.  Firecrackers go off and the Dragon parade starts winding its way through Chinatown.  Stephen “Baamba” Albert, an Aboriginal folk singer regales revelers with songs about ‘saltwater cowboys’ (read:  pearl divers) and food trucks keep us fed.

Baamba sings of saltwater cowboys

Staircase to the Moon

    For another week and a half, the party continues with special markets, art exhibitions, athletic events, motor stampedes, musical performances including a night of Opera Under the Stars, a popular long-table luncheon and a gala ball.  The big highlight, around which the Festival is always scheduled, is the Staircase To The Moon.  The natural phenomenon of the Staircase to the Moon occurs between March and October when the full moon rises over the exposed mudflats of Roebuck Bay at extremely low tide creating the optical illusion of a staircase reaching for the moon.  It draws big crowds, many of whom walk the low tide area with has receded from its original shoreline by almost a mile. Not too dramatic an appearance this month and a greater camera than mine is needed to capture it, but it was fun.

 

Broome courthouse markets

    Another delightful phenomenon is the appearance of dragonflies.  The court house market has some beautiful, framed silk lightboxes , mostly with dragonfly motifs.  In fact, many crafted items have the dragonfly motif on them. A popular design at the time of my wedding, I have a soft spot for the double-winged beauties.  For Broomers, dragonflies signify the end of the rainy season.  They come in like locusts , but far from pests, they  eat all the mosquitoes the rainy season also brought in.  Dragonfly appearances also indicate that the warm ocean currents will start bringing the whale migration and that comfortable weather is coming.

    Perfect for the Festival of Broome.

Sunday Shopping

  Good things come to those who wait…and wait…and wait.  The state of Western Australia was ‘founded’ by English colonists  in 1829.  Fast forward 183 years and it is only now legal to buy a loaf of bread, a pillow case or clock radio anywhere in the state on a Sunday.  Welcome Sunday shopping, you were a long time coming.

   I come from the land of 24-hour shopping.  Odd work shifts or sleeping habits did not leave a person outside the world of consumer commerce.  It is entirely too easy to get used to that convenience.  Indeed, ease gives rise to expectation.  Imagine my surprise and culture shock when I moved to Perth just a few years ago to find that the sidewalks were rolled up at 5:30pm daily and buildings practically boarded up on Sundays.  How did a working person shop?  Two options: fight the crowds on Saturday mornings or go out on the government-approved Thursday Late Night Shopping. Stores stayed open until 9p.m.  and it was actually a family event for many people.  I could not hide my incredulity at what seemed a comical sight:  Whole families slowly strolling down aisles ooohing and aaaahing  the grocery shelves as if taking in the latest exhibition at the Art Gallery. Cracked me up this did.

    Why was this so?  Why would the state government care about retail trading hours, much less regulate commerce? The government was protecting the little guy from the Goliaths.  Small business owners felt they could not compete against the big corporations and beseeched the state government to help them by limiting hours of trade, especially for shops of certain consumer goods.  Slowly, over the last 25 years, this has been evolving  to respond to the needs of  nontraditional work and family models as well as joining contemporary business thinking.  Sunday shopping  and extended hours were allowed in the tourist inhabited downtown area of Perth.  The tourist zone was widened into the suburbs. Certain consumer goods were exempt from the laws.  And finally, the last weekend of August, the last veil dropped and all is fair in commerce and war.  Sunday Shopping had arrived in Western Australia! Great fanfare, sales, giveaways and  entertainment sirened “come hither” to people not used to handling their wallets on the seventh day.

    All this is still a far cry from round-the-clock cash register ecstasy, but it feels a whole lot less like Pluto here in Perth.

Secret Men's Business

   Secret men’s business. You heard about this in the Crocodile Dundee movies. No women allowed in these bush meetings , also called corroborees, although there are Secret Women’s Business corroborees that men are not allowed to witness. Who knows what goes on at these campfire meetings? I may never know. But then, I don’t get out in the remote bush that often, either.

