We’re finally here! We arrived Jo’berg (short for Johannesburg) at 5am. A representative from Thomas Gateway Travels came to pick us up. I forgot his name but this is what he looked like:
He introduced us to our driver/tour guide, Rudolf, who drove a 12-seater Mercedes bus.
So we started the tour right away. Since we arrived too early, Rudolf decided to drive us around Jo’berg first.
Since after the fall of the Apartheid, the peace and order of downtown Jo’berg has deteriorated and a lot of the businesses have moved out of the city. You can even see empty commercial buildings with very modern designs just sitting there wasting away. Unfortunately we couldn’t make a stop to take pictures because we had a schedule to follow.
We then drove around the area where Mr. Nelson Mandela resided. Below is a picture of his mansion.
It seems like Mandela commands the value of his neighbour’s propery. The closer your house is to Mandela, the higher the value of your house.
Rudolf then took us to the Voortrekker Monument, where we saw sculptures of the lives of the early Dutch pioneers. The word “Voortrekker” is African for early pioneers.
View of Pretoria from the top of the Voortrekker monumentThen we went to the center of Pretoria where we visited the Church Square which consisted of important buildings such as the City Hall, the Post Office, the Mint, First National Bank, and parking lot that used to be a very nice theatre.
We also visited the Union Buildings which is also the site of the inauguration of President Mbeki and Nelson Mandela.
We had a Chinese lunch at the Lai Jing Restaurant in Pretoria. It was surprisingly delicious too! After lunch, we headed out to Sun City. It was a quiet 2 hour trip because everyone was so full from lunch that was also full of MSG.
This is kinda what our view looked like enroute to Sun City.
But once we got to the Sun City, everyone was wide awake. The place itself is magnificent! Our hotel, the Palace of the Lost City, is truly AMAZING and definitely a work of art. No hotels in Vegas can rival it’s details…..that’s for sure!
We had dinner at the Palm Terrace at the Cabanas Hotel…also inside Sun City. We thought we could still go to the casino after dinner but we were all too tired. I couldn’t even post this blog on time because my eyes just refused to remain open!
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