Touting our Scouting Outing...Night Lights

Many of you know what it is like to stand in the darkness of a spring night and to be amazed by the frogs and their music. Spring-peepers on a warm, wet night in Michigan can fill your senses with their exuberance and joie de vie.

Well, on a recent Cub Scout expedition that we enjoyed, some local frogs put on a spell-binding performance as well. Have a listen. These are not the spring-peepers that you have heard before. They are a very unique sort of frog...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6r82kuTT3JU


'The Electric, All Frog Band', my name for them, not theirs, entertained us during our night under the lights at MOTAT,  Auckland's Museum of Transportation and Technology. Amiri's Cub Scout Troop met last night outside the entrance to the museum and we all got in at a reduced rate. Unfortunately, Jeanne is home tonight with a cold/flu.

Here we are outside the MOTAT. The special show is called, Night Lights. 

Obviously, with a name like MOTAT, there will be plenty of this sort of thing. Steam powered machinery of many types.

And what museum of transportation would not be complete without a live blacksmith working at making horseshoes and wagon wheels? 

After taking a quick look at this sort of display, we headed out into the night for some excitement under the lights...

 I don't know what this game was...the lights would change and the kids had to react to them it seemed. The kids knew all about it though. 

Here comes an electric tram to give us a ride. It was last used on the streets of Auckland in 1954. 

This tram doesn't have anything in the way of shocks, it's a relatively rough ride for the slow pace it maintains.

But, it's fun. We pass lots of coloured light outside and traffic whizzes by on one side for part of the ride.

This passageway of lights leads to a building full of interactive games  based on light; photons, lasers, shadows, diffraction patterns, diffusion, and lots more. Take a look at the next series of pictures. 

As you can see, the place was packed. 

Amiri really got in to the fun of it. 

 Both boys took turns at disrupting the pattern projected on this screen.

It's something like a laser pin-ball game. By moving the mirrors, Amiri changes the path of the beam through the game. 

In this game, Arram has challenged light to a race. The board tells him that a beam of light would take 1.28 seconds to travel from the earth to the moon. 

Arram then ran his fastest between two automatic timers and learned that he was moving at 3.06 meters per second, and at that rate, it would take him 7,190 days to catch up to that speedy beam of light waiting for him on the moon.

From here, we moved again and found ourselves inside another building where some very fast movers were dancing...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aredkh5QQ7Y

 They had a large audience...

By this time, we were starting to feel the effects of walking and exploring, and learning. Another sort of input was needed. 

Allie bought the boys some chicken tenders with dipping sauce and a pavlova with cream and salted caramel topping. 

We started to make our way back to the entrance to this night time combination of wonderland and fun house. We passed our musical frog friends still giving it their all....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHiPzFpfQDs&feature=youtu.be

The boys had to stop one last time at the item that intrigued them the most and they ended their evening as they had started it. At the Whisper Dishes...

A whisper dish is actually a parabolic acoustic mirror that focuses sound. Two of these dishes were set up about 40 feet apart, just inside the entrance to MOTAT and the boys loved whispering back and forth across that distance, even when other people were in between them. 

What a great job these Scout leaders do, and the community does in supporting activities by the scouts, and their families.    -djf

Fujisan

I am on a walking tour today. I felt like wandering. I wanted to explore and take some pictures. The boys are in school for the next several hours and Jeanne has plans to do some shopping. Allie had an appointment in the city so I tagged along and was dropped very close to my first point of interest.   

I had been reading recently about the cemetery that lies at the junction of Symonds Street and K' Road. Its use dates back to 1842. That's interesting in itself. But, in one corner of the cemetary is a public restroom that was mentioned in a murder mystery novel that I read a couple of years ago. (A body was found there.) It was written by a Kiwi and set in modern day Auckland. I wanted to take a look.  

I plan to do a post about it of course, and show you the scene of the fictional crime, but today I'm going to show you some photos of the walk I took after investigating the cemetary.

Queen Street is about a mile long. It starts down at Quay Street that borders the harbour and it climbs to the top of a long hill. I am starting my trip down it right at the very top. Boy, a kid on a skateboard could have the ride of his life down this street. One mile, nothin' but hill and gravity and speed. I wonder how many have tried it, late at night? 