   Most of us live in cities and this requires a shift in venue and likely a shift in focus. Introducing the Men’s Shed. Not usually a small structure made of the corrugated metal and housing lawn mowers, weed wackers and garden tools like we all had in the corner of our backyards growing up. Men’s Sheds are solid buildings, large enough for all of the big boy toys. And the occasional female who crosses its portal as I recently did on a trip to Geraldton.

   The Men’s Shed in Geraldton, Western Australia is an impressive boys clubhouse. A former liquor store, it is a cavernous place with many rooms. Fronted by a sitting area and kitchenette, each room exposes an impressive collection of wood working machines, table saws , neat storage areas, hand tools stored in an old walk-in refrigerator and a camp cot at the back in case of emergency. The 43 members , aged 25-82, occupy spare hours chatting, wood and metal working, yard work in the community and the occasional men’s health chat with a local nurse.



Viking funeral ship

    Their finished pieces – as small as ipod holders to chairs, cabinets and even guitars- are largely for sale and they take special orders. On display during my visit was a small scale Viking ship. A widower promised is wife a proper Nordic funeral pyre and commissioned the Men’s Shed to make the faithful reproduction. Her ashes will have a proper send off.



Blokes being blokey

    I’m afraid no secret men’s business was conducted while I was there with Bob, 72, giving me a tour of the place. Storming the Bastille, as it were, produced no secret revealing results, but it was an interesting snapshot into the pastime of Australian men.

Babysitting: A social study (and quick way to $$$)

    Remember babysitting? It was likely your entry into the money making world. Never mind that it paid significantly less than minimum wage, we were wage earners and that was cool. For awhile. Then we learned that minimum wage paid three times as much per hour and couldn’t wait to older and get a real job. Imagine: $2.35 to a walloping $2.65 an hour for non kidstuff kind of work! I started out at 75¢ an hour looking after the rabbi’s kids. My older sister, Anne, raked in 35¢ an hour on her first sitting jobs.


    It is so not the same today. Babysitting rates have surpassed the minimum wage. Greedy teens or is the minimum wage shockingly low? Admittedly, the avenues for teens to earn money seem to dry up as traditional jobs like paper routes are done more and more by adult contractors (‘paper adult’ sounds odd) or automation. A quick poll of friends in North America through a social network site shows that rates generally well exceed the Federal minimum wage of $7.25/hr. One friend with a single child is getting away with $6/hr but most are coughing up $10, even $12 for college kids. A much-older-than-13 former colleague wailed that some of these rates were more than he was currently getting paid.

     Curiosity turned into a social study when I started asking about babysitting rates here in Perth. I expected the situation to be exactly the same but with a higher rate. The government minimum wage here is $16 an hour. And well, teenagers are teenagers the world over, so the rate must be higher, right?

    Sort of. Polling people at church on Sunday came up with a big zero. None hired outside help. Junior was always watched by grandparents or the occasional switched favors with other couples. So I started asking people I did not know in church and they said pretty much the same thing. Well, all these folks are church goers and maybe that makes a difference. I accosted a few pram pushing people on the street and guess what? Pretty much the same story there also, although one suggested that I look up a particular babysitting website. Doing so came up with mature adults asking for $20-$25 /hour depending on the time of day. Not a significant jump from the $15 asked by one parishioner 20 years ago when he babysat as an older teen.

     What does this mean? Do Australians have much closer knit, highly supportive families than back home or are they just too cheap to pay the neighbor kid to watch theirs? One parent posited that maybe babysitting was an American thing, but her husband was not so quick to draw such a conclusion. Western Australia is heavily populated with people from other places and not all would have moved here with extended family in tow. Those folks will have to choose between not going out or shelling out .

