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Picture: Sydney Fireworks 2005 (courtesy of www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au)
I wish everyone a very Happy New Year 2007 from Down Under! I watched with friends in Sydney an absolutely amazing firework launched from four ships, five skyscrapers and the prominent Harbour Bridge. And I hope you experienced a wonderful celebration of the New Year!
Picture: Aussies celebrating Christmas Day in the park.
For a different flavor of Christmas we celebrated the 24th of December Down Under in Sydney, Australia. Besides enjoying the warm but not too hot sun and a casual stroll across the lush Royal Botanical Garden we attended Anglican Christmas Mass at the St.Andrews Church in downtown Sydney. I was personally amazed by the casual attire (shorts and tank-tops) of the attendees and even more by the sophisticated use of PowerPoint during the ceremony: the sermon and the lyrics for the songs were displayed on the big screen over the priest’s head. So on a light-hearted note: Merry Christmas to everyone!
Picture: Hyde Park Barracks where the first deportees where housed in Sydney.
England in the 18th century was in the grip of industrialization. While some were busy marking fortunes many were left out and forced into petty crimes. Deserting from the army for example was punished with seven years of ‘transportation’, robbery or stealing with life ‘transportation’. Transportation was a euphemism for deportation to Australia. The first 700 convicts from England arrived in 1788 and swell to a whopping 160’000 in total.
Nowadays the ‘aussies’ are not very keen to be reminded of the unpleasant past and Sydney is more known for the Opera House, the Harbour Bridge and Bondi Beach. But with over a dozen museums, several theatre houses, a lively restaurant scene and an even more active gay scene, Sydney has more to offer than just beer, bunnies and beaches.
Picture: The Blue Hotel Cafe inside the Harbor Wharf building.
Sydney is a thriving city with a booming economy and a bubbly property market. This has led to some splendid developments like the former Woolloomooloo wharf that got transformed into a posh residential and hospitality centre. With its trendy Blue Hotel and its 100 rooms overlooking Woolloomooloo Wharf and its many outdoor restaurants it is a place to drink, eat, relax and sleep. The hotel boasts contemporary rooms housed in the lofty Wharf building. In the womb of the building one can find a trendy bar surrounded by even trendier restaurants. For additional snazz it is best to arrive in a boat. www.tajhotels.com/
Picture: For best views go to Café Sydney at Circular Key
For best views of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House you best take the elevator up to the Café Sydney in the top floor of the Custom House located on Circular Key. With a cool black interior design and yummy food it is the place to be seen. Go either for dinner or just a drink at the dazzling bar.
Picture: The maxi yacht Kokomo in Woolloomoolloo Harbor, Sydney.
Sydney is the city by the sea and on any given day dozens of boats cruise the waters around Sydney harbor. This was the case five years ago when I first visited Sydney and is still true today. What has changed is the size of the boats. The biggest sailing boat in the pond at the moment is the 130 feet maxi yacht Kokomo. The boat is owned by a local real estate magnate and carries a hefty price-tag of almost 30mio.$. And it costs about 3mio.$ a year to keep it afloat and running. But just having the money is not all it takes to keep such a yacht running. Clearly the biggest challenge is to find a good crew to man the boat. With maxi yachts in the world multiplying the quest for good crews (the best apparently are New Zealanders) has intensified.
Picture: A fake gold bar as I was not allowed to take pictures inside the safe. For obvious reasons...
I am sure you have seen a Hollywood movie where thieves broke into an elaborately guarded high-security safe? Then you would also have seen fancy technology being employed to safeguard the valuables in the safe, right? It is much less dramatic in real-life. I know because I recently toured the biggest safe on mainland Europe operated by UBS bank in Zurich. The massive vault holds up to 2’500 tons of gold, silver, platinum and rhodium on palettes. The safe is rather unspectacular with two enormous safety doors and ample video-surveillance located beneath an office building. Inside it looks rather like a normal storage area with palettes with precious metals stacked to the ceiling. A palette of gold for example weighs one ton and a gold bar is worth 250’000 Swiss Francs. When they first loaded the safe the floor dropped one centimeter! To my disappointment most gold bars were unpolished and therefore did not shine. The inside of the safe was in general very industrial and not fancy at all. Nevertheless I was able to hold 1.5mio. Swiss Francs worth of Rhodium in a tin-can.
PS: A curiosity was the fist-sized platinum blocks with the stamp of the USSR on it. The Soviet Union and now Russia are the biggest platinum producer in the world.
Picture: A 1973 Jaguar E-Type in front of the Michelin Castle near Geneva.
When I was a kid I visited friends in Geneva and the father, Pierre-Alain, had a magnificent Jaguar E-Type in his garage. I recently revisited them again and he still has this rare vintage car from 1973 in his garage. This time he fully restored it himself and he took me for a ride. What a feeling of speed combined with noise and fumes. Forget about all the new Porsches and Ferraris, this is style beyond questioning!
Picture: The Jaguar is restored by hand by its proud owner and my friend, Pierre-Alain.
Picture: Bohemian Café Neumarkt in Zurich.
One of my favorite places in the old town of Zurich to hang out is Café Neumarkt. The café features a bohemian atmosphere with delicious antipasti plates. The building houses not only houses a café but also a small theatre. http://www.theaterneumarkt.ch/
Picture: the new Bentley Arnage making a descent.
Venerable English car-brands have had a mixed past with their German and American owners. Bentley is one of them who made mostly thanks to its widely popular Continental GT model. The GT has become such a run-away success that it is ubiquitous in Zurich. Almost, that is. But if you look for something more classic, something the queen of England for example drives (or is driven in), you have to look at the new Bentley Arnage model. The newly redone model (but it still looks almost the same) was presented in Zurich in a very tasty and eye-catching show at the Unterwerk Selnau, a small copy of the Tate Modern Museum in London (it was also a former power generation building). In a perfect show with a rather dull presentation by the German CEO of Bentley, the new Arnage descended from its suspended position in midair. Nevertheless the most fascinating aspect of the show was the little booth of the two English craftsmen from Bentley who displayed the art of making veneer and leather for the car’s interior: all handmade and all very pricey.
Picture: the little Tate Modern in Zurich
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