“It’s an important cultural artefact”, I heard one American tourist tell an other. As I stood at the traffic lights, I heard her tell her friend she needed to wait until the sign came around.
In the midst of other warning signs, there was a sign warning people that if you were caught peeing in public, it could cost you $200. I laughed and showed them the photograph I’d snapped earlier, where it could cost you more.
Deep down though I wondered why we needed to have the sign anyway.
Peeing in Public
Yeah, it’s a bit gross, but at the end of a week which has involved a hostage siege in Sydney, the tragic death of over 100 kids in Pakistan, and the stabbing murder of eight kids in Cairns, it does seem a little unimportant eh?
“Oh, it’s so dated. It really hasn’t stood the test of time”, I heard one person say in that “theatre kinda way” at the after-show drinks last night. As I was having such a good time myself, I didn’t want to argue to toss except to say “I actually really quite liked it”. And that’s where the conversation ended.
I’ve never actually been to see a production of “Phantom Of The Opera” before, and so when the invitation came to opening night at Star City Casino, I snapped it up instantly. I was curious more than anything. On the one hand, I knew “Phantom” had its fans, millions of whom had paid big bucks to see it staged previously. On the other, I knew about the famed (or infamous) chandelier scene, I knew some of the songs though I wasn’t a huge fan of the soundtrack, and I’d read various reviews which have previously described it as an exercise in style over substance.
And while there’s probably more than a grain of truth in that, I also really bloody well enjoyed it. I thought it was visually spectacular (especially many of the transformation scenes, especially the boat scene), the singing was terrific (Anthony Warlow and Ana Maria were both tremendous), and it had lots of great sing-along tunes.
At one point the bloke sitting next to me began to conduct the strings, and at another point, his wife began to sing along. For just half a moment I didn’t know whether to ask her to be quiet or to join in myself. Actually, there was one moment where I found myself humming along out loud, and not just in my head. For all of the cynicism you often find in theatre circles about Andrew Lloyd Webber, I’m still quite a fan.
The plotline of course is pure nonsense. But as my friend Colin observed later in the night, “You’ve got to recognise it’s melodrama”. And once you do, and once you get caught up in the moment, you find yourself having a great night.
Phantom of the Opera
I thought the first half was better than the second, with more recognisable tunes, and a great sense of pace. And in all honesty, the famous chandelier scene – where the chandelier plummets to the ground – was a bit of a letdown. Possibly a victim of public liability insurance, the chandelier kinda wafted down slowly, rather than dramatically as you might have expected or hoped. Minutes later, I was outside in the theatre looking down on the audience on levels below and imagined for just a moment what might have happened if a chandelier had fallen down there, crashing heavily on those below. :)
But those minor criticisms aside I had a tremendous night. And when Anthony Warlow came out on stage for applause, he quite genuinely and deservedly received a standing ovation.
Phantom Colin
Famously, there’s a television newsreader who I often see at opening nights who usually has to leave halfway through to go to read the news. As he was sitting in the row in front of me, I noticed he was there until the very end, which presumably means he was having a good or time. Or maybe he wasn’t reading the news last night?
Celebrity-wise, I hear the former PM, Hawkie was there, as was AJ from “Biggest Loser”, though I didn’t see either. I did however see the former Mr Kidman, Angus Hawley. And I also got to meet the new uber-cool television entertainment presenter, James Tobin. “Is this Row E?”, he said to me. “Yes, I replied”, pulling out our tickets, and very soon realising we were sitting in the wrong seats. He seemed very nice about it though, I thought. He was sitting by himself and through intermission was heavily texting someone. Guess who, don’t sue, as Ros Reines might say!
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – MAY 15: SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – MAY 15; Atmosphere at the after party of the Sydney premiere of The Phantom of the Opera at the Lyric Theatre on May 15, 2008 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Mike Flokis/Getty Images)
In other musical theatre news, I’m off to see “Chess” at the Theatre Royal on Saturday night. Odd in a way, because when you think about it, with “Chess”, “Phantom”, “Hawkie”, etc you can’t help but wonder if 2008 is actually 1988 all over again.
“So what’s it called, ‘Soulless’?”, I asked (and joked) as we headed towards the bar. “No it’s Solas”, he told me.
Damo and I were crossing the street headed in the direction of one of those new “Sydney-style Melbourne-style bars”, as I like to call them, we have in Surry Hills. This one has opened up on Crown Street, between the new tapas bar (formerly “Paua”) and the classic Surry Hills pizza restaurant, “Wood & Stone”.