I took this picture from the cross-walk in the middle of Queen Street.  Behind me, it meets K' Road and then becomes Upper Queen Street. 

It's clear in this picture that there is a pretty steep slope to the street here. Look at those awnings across the street as each steps down from the one above it. 

Here's a closer look at this block of buildings. They intrigue me. I'm going across and look more closely at the shops housed there. 

Looking up the hill.

And looking down.  Notice the Fujisan sign. 

Most of the businesses along this stretch are ethnic restaurants. Fujisan is Japanese as you might guess. I think it is the nicest looking of all those that I looked in to as I strolled down this block.
I'll tell you a little something about myself. I like to explore buildings. I'm especially curious when I see steps up (or even better, down), so this staircase caught my attention. (Look how the steps, especially toward the top, seem to be just a little out of square. The building's age is showing. I love it.)  I just had to do some snooping. I went in and asked the waitress if they could accomodate a group of 12 and if so, could I see the rooms? She said they would be delighted to entertain my group and suggested that I follow her. Oh boy...

Here are the shots I took upstairs. Nothing surprising, but I enjoyed seeing it. 

Here is my tour guide. 

I'm going to remember this place. I'd like to bring Jeanne here sometime. I felt a little guilty asking about my 'party of 12,' so I'd like to make it up to them, at least to a degree. 

My very first experience with a Japanese restaurant was in San Fransico in the '80s when I was there working a furniture show. I ordered a bowl of udon noodles in fish broth and covered with an assortment of seafoods and slices of beef. I loved it. I think I would like to have something similar in Fujisan sometime soon. 

There is a lot of  building going on all over Auckland. This is a project I passed soon after leaving Fujisan. I don't know if the workers are all on break, but that staircase was left suspended from the crane and going nowehere. Surprisingly, it was not swinging at all.   

This sculpture is in a little corner park I passed. I think it looks like a shoe that a concrete stairway was dropped on. 

I'm about 2/3 of the way down Queen Street now.  I passed the Civic Theatre which seats 2,378. I've never been inside but I understand that it is spectacular. 

See what I mean?  Allie recently took Amiri to see a musical here. The ceiling has lights set into it in the shape of constellations visible in Auckland's sky. 
(found this photo on-line)

In honor of the Fujisan I think it would be fitting to end my post today with a short video of a Japanese couple I met toward the end of my walk. The instruments they are playing are sometimes called hang drums, although I read that it is more proper to refer to them simply as hang. Enjoy. Also called a handpan    -djf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzTyrDV6ZMk

First Editions.

I hadn't been on High Street in Auckland for quite some time, but I took you along it with me in a post recently when Jeanne and I sought out the Indochine Express, our newly discovered hole-in-the-wall restaurant. In that post, I showed you a picture of a rare book store that was across the street and not far from the restaurant. I said that I couldn't be bothered to go to the trouble of going there during its very limited hours of operation. Well, I changed my mind. 

As I sat here in front of my screen yesterday, I got to thinking about it. I wondered if it would smell like I think a rare book store ought to smell. Kind of like a library, but without the furniture polish. Certainly old and papery, and dusty.  And I wouldn't have minded if there was a trace of stale cigar smoke dripping down from the highest shelves. I hoped that it would have books stacked all over the place, in narrow rooms with high celings.

I decided that I'd see what I could find out about it on-line. A few key punches later, I was on its home page and it wanted to know what books I would like to buy?  P. G. Wodehouse came to mind of course and I soon found that they had three first edition titiles on hand. Had I not been sitting, my knees might have started shaking, and, while I didn't actually salivate, my brain did do a little bit of mental drooling...

"Gee, do you suppose I could really own a first edition? Well, maybe I could just go there. I'd just be looking at the books after all. But then, maybe the price wouldn't be too high, you never know. Well, what have I got to lose? Why not?"