     Whatever the situation, I’m brushing up on my diaper changing skills. Just in case…

"I Am Eleven" ... and so was I

    After work today I had a private showing of the film, "I Am Eleven."  Private because no one else cared to spend a Friday dinner hour in a movie theater.  Pity, this is an interesting flick by Genevieve Bailey made at a time in her life when touching base with life's happy days in others would hopefully be a tonic for her own troubled soul.  She took a camera into 15 different countries and talked to 11 year-olds  in all different kinds of circumstances from all over the globe to get their perspectives on their lives. Her camera work - from my professional point of view- is sub, subpar [why do folks think that the ability to hold a camera is the sole qualification of a pro videographer? WRONG , people! ] and she is sometimes editorially heavy handed  but this is an interesting look at what definitely is  a great age. Kids from Sweden to India, the UK to Japan and a few around the edges share their opinions of themselves and their world at large. I recommend it for anyone who is, will be or was eleven.

    But this got me to thinking about Hilary at age 11. So who was I?  What did I have to say?  My best hope for discovery are my own diaries.  I have been keeping diaries (sometimes more off than on) since 1971.  And yes, that still makes me 29 today. ahem.   My first diary was a pink patent leather Five Year Diary with a lock.  My mom inscribed it with "I love you a bushel and a peck"  and I recognize my dad's handwriting in a few entries ("Today Hilary washed her hair.")   What I don't find is evidence of my future destiny and brilliance.  Or I hope not, anyway.  I dutifully marked church choir practices, especially  those when we were afterwards treated to Dairy Queen, and days when I received a letter in the mail.  The appearance and name of substitute teachers also seemed important.  On February 7, 1971  it says "Today I had the bigest (sic) laugh in all my life" but absolutely no clue given as to the source of the merriment.  February 11, 1972 "Nothing really happened today".  And on December 7, 1974, I got word that my elementary school best friend, a gorgeous Argentinian girl named Claudia Levy, died of leukemia. Some long forgotten bullying at a hands of  a few girls pops up, but otherwise not much insight in this book.

    The next couple of books are a bit better. My younger sister's long habit of  thieving and abusing clothes from my closet are well documented.  My lazy and annoying brothers have a long list of grievances to answer for.  Money-and the lack of it-gained great importance and many appearances.  The ebb and wane of relationships well documented. I am startled at how some issues are as much a concern today as then (actually, 'disturbed' is a better word than startled)  and pleased to see that I have moved forward in other issues.

    These diaries will never be made into best selling books.  Anne Frank, John Adams and nannies in the big city have no competition from my direction to worry about.  But they sure to make interesting reading.  I have some saved letters that also track the journey of my time in foreign countries like South Korea and the exchange with longtime pen pal, my German cousin Antje.  I don't call these books and correspondence clutter, but delightful ephemera.  Don't have a journal history?  Start one now. It's easy. Painless.  You'll thank yourself later.

Girls In White Dresses

    It's First Communion time at our church.  Boys in vests, shirts and ties -- save one who showed up in his best blue & red plaid flannel shirt -- and girls in white dresses.  No veils, though. Either they are out of vogue in general or just not worn here in OZ. You'll notice a few faux fur capes, though.  It's winter here.  The daytime temp was 62F.  Brrrrrrrrrrr. I like the sight of it all. 

Weddings 2 Love

   Walking home from church there are more white dresses for girls displayed prominently in the window facing the main street. Drool, drool, drool.  It is a new wedding dress shop. Wedding dresses for women "of size".  And this specialty makes it unusual indeed. Weddings 2 Love starts where most bridal shops leave off.  Yes, leave off.  Most bridal shops here in Western Australia refuse to stock dresses larger than a size 12 - which in North American sizes is a 10.  Even stores run by plus-sized women unapologetically refuse to carry or order larger sizes.    Unbelievable.    In a land where the public health sirens shriek "We're one Big Mac away from looking like Americans" , merchants are in complete denial about their customer base.  Weddings 2 Love starts at size 14 and goes to 34.  I like the way many of the styles proprietor Donna picks have lots of detailing at the top part of the dress instead of the bottom.  Why draw everyone's attention to the bride's knees when her glowing face is above her neck? And most of the dresses have a thin chiffon ethereal look without adding weight to the overall appearance.  Alas, to my tastes at least, there are too many strapless gowns.  Brides love them but I think too few are done real justice by them. Oh well.  It is a treat to walk and gawk past these ever-changing windows.