For me, the space still reminded me a little of the once-named (and much visiited) “Camperdown Cellars”, which has since moved down the road to become “Surry Hills Fine Wines”. Sitting in the front-window, as we did for a while, I couldn’t help but be reminded of its former retail incarnation.
Inside, the crowd was predominantly aged in their late 20s, with a “dressed-in-black with scarves” Melbourne/indie vibe about them. The bar staff were really, really good. They were friendly, smiley, and knew their stuff. We had a glass of white and some small tapas dishes, including some very yummy pork belly which was good. The perfect entree.
We were on our way to the once visited, Xage, which continues to feature a review of mine on their website, about which I’m very happy.
The place continues to have a good vibe, and we got in with only a slight delay. Tonight’s meal was pretty good – the rolls were an excellent entree – though the chicken curry we shared as a main was, perhaps, a little disappointing. The texture suggested the chicken was maybe a little over-cooked. But even so, it’s still a fantastic place to eat.
To our left there was a group of people celebrating a birthday party. A table of 8. Six women. Two men. “That’s just wrong”, Damien commented, noting that amongst the eight they were sharing one bottle of Rose. To our right was a middle aged couple, their daughter and her friend. Much of the conversation revolved around how to eat at restaurants around the idea of balancing meat and vegetable etc.
After dinner we returned to Solas for a final drink of the night, concluding it was a good bar, worth revisiting. As we noted, as we walked around Surry Hills, the area continues to change from when Damien used to live here. A whole different vibe, and by no means, soulless.
In the minutes before the beginning of tonight’s show at Sydney’s Conservatorium of Music, I grabbed my mobile phone and took a photograph of the stage. The quality of the image from the seventh row, zoomed and cropped, isn’t all that good. But if you look closely you’ll notice on the piano there’s an iPad next to the sheet music. As the show progressed, the pianist went seamlessly between the two, preferring the paper scores for some songs, the electronic version for others. It was the first time I’ve seen it happening, though some of my Twitter buddies assure me it’s becoming more common.
We were there for the annual “World AIDS Day Concert” a fundraiser for the AIDS Council of NSW. The first year there was a tribute to Peter Allen. Last year we attended the tribute to Elton John. And this year’s tribute was to musical theatre legend, Stephen Sondheim who is celebrating his 80th birthday this year. There have been tribute concerts around the world. And in fact, I attended one in Sweden earlier this year. Majorly different was the lack of any Swedish language version of Sondheim songs in this particular tribute.
For me, there were several highlights including: Marika Aubrey doing a version of “Miller’s Son” from “A Little Night Music” (sublime), Lucy Durack doing a version of “No One Is Alone” from “Into The Woods” (gorgeous) and Mitchell Butel doing a terrific version of “Being Alive” from “Company” (powerful). Other performers included Sean Rennie, Laura Mulcahy, Geraldine Turner, David Harris and others. But the biggest highlight of all for me was seeing Jodie Gillies on stage again.
In the 80s, Jodie Gillies was definitely a “star” of Australian musical theatre. She rose to fame in the original production of “Chess” and then went on to play a range of other roles, she toured to many locations – including Wagga, where I was amongst a small group of people who saw her at the Civic Theatre, and then enjoyed a drink with her later at the local wine bar, Number 96 – and she released just one CD, as I understand. And then she kind of disappeared from the stage, concentrating instead on raising a family.
Her one and only CD remains a much played CD in my collection, and in particular she does a wonderful version of Sondheim’s “Another Hundred People”. Tonight she appeared on stage and performed that song. I love that song, and I love her singing it. It was great to see her back.
It’s about one o’clock in the morning and it’s light outside. Although I know the sun is out there somewhere, I can’t actually see it, due to the fog which has enveloped Narvik.
I’m staying in the top floor room of a guest house. “You’re in the old maid’s room”, the bloke who owns the house told me when I arrived. And as I look out of my window, I can see a couple of houses (one of them has a light on out the front) against a grey sky background.
I haven’t seen too much of Narvik yet, retiring to bed soon after I arrived at seven o’clock tonight. After the activities of the last few days, and today’s intense day of travelling I was exhausted. And, in stark contrast to the communal living of the youth hostel, I’ve found myself in a single room with an extremely comfortable bed which proved far too enticing.
As I walked around Stockholm last night it was just beautiful. Even at about 10 o’clock, the sun was shining, adding a wonderful gentle yellow glow to the city’s buildings. And when I left Stockholm early this morning, it was definitely “shorts weather”. Actually, it was even a little bit hot. “So this is the famous Swedish summer I’ve heard about”, I thought to myself as I caught the suburban trains to Arlanda Airport.
