Summer 2009

Here are a couple of things we did over the summer.
We went to the horse races when we were in Dallas-Ft Worth visiting Alonda's sister and dad. Jim got the biggest win. He went by one of the automatic machines and noticed that someone had left their winnings on it, so he pushed the button and won!
We went to a semi-pro baseball game between the Ft Worth Cats and the Grand Prairie Air Hogs. Jim managed to get his picture with the mascot. He likes the logo enough to be a fan (if he lived near there!)
It sure looked like the Air Hogs were going to win, but the Ft Worth Cats pulled it out in the last two innings and won.
This is what a "pork project" looks like. Representative Norm Dicks with Govenor Gregoire (in green) and the Secretary of Transportation are all doing the ribbon cutting for a 200 meter tunnel in Bremerton. It makes it easier for the cars to leave the ferry boat and head for the freeways.

This will be the only time in history that pedestrians will be allowed to walk through the tunnel.

They put some money into decorating the insides. This will give the drivers something to look at as they whiz past all that art work on the walls.

The local classic car club brought out all their old iron for a car show. The tunnel looks pretty nice, but you are not allowed to stop and look at it!

We had a pretty quiet summer. Toured clocks in Seattle, hung around our condo, visited relatives in Texas and Illinois and stopped off in Toronto on the way back to Karachi.

Toronto

We spent a few days in Toronto en route back to Karachi this summer. This will be our second year teaching in Karachi.

We took a city tour and one of the things we went back for was to visit the Sugar Shack.

Sugar Shack. This is a ship parked next to the storage area for the Redpath Sugar Company. They make so much sugar, they have to store the raw material in an extra ship parked next to the warehouse. There is a very nice, free museum run by Redpath. We learned a LOT about making sucrose and why and how it is in so many different forms.

Police Station. No, we weren't in any trouble! We visited this police station because it is also where the free Police Museum is located. It was actually pretty interesting to see the changes over time of what policemen and policewomen wear and how they operate.
Clock tower. Since we took the Clock Tour in Seattle, we have been noticing all the clocks in cities. Toronto is well endowed with some very nice clocks placed for public view.

Market. Every large city has a Farmers' Market and Toronto is no exception. As usual, when we visit a market, it is closed.

The Gold Building. This building is actually covered with gold! Actually, the glass panes on all outside surfaces contain small but visible amounts of gold. They put it in as part of the insulation and it worked so well, they have actually make a profit by covering their building with gold.

City Hall. This is the Reflecting Pool and garden area just outside City Hall. We didn't get to tour City Hall because all city employees are on strike. The city didn't have that "clean" look we have come to expect in Canada. The employees on strike included the garbage workers! We had no trouble waking past the picket line. We just announced we were "tourists" and everyone got out of the way!

Clock tour

We spent a lovely day in July walking around Seattle doing the Clock Tour. The web site is: http://www.zombiezodiac.com/rob/ped/clock/map.htm. Alonda's sisters found this tour last October when they visited the condo (we weren't home!). They liked it so much, they recommended that we go, too. These are from the pictures we took. We have not posted all of the clocks. You will have to go to the web site if you want to find out about all of them. You will also find out a lot more information about the clocks.

This is the first clock on the tour. It stands over King Street Station, the AMTRAK station in Seattle.

This clock isn't on the tour, but should be! We happened to know about it since we had been inside this building before. This clock is in the large waiting room across the street from King Street Station. We had looked over the building years ago when we were looking for places to have a Junior/Senior Prom.

This clock is down in the Pioneer Square area of Seattle. This is the part of the city where all of the Klondike Gold Rush business was taking place over a hundred years ago. Very picturesque!

This clock is inside the bus tunnel. The city has just added underground streetcars to the tunnels they built for the buses. The clock is made from tools and parts used in the construction of the tunnels!

This is the Pendulum Clock. The clock doesn't actually have a pendulum, but it looks like it should.

Alonda's sisters never found this clock! The web site instructions missed the actual location and direct you to the wrong garage. Yes, this clock is inside a parking garage.

Here is a shop that is not afraid to advertise. They also have a very nice clock outside their store ...

This is the Question Mark clock. What do you think the question is?

Tiffany's has, of course, a large clock decorated with gold and marble. We don't know what Tiffany's has to do with Atlas holding up the world ...

Bergman's has been a fixture for dedicated suitcase seekers for decades.

This is the shot of Seattle that everyone remembers. The Pike Place Market, but not the clock, is world famous for flying fish. This is the place they mean when you read the book Fish!.