   This brings up the question of fashion for the Reubenesque figure.  I've heard women comment (and sometimes noticed myself) that whatever is in style this year in Europe and the US will take about a year or so to make to Australia.  Make that two decades for larger sized clothing.   Just as larger women (and pregnant ones, also) used to complain that the only clothing available seemed to be shapeless polyester with entirely too much wide elastic banding, Australian women are left wanting also.  Where was the sharp business wear?  The hot evening wear? The I-still-have-some-self-respect wear?  The  US garment industry got the message and responded. Larger Australian women wear clothing made of uneven patchwork squares (supposed to fool the eye this is)  and ghastly clingy thin polyester (count my rolls of flesh, please.)  I believe that online shopping from foreign companies that understand this need will shorten the fashion learning curve here in OZ.  
   I hope so, anyway.

   

Grace Kelly and Me

Grace Kelly in my dress

   I met up with Grace Kelly recently just outside of Melbourne.  Yes, THE Grace Kelly.  As we got to know each other I discovered just how much we have in common.  Beauty, grace, regal bearing....not exactly.  We have very similar tastes in clothing.  The "shirtwaist" style of dress, in particular.

   But let's start at where I met Grace.  At the Bendigo Art Gallery.   In an exhibition that was all about her: Grace Kelly , Style Icon.  I'm not big on blondes --either  bleached, cutsie-poo or vamp -- but there is a cool beauty radiating from this Pennsylvania native turned Princess.  

Grace Kelly movie costumes

   This exhibition started with  costumes from some of her movies-gifts from the studio to their star. We saw them in the movies and now we get to ogle them up close.  Rather slender our gal was. And the detailing in some of the costumes is admirable.  One dress has a zipper from the end of a cap sleeve to mid-rib with gussets in the armpits.  Grace would have needed a dresser to help with that zipper. 

   The stories and histories that came with some of the costumes practically  made them come alive. The dress she wore the day she first met Prince Rainier of Monaco for a movie publicity event is notable.  Her hotel had a power outage that morning. Grace had to pick the only dress that didn't require ironing to wear for the event. It was the dress she modeled for McCalls for their upcoming pattern book!  Moral of this story: if you didn't catch a handsome prince it is because you don't sew.  I like the way Grace frequently wore dresses more than once, including some of the very famous movie costumes. She referred to favorite dresses as "old friends" which needed visiting every so often.  I told you we were similar. 

Grace's wedding dress

   Everyone ooohs and aaaahs over her wedding dress. I think it looks rather constricting and itchy with all that lace against bare skin.  But walking around the entire dress,  I was rather amused to find that the back style of the dress  little related to the front and is entirely more to my liking.  

   I'm afraid the back half of the exhibition seems to creep downhill a bit.  The 70's were not happy years for fashion and our Grace preferred to cover her now more matronly figure with the caftans favored at the time. Ugh.  Monaco is famous for  its costumed charity balls. Grace's costumes to some of them live on in infamy.

1929-82

   But to each his own. If you find yourself in Melbourne between now and June 17th, head north to Bendigo.  My friend Grace Kelly is waiting to meet you.

Escaping the City

    Sometimes the open road just calls your name.  Maybe it is just a whisper, but....

An Autumn walk in Hepburn

    On a recent trip to Melbourne, we decided to flee the City and drove north.  It is autumn, rainy, uncrowded and the road is inviting.  First stop is Daylesford, a town of natural mineral spas, wombat and former mining that on this autumn day could easily be a movie location for somewhere in Connecticut. There are deciduous trees in these parts and the colors are vivid.  The only thing missing were carved jack o'lanterns on porches. There were moments when it felt less an escape and more of a return.   

