Joburg City Festival 2013

(Click on photos to view gallery)

The JCTA is a voluntary organisation representing businesses and organisations who have a stake in tourism in downtown Joburg. The organisation aims to promote the many attractions of the Joburg inner-city to residents and visitors, who still don't quite get what newbies in town like me are already so excited about. To get the ball moving, in the last week of August the JCTA organised the first ever Joburg City Festival. It was a week full of special events and parties, walking tours, concerts and exhibits, street football and ballet, poetry, fashion, cookery lessons and much more.

The JCTA headquarters are in the random turret building on the right of this picture

I certainly didn't get to as many of the events as I wanted to, but what I did do was discover a lot more about the inner-city and its different areas. After all this exploration of the CBD's various 'hoods I am starting to feel like quite the confident downtown Joburger...even if I am really just an expat who lives in the Northern Suburbs.

The Fashion District

One of the coolest venues during the week was the Fashion Kapitol which is located deep in the 26 block expanse of the 'fashion district'. The Fashion Kapitol is an initiative by a local fashion institute to inject new life into this historic fabrics and clothing area. They have an open-air runway where they stage fashion shows, retail space for cool little boutiques and a nice cafe called The Fashion Shack located inside one of the oldest surviving buildings in the area.

There were lots of tuk tuks about to take festival goers to the different venues

I kept turning up here intent on catching one of the fashion shows which had names like Freaky Friday, Trendy Thursday and Magical Monday, but somehow I kept missing them. Even though I never saw one of the big fashion events, I did still get to pretend I was The Satorialist wandering around and assessing the local style. Personally I think it's not always what people here are wearing, more how they are wearing it - Joburgers have real poise and tons of attitude, they can make a lot of getups look very sharp and cool. I love the colours of the shops around this area too. 

Kerk Street Market

The Kerk Street Market is one of my favourite markets in the CBD. It has great fruit and veggies, as well as the usual football shirts, trainers, gadgets etc. There are many more hectic markets in the city, yet somehow Kerk Street manages to remain simultaneously calm but also full of life. Apparently the hair braiders at the Kerk Street Market are some of the best on the whole continent. They don't have fancy salons, just chairs on the street and they are never short of custom.

On the last day of the festival in Kerk Street there was an event called 'Claim Your City'. A sound system was set-up and local musicians played throughout the day. I dropped by and caught a male soul group giving it everything - they were brilliant.

Gandhi Square Street Football

On Gandhi Square, the transport hub for those using the Metro Bus, there was a 'street football' championship going on all week. Street Football here meant five-a-side and the teams were impressively well organised and played really high standard football. The eventual winners were the Penthouse Scorpions who quite simply outclassed everyone else. They won a new matching team kit and kit bags, as well as 5,000 Rand - not bad for a bit of street footie!

Braamfontein and Critical Mass

Braamfontein is one of the most fashionable parts of downtown Joburg. Full of students there's no shortage of creative ideas, pumping bars and cool coffee shops. I spent quite a lot of the week here, sipping my way through a list of the area's top cafes (more on that later), making my first trip out to the fascinating Constitution Hill and enjoying my first meet up with the fun crowd known as the Jozi Bloggers (also more on that later).

I sadly did not take part (this time) in the mass cycling event Critical Mass which left from Braamfontein on Friday night to zoom around the city centre. I did however hover around and do that blogger thing of taking pictures of the dudes while they were preparing to leave. There were all kinds of people at this event, hipsters, old folks, serious cyclists, young kids, yuppies, students, bloggers (probably)...it's pretty cool how the love of travelling on two wheels unites different folks and I think the whole Critical Mass ethos really matches well with the mission of the Joburg City Festival. Really looking forward to the next edition.

Fordsburg Night Market

One of the things which makes Johannesburg a really exciting city to relocate to is its genuinely rainbow-like abundance of different cultural groups. Much like London or New York, this city has attracted immigrants from across the globe and they've all developed their own little corners, incorporating their indigenous styles and cultural identities into the fabric of the city.

The ethnic group most identifiable in the area where I live (Melrose/Illovo) is the Jewish community. On the floor of my apartment block, ten out of the 15 flats are Jewish. Some of the apartment blocks here even have their own temples! The Chinese community has their own Chinatown in Cyrildene, the Congolese are well set up in Yeoville's Rocky Road and Joburg's vibrant Indian/Pakistani/Bengali community is largely based in colourful Fordsburg, just west of the CBD.

During apartheid the government forced the "coloured" community to move out of Fordsburg, where they had established their own community, and made them relocate to the far off township of Lenasia (past Soweto). They did however let Asian business owners keep their shops - on the condition that they remain within the specially designated Asia Mall. Despite being forced to live several miles from their stores, the community's businesses continued to thrive through the difficulties of apartheid. Now that apartheid has long since passed the Asian community has reclaimed the streets of Fordsburg and the area is now bursting with a new generation of immigrants from the Indian sub-continent, further adding to the vibrant street life. 21^st Century Fordsburg is a fantastic place to shop, eat, get a haircut, visit a tailor…you name it, you can find it here.

The most fun time to come to Fordsburg is Saturday evening when the night market is in full swing. During the night market the area around the main thoroughfare Mint Street fills with stalls selling clothes, jewellery, DVDs, Bollywood films, spices, sparkly shoes and lots and lots of street food. The predominantly Muslim community turn out in their finest clothes to wander the streets, shop, eat, get beauty treatments, gossip and meet with friends.

