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Fort Lauderdale, is where we were to embark on an Eastern Caribbean Cruise. Here I realised that I'd been a bit too critical of Miami, that had begun to grow on me. Perhaps it was fungal? Fort Lauderdale was my new new bête noire.
Despite the apparent green, much of Fort Lauderdale is an urban desert. We didn't have a car and it's not pleasant to walk around.
But very shortly we would be on the boat.
Following our Japan trip in May 2017 we all returned to Hong Kong, after which Craig and Sonia headed home and Wendy and I headed to Shenzhen in China.
I have mentioned both these locations as a result of previous travels. They form what is effectively a single conurbation divided by the Hong Kong/Mainland border and this line also divides the population economically and in terms of population density.
These days there is a great deal of two way traffic between the two. It's very easy if one has the appropriate passes; and just a little less so for foreign tourists like us. Australians don't need a visa to Hong Kong but do need one to go into China unless flying through and stopping at certain locations for less than 72 hours. Getting a visa requires a visit to the Chinese consulate at home or sitting around in a reception room on the Hong Kong side of the border, for about an hour in a ticket-queue, waiting for a (less expensive) temporary visa to be issued.
With documents in hand it's no more difficult than walking from one metro platform to the next, a five minute walk, interrupted in this case by queues at the immigration desks. Both metros are world class and very similar, with the metro on the Chinese side a little more modern. It's also considerably less expensive. From here you can also take a very fast train to Guangzhou (see our recent visit there on this website) and from there to other major cities in China.
These recollections are by Ross Smith, written when he was only 86 years old; the same young man who subsequently went to war in New Britain; as related elsewhere on this website [read more...]. We learn about the development of the skills that later saved his life and those of others in his platoon. We also get a sense of what it was to be poor in pre-war Australia; and the continuity of that experience from the earlier convict and pioneering days from which our Australia grew. *
I have reached a point in my life when the death of a valued colleague seems to be a monthly occurrence. I remember my parents saying the same thing.
We go thought phases. First it is the arrival of adulthood when all one's friends are reaching 21 or 18, as the case may be. Then they are all getting married. Then the babies arrive. Then it is our children's turn and we see them entering the same cycle. And now the Grim Reaper appears regularly.
As I have repeatedly affirmed elsewhere on this website, each of us has a profound impact on the future. Often without our awareness or deliberate choice, we are by commission or omission, continuously taking actions that change our life's path and therefore the lives of others. Thus our every decision has an impact on the very existence of those yet to be born.