Mineral spring water pump

    This area  has a lot of natural mineral springs. Public water pumps push out water from its own spring with its own taste.  Fortunately, few have the sulfur (or rotten egg) tinge that many people associate with  such springs. Most of these have a pleasant bicarbonate tingle to them.  Indeed, since 'once upon a time' the town of Kyneton has made a mint bottling their spring water for the souls in need of refreshment.  Kev and I did a water tour of the area.  Not quite the same as winery hopping , but hey, we're flexible.

Hepburn  Spa private tub

    I  wanted to bathe in the natural spring, so we went to Hepburn Springs ["Australia's Spa Town"] and to Hepburn Spa.   More rainy, bright leafed, October type of weather with a breadcrumb trail of yellow leaves leading us to the door.  We skipped the public pool with its chlorine mixed water and went right to the pricier private bath tubs that are exclusively  mineral water.  The mineral deposits crusting on the end of the spigot will tell you there is truth in their advertising.  The mineral constitution of the water is etched onto the side of the bathtub. Special luxury bath salts and moisturizers are part of the grand, one-hour experience.  Expensive as all get-out but I fairly coasted through the remainder of the day.

Chestnuts on e-grill

   Now, regular readers of this blog know that I rarely pass up a chance to ogle roadside produce stands.  Chestnuts were coming into season and we bought some from the back of the farmer's truck.  Where to roast them?  On the ubiquitous free electric barbeque grills found in every community park.  I started to hum "Chestnuts roasting on a 'lectric bbq, oh that misty rain it blows" while the roasting chestnuts started to burst at the X we cut into a side.   Quite the fun snack.

The Mall in Bendigo

   Eventually  we came to a public strip called Pall Mall complete with statue of Queen Victoria, a few mid-19th century domed buildings, shaped topiary and an idyllic air. London, England? Nope, Bendigo.  Bendigo must be Australian for El Dorado.  As with nearby Ballarat, gold was discovered here.  No longer lying by a tiny streambed but mined quite deep in the earth. Great depths and experience require a greater admission charge and cheapskates like us have already read the placards elsewhere, so we felt no need to pull out our wallets even for the chance to get dirty. Only Bendigo Bank is still mining at sea level.  There is a branch on every street corner...in addition to their three-block long national headquarters building.

Bendigo Pottery

     The Bendigo Pottery is quite famous and nearby.  Perfect to spend  a rainy morning here looking at the pottery being made, strolling through their top grade  collectibles (all kinds of curios) shop and, of course, purchase an item or two of the famous pottery.  Picked up a two-cup teapot for all the guests I have coming in the next two months.

     And then there is  the  Beechworth Bakery.  It's Australia's Greatest Bakery--it says so right on their sign.  The best item to pick up to test this claim is their signature BeeSting.  It looks like a cream puff with a touch of apricot jam to set it above the rest.  My mother-in-law, laid low in the hospital, seemed to make a quick recovery and quick work of the lemon torte and beesting  we brought to her on our way to the airport to go home.

    Did I mention that I met Grace Kelly on this trip? No?  That will have to wait for the next postcard.

A Western Australian Tourist

At The Pinnacles

Roo on road

   Recently a Canadian friend, Mike, came to visit us.  He had been hobnobbing around SouthEast Asia and made the detour to Perth before flying back to Alberta.  Mike did the usual touristy things: visit some natural phenomena, take photos of exotic road kill, check out what the foreign grocery stores have, buy some souvenirs and taste the local cuisine.  Standard recipe for a short stay in a foreign place. And we were happy to be his hosts.
    Where all this became unhappily memorable is the experience he has doubtless  shared with many tourists to the state of Western Australia.  It can be wickedly expensive.  For his greater comfort, Mike had opted to stay at a hotel shortly after his arrival. The few rooms listed at $100 a night had booked out weeks ago. Many, MANY phone calls later, we found a hotel at the fringes of downtown that actually had openings for several days... at any price.  Sunday's bed at The Melbourne came with a price tag of $160. O.K. but there is no such thing as a 'weekly rate' and the final bill for four nights came to over $1000.  The staff was friendly enough but not really knowledgeable about what was beyond their doors. And the serious skewer came when Mike needed a few pairs of socks and underwear laundered to get him through the end of the trip. The Hilary & Kev Laundry Service is free but the laundry service at the hotel was more immediate and potentially less embarrassing.  And it was considerably  more expensive.

