About 14 hours after taking off from Singapore, we touched down in Cape Town, South Africa. And it didn’t take us nearly as long to realize that Cape Town is surprisingly…European. The street names. The large retail chains. Even the grey, English weather.

Fortunately for us, the similarities end there. Cape Town, where Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias once famously sailed around thus connecting the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, is located within quite the picturesque setting. On the day we arrived, we took the cable car up Table Mountain (we had the option of doing the 2.5-hour hike up but didn’t think it was a good idea in our jet-lagged state), which was voted one of the “New” Seven Wonders of Nature in 2011 (http://www.new7wonders.com/). At 1,086 meters, it’s not particularly high but what it has going for it is its flat top (hence, its name) and being made up of some really hard stuff which has helped it withstand 6 million years of erosion. We read somewhere that it’ll take another 10 million years before the mountain becomes completely eroded. How’s that for perspective?

Another not-so-European thing about Cape Town is its people – they are somewhat less “integrated” despite more than 20 years since the end of the Apartheid regime. Cape Town is a relatively wealthy city so we saw disproportionately more whites. When we do see non-whites, they are usually the working class – waiters, labourers, taxi drivers. Nothing symbolizes this part of their history more than Robben Island, a tiny 5 km-square island off Cape Town made famous by one Nelson “Mandiba” Mandela, who spent 18 of his 27 years of prison there. The tour of Robben Island took half a day, starting with a half-hour ferry trip to the island from Cape Town. Upon sight of the island, we could see that not much “upkeeping” has been done – perhaps intentionally – to add to the “prison” experience. In fact, half our tour was led by an ex-prisoner, Sipho Msomi, who spent 5 years on Robben Island as a political prisoner. He started the tour with a very candid account of his time there, including how he was tortured by electric shocks, getting his private parts squeezed, being suffocated with a wet cloth pressed over his nose and mouth. We learnt that Robben Island was also “home” to lepers and criminals, although the political prisoners were deemed most dangerous. The tour ended at Nelson Mandela’s cell. Measuring 8 feet by 7 feet, it’s not much smaller than our guest room in Singapore but at least we don’t force people to live in there for 18 years

Despite the recent urbanization, essential resources such as electricity and water continue to be scarce in Cape Town and other parts of South Africa. The government enforces something called “load shedding”, i.e. electricity supply is cut off in certain parts of the country at certain times. We’ve experienced a 2-hour spell so far and we’ve only just started our holiday. It’s also illegal to wash cars / water plants / use a hose outside designated hours of the day.

On the other end of the spectrum, the fine dining scene in Cape Town is quite vibrant. Literally hours after we arrived, we had the privilege to have lunch at Test Kitchen, South Africa’s no.1 restaurant and no.28 on the 2015 World’s Best Restaurant list. We eat quite simply but we do enjoy the occasional treats. And Test Kitchen was one such treat.

Next Up: Coming face-to-face with a Great White!