This clock is at Colman Dock. This is where the ferry boats come into Seattle. The clock has been here, in various forms and locations, for over a hundred years.

These clocks are not on the tour. They hang outside the REI store in Seattle. They are too far away from the other clocks to make a convenient walk, but if you patronize REI, you don't want to miss them.

This is the last clock. Notice that Mt Everest has its own time zone?

Almost back to work

We are (almost) looking forward to going back to work. We will fly through Toronto and then back to Pakistan in about 10 days. Our summer pictures will be posted after we get back to Karachi. Jim didn't pack the cable to download photos from the cameras!
Did you notice the weather we are missing? Karachi is unbelievably hot during the summer!

Birds of Karachi

Enjoy the birds of Karachi! We have seen more than these, but we don't have pictures of all of them (yet!).

This is a Black Kite. They are very common and can be seen circling the garbage pits of Karachi. Don't lay down and go to sleep!

Black Kites are raptors.

This is a Hoopoe. It is one of the coolest birds we have ever seen. This one was right outside our window.

House Crow or Corn Crow. Very common, noisy and aggressive.

The Swifts swoosh around in huge flocks eating bugs at sunset.

The birds all flock into the trees at night. You can tell where they spend the night by looking at the guano patterns on the ground.

This is a female Asian Koel (Cuckoo). It took us eight months to spot it. We just kept hearing them.

This is the male. It looks like a bad-tempered crow!

This is the Mynah. You may have heard of them as being good at learning to talk like a parrot. It is a member of the Starling family.

This is the Rose-Necked Parakeet. The same bird in Saudi Arabia is called the Ring-Necked Parakeet. They are not native to the area, but so many have been brought as pets and then escaped, they are now part of the ecosystem.

This is a Red-Vented Bulbo. There is a Yellow-Vented, but we don't have a picture of it.

These two herons were posing when we visited the WWF facility at Hawks Bay (French Beach). You can find it on Google Earth by searching "hawks bay karachi pakistan".

This series of three shows one set of nesting Purple Sunbirds.

Good old Sparrow!

This last bird is the Tailor Bird. The male likes to wag its tail!

We hope you enjoyed seeing some of our birds here in Karachi!

Around Karachi

Alonda and the rest of the Middle School teachers took all the students out to the beach in February. The weather here is NOT like February in Seattle. This is a bridge going out towards the port.

This is how you can tell you are near a beach. It has all the normal "beach" stuff: beach balls, sand buckets, ice cream, etc. Everything is from China, of course.

As usual, you have to share the road with the donkey carts. We think they are the only vehicle in Pakistan that knows and follows the rules of the road!

Here's the beach! As we said, the weather is NOT like Seattle. Everyone wears shorts and T-shirts; no one wears a bathing suit.

Another fact of life is the guards. They took three carloads of guards. They had people on the perimeter the whole time. This does NOT mean it is unsafe. It is more to prevent kidnapping and beggars. The houses in the background are beach houses for the rich people. The house the school used belongs to relatives of one of the local teachers.

No beggars, but the camel-ride guy came around! The kids loved it.

A couple of weeks after the beach trip, Alonda & Jim and another couple went out to visit the World Wildlife Fund's Center in Karachi. Very close to Hawks Bay Beach where the students went. (wwf Karachi Pakistan as search terms on Google Earth will find it!)

Alonda and Johanne got muddy planting mangroves! You have to walk barefoot or lose your shoes in the mud. They are adding a second species to the one that is already there.

The local people harvest mangrove for building materials and fuel. They seem perfectly willing to help with re-planting since they can see they are taking out more than is growing. They have no alternative fuel for heat and cooking. They can't afford to shift over to bottle gas and they have no electricity.

These two reef herons posed for us we were getting ready to leave.

On the way back, we stopped and took pictures at the salt pans. They let in the ocean (salt water) and evaporate it until they get salt. It takes a lot of time and a lot of water.

This is a view of Karachi from one of the "flyovers" (overpass). The pile of yellow stuff is sulphur. This IS a port city. We don't know why the sulphur is piled in the open! It is dry enough that they routinely stack cement in the open, too. The area is actually a desert.

We don't just share with donkeys; camels get out on the road, too! Look closely and you will see busses, a camel, motorbikes, pedestrians, trucks, bicycles and (closest to the camera) our guard car! The billboard is part of the constant politicking.

Here is the camel close-up. The guys on the billboard behind him are all politicians.

This video was shot 14 March while we were out shopping. Adam, a teacher from school, was sitting in the front seat and borrowed our camera so he could take some pictures. Try to imagine driving here!