“Personally I’d take the Arlanda Express”, the young bloke at the counter told me at Stockholm Central when I asked him about catching the suburban trains this morning. “Does it take too long and is it too hideous for words?”, I asked him in return, to which he replied in the negative. He smiled in a friendly way when I told him I came in via the express and was just looking for another, a different adventure.
Although I’d read previously the Swedes can be a little stand-offish, I haven’t found this to be the case so far. In fact, I’ve found them to be incredibly welcoming and helpful most of the time. Thus, when I asked (in Swedish) a nearby woman on Platform 16 to confirm that I was on the right platform for Upplands Visby (the connecting route for Arlanda Airport) she replied with a smile and some helpful information.
Taken from the train between Kiruna and Narvik in Norway.
I suspect I was a bit of an oddity on the train also, as most non-Swedes would probably catch the express. Subsequently, I found people quite warm and helpful, giving me instructions along the way.
There was a woman of about 60 opposite me who looked at me, though, in an odd kind of way. Not negative, just confused about why a non-Swedish tourist who wasn’t an eighteen-year-old backpacker would be catching the suburban route. After a moment or so of looking me up and down you could see she has convinced herself I wasn’t a serial killer and gave me a smile.
At about this time, a middle-aged man with a Middle Eastern complexion (maybe Turkish) came walking through the cabin and dropped a brochure on neighbouring seats. The flyer explained that he had two children who both had leukemia and that he was in need of financial assistance. It wasn’t the first time I’ve seen people begging, and I’ve wondered how these people have slipped through the Swedish welfare net. I’ve seen no obvious evidence, so far, of on the street homelessness related to either mental illness or drug addiction, as we have in Sydney.
The Swedish woman looked at the brochure with a sneer and further caught my eye with a smile when the bloke said something to me (which I couldn’t understand), and I replied with an “I don’t speak English very well” response.
As you go further and further out of central Stockholm, it gets more and more like Sydney’s Western Suburbs. More like any outer suburban area really, as you see more and more working class and non-caucasian faces getting on and off the train. You also hit the factory belt and the countryside pretty quickly.
And it was also then that I really started to feel the warmth of the Swedish sunlight coming through the windows of the train. I could also feel it through the window on the aircraft on the flight from Stockholm to Kiruna.
Aside from spilling some milk on the young woman sitting next to me (“Inte problema”, she said to me when I apologised), the plane trip was without incident.
I noticed, however, that I was welcomed onto the plane with “wilkommen”. It’s not the first time I’ve been assumed to be German and I guess it won’t be the last. Clearly, I don’t look Swedish in the typical kind of way, and clearly, I look like a bit of a tourist, but I never assumed I looked German.
As we made our way towards Kiruna, it occurred to me that, in an Australian context, I was flying to “Western Australia” and that Kiruna was probably Sweden’s answer to “Karratha”. As you fly from Stockholm you see the landscape change dramatically, and as you fly into Kiruna you see what is essentially a mining town in the middle of an extremely attractive landscape.
The contrast between Kiruna – organised, industrial – and the nearby landscape is dramatic. With the melting of the snow, the landscape was lush and green. But even now in the middle of summer, you still see mountain tops covered in snow. Even the Swedes on the plane, who must have seen it a thousand times, were in awe at some of the sights.
That, however, was not the case for two nearby women as we travelled by train from Kiruna to Narvik. While I was “oohing” and “ahhing” at every minor change in the landscape, they were looking at trash magazines and were reading out every bit of minor trivia contained therein. Not being able to understand everything they said though, I listened more for tone and intonation. In Australia, they would have been Cheryl and Sharon, here they seemed a little more exotic. :)
I personally found the train journey quite remarkable. You start off with a fairly flat green landscape, progress into a spectacular lakes district, and climb the mountains to true alpine country, before finding yourself on the Norwegian coastline. I spent most of the trip with my head stuck out the window taking as many photographs as I possibly could.
It was really great to watch the vegetation change also. At the beginning, it’s all flat and Savannah like, where the trees are all about the same height. Then, in the lakes district, you start to see some of the typical alpine vegetation of conifers. And by the time you’ve reached the top of the mountain, the vegetation has largely disappeared and it’s mostly just rock. You see the occasional white flower, though, in the midst of it all. “Is that eidelweiss?, I thought to myself at one point.
Oh, and I loved how they did the border change. As you cross from Sweden to Norway you go into a tunnell, and, quite simply you see two flags next to each other. Voila! You’re in another country. Bloody EU – where’s my passport stamp?
