Distractions, reflections

With a visit to the UK and Finland planned for the same trip, summer air fares led me to fly direct from Toronto to Helsinki, with a side trip into Heathrow and back.  I arrived in Helsinki just in time for the start of SEM 2009 – Service Engineering and Management Summer School — attending for the fourth time.  The classes were scheduled for the Otaniemi campus, as usual, but the first meeting was held at the Helsinki School of Economics downtown.

I had booked a flight arriving that morning, so the introductory lecture was a big foggy.

The welcome dinner was held at a restaurant just across from Senate Square.

In a game depicting the Finnish heritage, a competition of hammering …

… and sawing preceding the drinking songs.

Besides attending the summer school lectures, I managed to squeeze in sightseeing.  Minna took me over to see the Design Factory.  Read more... (447 words, 15 images, estimated 1:47 mins reading time)

Since Vancouver is on the air route from Sydney to Toronto, our family planned a five-day stopover to visit the west coast family, and partially adjust to the cross-Pacific time zone change.  One of the first sightseeing activities was a drive up to UBC — considered a family jinx, with two parents both dropouts from the university!  Our sons didn’t show much jet lag on the view over Spanish Banks.

Back towards the city centre, we returned to a favorite haunt from our past:  Granville Island.  We negotiated the usual traffic jams to park on the dock, facing the Burrard Bridge to the northwest.  The place essentially hasn’t changed much in 25 years.

Looking to the east, it’s possible that all of the towers in the West End weren’t there in the 1980s.

Inside the Granville Island Public Market, the berries and fruit always look great.

We made a habitual stop to Seafood City for cold barbequed salmon.  It’s local cuisine out west, and a treat for visiting Easterners.  Read more... (635 words, 17 images, estimated 2:32 mins reading time)

After the week in Brisbane, we loaded up the minivan for our drive back to Sydney to catch our flight back to Canada. We had taken the drive north along the coastal route over three days. For a change of scenery, we planned the drive south on the inland route, over two days. The New England Highway is a two lane highway, with only a few major settlements between Brisbane and Sydney. Driving past farms and pastures, the altitude gradually rose.

Stopping overnight in Armidale, we were rudely reminded that July is Australian winter, with an overnight temperature below freezing. From the middle of the Northern Tablelands, the second day of driving through mountain ranges, leading to gradual descent.

We were making good time on the second day. I calculated that if we aimed for one of the most northmost wineries in the Upper Hunter Valley, we could arrive in time for a 2 p.m. tour. A brief stop at the Muswellbrook Visitor Information Centre clarified directions to Cruickshank Callatoota Estates, since they had moved within the previous year. Off the main roads onto side roads, we navigated up a long drive to find a modest operation, with a small tasting building.

We were welcomed by one of the partners of the estate, who said that the scheduled time was just for publication, and tours can be given on request. He explained that the business is essentially run by two partners year-round, with itinerant help to work the land, and bring in the grapes at harvest time. The winemaking process begins with grape vines run through a destemmer.

When the harvest is brought into the main processing building, the grapes are put into a press where the juice is separated from the skins.  Read more... (1065 words, 15 images, estimated 4:16 mins reading time)

Having completed a week at the conference, our family took the Friday afternoon at leisure to look around central Brisbane.  We started our visit at GOMA — the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art.

The exhibits began before we even entered the building, with The High/Perpetual Xmas, No Abstractions 2008, by Scott Redford to the south of the walk.

On the north side of the walk was a patch of Maiwar Green, and the view across the river.

We happened on The China Project exhibition, including a larger-than-life sculpture of Mao Zedong and Mao Zedong by Wang Wenhai.

Down one side of this hall was a series of bronze sculptures titled Metaphysica 2007, by Ah Xian.  Read more... (852 words, 41 images, estimated 3:24 mins reading time)

As part of the ISSS Brisbane 2009 meeting, a field trip had been arranged.  We had to arrive early, parking at the edge of the campus to walk up Campbell Road in the University of Queensland St. Lucia campus.

We encountered our group walking down Union Road towards the ferry dock.

There’s regular City Cat ferry service from UQ to the city centre.

The structure of the dock suggests the riverbanks are shallow.

In the warm Brisbane winter, we stood on the back deck and watched the ferry’s wake.  Read more... (495 words, 28 images, estimated 1:59 mins reading time)

We had chosen public transportation for our week in the Sydney area.  To transport the six of us from Sydney to Brisbane, we opted not to fly, instead reserving a minivan (called a people mover, down under).  Diana and I woke up early to catch buses to the rental location on William Street in central Sydney.  We drove back over the Sydney Harbour Bridge and missed the freeway exit by the Lane Cove Tunnel.  We circumnavigated back to the hotel, our sons loaded up the luggage, and we embarked following directions leading through the narrow streets of Pymble.  We reached the Sydney Newscastle Freeway in time for a traffic jam.  I gradually became more comfortable driving on the left side of the road.

Our plan was to route through the Lower Hunter Valley to visit some wineries.  We had a short list of potential places to visit, but no real sense of the region.   Trying out Broke Road around Pokolbin taught us that the wineries are spread across vast distances in this region.

Some random decisions led us to Hunter Valley Gardens.  We got out to stretch, but we didn’t find any lunchtime alternatives to suit our palates.

We doubled back to Cessnock, where our son enjoyed Portuguese-style chicken for lunch.  Watching the clock, we figured that we had time to visit only one winery.  We headed northeast via Wine Country Drive to Dalwood, passing by some well-developed residential areas on the way to Wyndham Estate.  In Australian winter, we weren’t expecting to see any grapes on the vines.

The tasting room would probably be busier in the fall harvest season.  The casks outside are for show rather than for aging.  Read more... (1235 words, 35 images, estimated 4:56 mins reading time)