Comparing prices

    To the tune of $5 PER SOCK. 

    Hotels always charge a premium but this boggled the mind. They insisted that they receive not a single cent from the outside service that picks up the laundry orders.  Mike's irate calls to the Tourism WA office, Better Business Bureau, Mayor's Ombudsman and anybody else who would pick up their phone came up with the same answer.  "It's a 'boom' economy. It's what the traffic will bear."   And it is complete and utter nonsense.  The 'boom' isn't that big and there is no fine line between what the traffic will bear and wanton greed.

    Tourism WA is trying desperately to get Sandgropers (residents of WA) to vacation in the state.  Who are they kidding?  One can fly to Bali with five nights in a hotel for the price of two nights in a Perth hotel.  It is trying with all the energy and lack of circumspection of a 13 year-old to court moneyed Chinese tourists to come here as well.   The Chinese, with their fabled business acumen,  won't need too long before they figure out that making money by doing the same for less here is a better plan than endlessly dropping dollars at overpriced establishments.  Once a destination gets a reputation for "shaving the heads" of  its tourists ( a very popular sport in Vietnam) it can be hard to shake.  Word of mouth and tour books  can do damage to a place's image for years beyond the actual fact.  Tourism WA needs to work more on the experience tourists will have once here.  The Australian attitude of  "if you don't like it, lump it" has no place in the hospitality industry--especially in this state.

   It turns out that Mike was charged $5 per pair of socks.  And if you are a guest of ours, count on free laundry (Kev will do it if guys are sensitive about their unmentionables)  and a far greater sense of hospitality. Everyone else...well, do come to see some of WA's natural wonders but with a little more money than you might think.

Time Affects Our Vision

     Funny how Time can affect our vision.  Take today, April 14, for example.  The 100th anniversary of the sinking of the unsinkable ship HMS Titanic.  Far from being just another ship going down in an ocean,  this maritime disaster has spawned an industry of its own.  Treasure hunters, movie makers, playwrights, song writers, museums and uncountable romantic tragics  have elevated this incident from a cautionary tale of marine safety into a full blown fairytale.  Beyond fairytale...we were, nay, are there...dressed and setting sail a full century later.

    April 14 marks another big day :  my arrival into Australia in 2008.  Has it really been four years?!  Where does time go?  I arrived in Perth in the middle of the night and when I woke up in the morning I dashed over to the library to get my library card. That day, and each day for several weeks beyond, was filled with discovery and new things for the mind to digest.  But even then I feared it all becoming too commonplace. That is when I started these postcards--before this city and country lost its 'newness'.   Familiarity may or may not breed contempt, but it sure does promote tunnel vision. And recently I became all too aware that I have become as quite myopic as the locals.

   I was returning from a quick errand on our side of downtown.  It was such a nice day that I decided to walk home rather than take a bus.  Taking a shortcut to the bridge would have me avoid playing chicken with cars at a major traffic circle.   It  would also expose  a piece of the city I had never seen before.  From the elevated seating of a bus, this small strip of land looks like a tree-lined bike path next to a municipal parking lot.  From ground level, it is a hidden park complete with an extensive playground set, Aboriginal interpretive center and a bike & kayak rental barn.

    This park is but a half mile from my home.  However did I miss this? I feverishly thought of excuses: tree cover keeps this hidden from commuters, my left knee keeps me from bicycling on the bike paths, it's the "wrong side" of the river, etc.      The truth is that I have put on the same blinders that so many others  wear.  We each follow our same path each day without variance , without seeing what we look at.   A life of routine.
     Routine is a voracious eater of Time.  I shouldn't wonder that four years have elapsed without me noticing.  So I vow that I will get off the same over-trodden path or vary my routine on a regular basis from here on out.   I am looking forward to more discoveries.