In contrast to everyone else on the train, I was still wearing shorts when we arrived in Narvik. They were all rugged up for the winter and maybe some skiing, while I was here on a summer holiday. Peer pressure got to me, though, and I put a jumper on just minutes before arriving at the station.
I had a great feeling of elation in arriving in Narvik. “Wow”, I’m here”, I thought to myself, on the top of the world, on the opposite side of the world. The train station is fairly simple, almost run down, and the first pay phone I found didn’t work. But, like all train stations and airports, there was a real sense of joy in the air, as people met their friends and relatives.
“Are you from Narvik?”, I asked the bloke who owns the guest house. “No, but I’ve been here 50 years”, he told me, adding that his wife was from Narvik. On the way to the guest house, he pointed out the shops where I could buy food. And when I asked him if there was a simple, polite local greeting I could use in shops, he told me I should just speak English. “All Norwegians speak English. It’s just the English, the Americans and the Australians who speak only one language”, he smilingly said.
Anyway, it’s now 1.40 am, and the fog has lifted. I think it’s time to go back to sleep for a while.
There are four main reasons why you should go to a bar when you’re travelling.
They generally have the best toilets, especially if you’re travelling in a country where you know the toilet regime is a little “challenging” to “western sensitivities”.
At the end of a long hard day walkig and sighteeing, sometimes a refreshing drink can be the perfect way to end the way. On this trip, we’ve already visited a few roof-top bars which have been excellent.
This is the view from the Social Club Saigon Rooftop Bar. https://www.facebook.com/socialclubsgn/ Though there was no sunset today (wet season rain), we loved seeing some city views, the drinks were excellent, and the staff friendly and knowledgeable.
3. To meet people that doesn’t involve a tourist queue.
In the midst of yesterday’s rainstorm, I called in to a small bar in Ho Chi Minh City called Terroir Bar.
The bar has only been open for about three months according to the owner, an American who ewas doing some “business” on his laptop while his wife, Vietnamese, served behind the counter.
When I entered I was the only person at the bar, and so he said, “If you don’t like the music, I’m happy to put on something else”. “Oh no, I love 70s disco”, I told him. He responded that he did too, growing up in Detroit.
He told me he and his wife met in (I think) 2017 while he was working here.
We had a nice chat about life in Ho Chi Minh City. In particular, some of the differences with Hanoi (being the city of government), and Ho Chi Minh (being the most populaous).
As with any new bar, he told me things had been going slowly, but they had benefited from being an overflow from “Frolic’, an LGBTQIA+ bar located next door.
After a little while someone else entered the bar and joined the conversation. They told us they were from Bangkok, and were also here for some sightseeing.
Though I wasn’t entirely sure of how they identified gender-wise (I assumed they were born female), it didn’t surprise me we both later found ourselves at the next door bar.
Both the staff and customers at Frolic were in their twenties, with the exception of a couple of older men. I MIGHT have been the oldest.
To my surprise, people were smoking (both the staff and clientelle). After almost 30 years of non-smoking bars in Australia, it still surprises me to go into a bar where it occurs. I think the last time I entered a smoking bar was in the United States, and before that, maybe in the Czech Republic. Almost instantly, my clothes began to stink!
As with every other bar in the world, these days, people seemed more interested in what was happening on their phones than what was happening around them.
I enjoyed a couple of Mojitos, and a bit of crowd watching, before heading home.
Earlier, I had also chatted to a couple of people on a tourist bus.
“Do you mind if I sit here?”, a middle aged woman asked me. “Of course not, and if your partner wants to sit here, I’m happy to move”, I told her. “We’re just friends”, the man said, “And this is my husband”. They were visiting from Taiwan.
There was so much I wanted to ask them about being gay in Taiwan (they only had marriage equality laws a couple of years ago), and of course about Taiwan and the threat from China. In the end, there are some conversations that can only go a little way on a tourist bus.
In both instances, it was a great way to see a bit of life in Ho Chih Minh City (formerly known as Saigon) that goes beyond what you see in the tourist queues.
In contrast to the other cities we have visited on this trip, this feels very much like a “global city” in the same was as you night encounter in Shanghai. With global store brands, and a great variety of restaurant styles.
And reason Number 4?
4. Sometimes a bar literally screams out “come on in”.
Souvenir drink coaster
When I handed over my passport to the Vietnamese behind the bar she looked, at first curious. And then saw my name “Oh my goodness”, she said, “handing around my passport to the other staff”. In honour of a visit by a member of the O’Brien family (I thought of joking “traditional owners”, but that would have made no sense to them), she handed me my first souvenir from this trip.
