#South Africa

Tomorrow is the Lunar New Year – the Year of the Rabbit – and this is my first Joburg post of 2023. In celebration of both these facts, I’m thrilled to tell you about Tea and Antique, a brand-new Chinese establishment in Bedfordview.

My quest to visit all of the places featured in the Hidden Johannesburg book continues. With my recent trip to the Freemasons’ Hall, which I’m about to tell you about, I have now visited 20 of the 28 places in the book. This will be my final Hidden Joburg post of the year and I think it’s a good one.

I’ve visited Lilian Road Studios, a collection of artists’ studios in a historic, dilapidated building in Fordsburg, many times. Several great Joburg artists have had studios at Lilian Road, including Hannelie Coetzee and Hermann Niebuhr. Now there is a group of artists working there, several of whom are my friends, and I can’t believe I’ve never blogged about it before. There are so many things I love about these studios.

For the newest installment in my Hidden Joburg series, I visited a church in Hillbrow that I’ve been curious about for years. The Greek Orthodox Cathedral of Saints Constantine and Helen is around the corner from the Hillbrow Boxing Club, and I have driven, jogged, and walked past it many times. But I didn’t have the opportunity to visit until last week, when Thorsten and I dropped in for the end of the Sunday morning service.

I recently joined the Rand Club, which holds a couple of black-tie events each year. When it came time to attend our first fancy function, the Club’s 135th-anniversary gala, Thorsten and I considered his black-tie options. He didn’t own a tux, we didn’t like the idea of renting one for one night, and Thorsten isn’t really a conventional black-tie kinda guy. We decided to turn this chore into an adventure and go to downtown Joburg for a funky, custom-made suit.