As many of you already know, I’ve been on a mission to discover Joburg’s best shawarmas. This turned out to be a bigger challenge than I initially anticipated.
First, I like to do my “best of” posts in groups of five. But there are a lot more than five great shawarma restaurants in Joburg. I thought I knew more or less where to go, but once I started researching I found Joburg’s shawarma culture extends more widely than I realized.
Several months ago I spotted a post in the @WhatsOnInJoburg Instagram feed. “Africa’s tallest Shiva Shakti Statue is in Benoni”, the post read, with a photo of the biggest, boldest, most colorful Hindu deity I’ve ever seen. I made a mental note to visit the Sivan Alayam Temple, a.k.a. the Shiva Temple, as soon as possible.
Last week I participated in a “motoring” media morning with Ford South Africa. The core purpose of the event was to get a bunch of woman journalists/bloggers/influencers together for a drive through the countryside in a convoy of bad-ass Ford Ranger bakkies (pick-up trucks). But we also went up in a hot-air balloon with Semakaleng (Sema) Mathebula, South Africa’s first Black woman balloon pilot, at Bill Harrop’s in Magaliesburg.
Almost ten years ago, I did an exhibition of photos I shot in Maboneng and Jeppestown, two adjacent neighborhoods in downtown Joburg. I had nearly forgotten about this exhibition (which you can read about here). But then a week ago I received an Instagram message from Abdullah Dajee, owner of a men’s clothing and shoe shop in Jeppestown called City Hall (which is also known as City Outfitters or City Hall Outfitters).
If you live in Melville, or have lived in Melville at any point between December and April over the past few decades, then you know the call of the Mielie Lady.
I hadn’t planned to blog about the cosmos flowers in Delta Park this year. I’ve already done so multiple times: Once during my #Gauteng52 series and once (very memorably) right before South Africa’s covid-19 lockdown began two years ago. But I went to see the cosmos twice this week and they are so freaking spectacular this year…Or maybe they’re equally spectacular every year and I just forget. Either way, this annual autumn explosion is too good not to blog about again.