As it turned out, Allie had business to do in Auckland the very next day and Jeanne and I had already decided to ride along with her and to take her, for the first time, to The Federal deli for lunch. Although I didn't expect the bookstore to be open, after we left the carpark I thought I could do some preliminary photography, hopefully to be used for a post about my future visit to the bookstore. We agreed to meet Allie after her business meeting was completed and off we went. The rest is history.   

We found the place, four floors up, with the lights on, but the door locked. The note on the glass gave a cell phone number, explaining that the owner was on another floor. I thanked Allie in my heart as I grabbed the phone she gave me for Christmas and dialed. While we waited for Anah to arrive, I noted that the rooms did in fact, appear to be narrow and the ceilings acceptably high. 

 Inside, it turned out to be very acceptable, meeting all my criteria, well, except for the cigar smell. Anah didn't look the type to indulge. 

You see Anah back there in front of her mostly-buried desk. (the proper sort of desk for such a place) 

Nooks, crannies, and corners

Ah, it smells like history. What would it feel like to own such a place? 

There it is, a first edition, 1969, of A Pelican at Blandings. 

I first read this book after I found it while brousing at the Escanaba Public Library many years ago. It is known by the title, No Nudes is Good Nudes in the U.S. (A painting figures in to the story.) 

Since this was my very first taste of P. G. Wodehouse, I think it would be fitting for me to buy this first edition, don't you? 

I also asked Anah if I could see this book. It is an account of the very first over-wintering of an expedition on Antarctica. Unfortunately, they are very expensive. The red one is $800 and the blue one is $1,500. Way beyond my means. 

But look what a treasure I already have. That First Antarctic Winter was written by the granddaugther of Louis Charles Bernacchi, a physicist who served on Borchgrevink's expedition and who related, in his private journals, a very different version of the events from that which the First on the Antarctic Continent tells. Bernacchi was extremely critical of the expediton leader and the author of the other book, C. E. Borchgrevink. 

This first edition was easy to come by. For one thing, there has been only one printing of this book ever made, and that was in 1998. I bought it for $1 from the Henderson Public Library when they withdrew it from circulation. It is like new.  

I mentioned earlier that there were three Wodehouse books in stock at the store. The second one, Service with a Smile, was written in 1962, and I have never read it before. It is one of the 10 Wodehouse stories that take place at Blandings Castle. I couldn't walk away without it. 

These books were both rated as being in very good/fine condition, but it was obvious when I looked carefully at them that their spines have seen lots of use. I will be handling these carefully. The last Wodehouse in the store, The Coming of Bill, was a much earlier book, first published in 1920, and was therefore much more expensive than the other two. I had to pass on it. 

This book store specializes in travel, arctic and antarctic books. 

And look at these dates on a book behind glass. 

We're on our way down four flights feeling very happy.

And there's the street. It pleases me that the stairwells and hallways are narrow, just like the rooms we saw. It adds to the character of the place somehow. 

This business apparently shares the building with the bookstore. Can you imagine coming to buy shirts here? I did a little research into this company.  The mens' shirts were not currently being shown. They want your email if you're interested. The womens' shirts are marked down from $159. to $125.  Good grief. 

 This is a neighbor of the rare book store and shirt building. Pleasing to the eye, isn't it? 
There is a sixth floor penthouse  up there, with a pull-down ladder that leads to a private conservatory (greenhouse) and deck on the roof. Someone just bought it for $379,000. 

And here's a high-rise on the very next block. Modern Auckland is encroaching on the older. (And looking down on our friends sunning themselves in their new conservatory.)

In honor of P.  G. Wodehouse, here are a few quotes from his books that give you a taste of his very gentle humor. 

I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled. 

It was my Uncle George who discovered that alcohol was a food well in advance of modern medical thought.

She had a penetrating sort of laugh. Rather like a train going into a tunnel. 

Why don't you get a haircut? You look like a chrysanthemum. 

Sudden success in golf is like the sudden acquisition of wealth. It is apt to unsettle and deteriorate the character.  

and then there's my favorite: 

She gazed at him as if he were the smell of onions. 

Mind you, that is not the same as saying that he smelled like onions. Wodehouse was a master of the language.    -djf