Bamboo scaffolding lashed together with some kind of plastic tape, goes up 5-6 stories. Makes more sense here than in the US: there’s a lot of bamboo and hardly any worker safety rules.
Gas meter, Hong Kong
Hong Kong
More boats than cars, it almost seems, the busiest harbor I have ever seen. Container ships, tour boats replicating old junks, ferries whizzing by much faster than I’m used to.
Slightly less than 48 hours on the ground, so enough time to venture out in search of some good dumplings but not a whole lot of sightseeing.
We saw this over the weekend at the Latchis. Awesome production, and the whole idea of simulcast to a cinema… also awesome. It had Sherlock and even Mance Rayder in it, so I kind of expected every Tumblrista from within 100 miles to be there, but it didn’t look like that was true. Maybe those people are busy… like on Tumblr just for instance.
Hamlet – National Theatre Live
Hamlet – National Theatre Live
See that cloud? It just had the audacity to drop snowflakes on us! The leaves are really just starting to fall, that’s what that black speck is…
One of the local ski areas is opening in a week (on man made snow).
Whetstone by twilight
What a beautiful afternoon! Let’s go for a walk around town before it gets all dark and cold… for the next six months.
And so we did, and it really was nice. Then, we saw the bar, and remembered it was “goodbye to the patio” night. We dutifully stopped in for a half-price pint.
The First Person
This headstone marks the remains of Colonel John Sargent, or Sergeant as its spelled here. I found it this morning while looking for someone who is probably one of his descendants, Herbert Wells Sargent. The Locust Ridge Cemetery is still being actively used today, sandwiched on a narrow strip between the freeway and the site of an oil storage facility to be built soon (unless the citizens who are protesting the appearance of an oil storage facility on one of the main streets in town somehow thwart the project). As you walk from one end to the other, it abruptly goes from “relatively recent” to “very old.”
This photo is hard to read especially with the use of the long s, but it says that this stone is
Sacred to the memory of Colo. John Sergeant who departed this life July the 30th 1798 in the fixty fixth year of his age. Who now lies in the fame town he was born & was the first person Born in the ftate of Vermont.
The epitaph is stern:
lo where this filent marble weeps
A friend, a father & husband fleeps
He gave them good councel while he had his breath
Advising them to prepair for Death
By “first person” of course we understand that they meant “first European-descended person”, and while we feel bad for that casual disregard for the humanity of the many persons who lived and died here before, we are nonetheless intrigued… can this be true? There are other records and accounts that talk about John Sargent’s birth at Ft. Dummer in 1733. I know that Ft. Dummer (just down the road, although the original site is now flooded by the waters behind the Vernon Dam) was the first “permanent” white settlement in Vermont. However, I can’t easily find any other written account confirming Col. Sargent as the first.
Presto, I’m a historian!
High end
In what is probably the final celebration of my recent birthday, Chuck treated us to dinner at Artisan restaurant in the newly reopened Four Columns Inn in Newfane.
For decor, they’re doing a modernized take on the typical New England Inn theme. The Windsor style chairs are mismatched but elegant, the color scheme is tone on tone, the art still tends to sheep and barns but with a decidedly contemporary flair.
The food focused on local and seasonal… Chuck ran into some people he knew and saw them eating a hamburger. He was surprised: this is more of a “braised rabbit with wild mushrooms and homemade pasta” kind of place. Ah, they replied, but the beef comes from our farm! All in all, the menu was a nice showcase for the chef’s creativity, well prepared and mostly well presented. The wine list was suitably varied, if unremarkable, and the service was pleasant and attentive.
Chuck, who has been a baker, a wine merchant and wine columnist, and for some years an organizer of food-themed tours in Italy and France, knows from fine dining. At one point, he put down his fork and asked us “is this what you’d call ‘high end’?” Lee and I answered yes immediately, but our discussion continued.
It was an interesting question. By price tag, in this area, definitely high end. Based on the length and detail of the descriptions of menu items, again yes. But the menu tended toward comfort food, less high end than one might find in NYC or Paris. There were no tablecloths, nor a sommelier. The staff uniform was jeans and blue plaid shirts straight out of a high school production of Oklahoma. Most patrons were in casual clothes, just a regular Friday night.
So what constitutes “high end” in this day and age? Is that term even meaningful in the world we live in? As we worked our way through the duck, the rabbit, the baby greens, the second bottle, we never really reached a consensus. We had a special meal in good company, and we were able to relax and enjoy it all without the anxiety provoked by too many forks… High end? Exactly high enough.
Brattleboro Adventure – the Auckland Edition 