Paper Cranes

This afternoon after taking the dogs to the park and shopping for winter clothes for Matthew, we went on a photowalk to the old Chinatown. Ufrieda, an award winning journalist, lead us on the walk into her world. She explained to us that this was the first Chinatown under the shadow of the notorious John Vorster Square. Another one sprung up in Cyrildene with a later wave of Chinese immigrants in the 90s. It seems the dragons have left this declining Chinatown and moved east.

We had a many course meal in the basement of the Swallows Inn, one of the oldest Chinese restaurants in the the City of Gold. The menu consisted of vegetarian spring-rolls, crispy sesame beef, monk-style beancurd and vegetables, egg fried rice, dry style vegetarian chow mein, crispy chicken, Chinese tea and bowties. We were all full afterwards. We even tried our hand at making origami cranes.

As I mentioned earlier there is not much left in this Chinatown but it was nice going back to the roots of my friend Chiu Saan, younger sister of Chiu Ngaan (Ufrieda).