We parked up a few blocks from Mint Street with empty stomachs and went in search of some top quality Indian food. Following our noses we quickly found ourselves drawn to the smoking street-side grill of the Tikka House where at least 20 tandoori chickens were being grilled over an open fire. With our stomachs happily filled we then went looking for stuff to buy. Like all good Asian markets you arrive in search of food and then decide you want to buy 10 of the latest blockbusters on pirate DVD, a handful of jewellery, a bucket-load of spices and maybe some incense to top it off. Incidentally if you are looking for variations on the traditional long black Muslim abaya…there are at least 50 shops to choose from.

Our next task was to find the Juice Den which Heather Mason of 2summers.net had highly recommended to me. Here they grind up fresh sugar cane and mix it up with freshly squeezed juices and ice into a very satisfying drink. I had orange and cane juice, although there were more exciting options like guava, carrot and avocado to choose from too.

My husband wasn't going to leave Fordsburg without getting a 30 Rand haircut at the Asian barbers and I certainly wasn't going to walk past the Sweetmeats bakery without getting some sticky treats to take home. I have no idea exactly what it was I bought - but what the hey, it was nyom!

How we got there: Fordsburg is located to the west of Newtown which is easily accessed on the Rea Vaya. It is not at all recommended to walk here from Newtown after dark though - the industrial wasteland in between is dark, creepy and super sketchy. Essentially the night market is best reached by car. Park where you can and you will find there's no shortage of car guards around to watch your wheels.

19.06.2013 Joburg antique and second-hand furniture shops, Newlands

Having just moved into a completely unfurnished flat for the first time in our lives, we have had our work cut out filling it up beyond the small amount of furniture we had brought with us from Moscow. Once we had the essentials (such as a fridge - they don’t even come with a fridge here!) sorted, we then decided to head off on a second-hand hunt to find ourselves some good quality extras. 

The Newlands area of the city - and in particular the workshop lined Long Street - came highly recommended and certainly didn’t disappoint.

With a careful eye and some good bargaining you can get some great deals. Our ultimate bargain had to be this huge wicker chair which we got for just 200 Rand (about 15 pounds). With some effort we even managed to get it in the car too (although we did have to drive home with the rear window totally obscured).

Some of the shops (such as the guy who sold us the chair) are quite junky, whilst others are seriously posh and have some very fancy antiques. In between you can find all kinds of random bits of cool bric-a-brac such as old-fashioned tills, street signs, art deco crockery, old wooden chests, strange brass figurines and random animal skulls.

Everything in this 'kitchen' is for sale

There are also a handful of carpenter’s workshops where you can get all kinds of high quality furniture custom-made, from bar stools and shelves, to dining tables and bed heads. We picked up this sturdy Oregon pine bookshelf and a cupboard for the TV made by some guys in a workshop with the crazy name Cowboys and Angels. They even varnished it for us before they delivered it. You certainly don’t get that kind of stuff in Ikea.

Retro Noah, one of the workshops dealing in custom-made furniture

Books and shelves

How I got there: If you are headed to Newlands, you really need to go by car. It’s not well serviced by buses (Melville’s e-tuk tuk is probably your best option) and you will inevitably want to take lots of things away with you. Incidentally, delivery costs between 100 and 250 Rand depending on what is being delivered where.

09.06.2013 Market on Main and Maboneng property

This Sunday we headed down to Maboneng's Sunday market, Market on Main to shop, eat, drink and look into the properties on offer in this growing inner-city gentrification project.

Somewhat similar to the Sunday pop-up markets in London's Brick Lane, Market on Main is largely focused on selling fresh food made from local products cooked right in front of you. Stalls sell all kinds of tasty things such as Thai noodles, dim sum, Ethiopian platters, gourmet burgers, sizzling paella, Durban style curries and barbequed pork ribs. On the drinks side there's homemade lemonade, mojitos, craft beers (that's South African for real ale/microbrewery), good strong Ethiopian coffee and, as we are now in South African winter, hot toddys and mulled wine. The food hall is constantly jam packed with fashionable foodies grabbing lunch at the communal tables and is hectic, but in a festive way.

On the upper floor of the former warehouse is a smaller market selling vintage clothes, funky furniture, handmade jewellery, artworks and some beautiful African fabric inspired shoes and handbags. The selection is small, but enticing. Back down in the warehouse's courtyard entrance you can also find little studios with art exhibition spaces and galleries, which form both the creative and commercial spaces of the artists who live here.

During our exploration of these little studios surrounding the market we came across the Smack! Republic Brewery (do they know that 'smack' is slang for heroin in the UK...?!). Smack! is two months old and run by two young craft beer lovers who had the dream of creating Joburg's first inner-city microbrewery. Their brewing space was most definitely micro - I think even my local pub in England has a bigger production - but we could not fault the beer. This was absolutely delicious, seriously some of the best I have drank in a long time. I can't wait to find it in some bars around town. And check out the bottles, very cool.

At Smack!'s terrace, fancy loft conversion in the background

Bargain Maboneng property

As we sat up on Smack!'s balcony with our pints of Bree Street Belle, we spotted a house viewing across the courtyard. We had landed in Maboneng on open day and the local sales team were there in force to tell us about the area's excellent investment gains. Apparently properties here see about a 12-14% yearly value increase, easily beating inflation. Furthermore, by 2015 the Maboneng precinct plan to develop an incredible 25 more buildings which they now own in the area (I didn't quite catch what that means in unit numbers, but I would say they are looking at adding thousands more flats). More and varied retail space is their next big focus (an area can't survive on a Sunday market alone) and they also plan to build student housing to bring some economic variation to the area, and of course to make it really, really cool.

The first property we saw was a converted factory loft. The ceilings were sky high leaving potential to add space with a mezzanine, although noticeably there were not many windows in the main living space. The showers (two, one for each bedroom), with old industrial windows used as doors, were about the size of your average bathroom and from the balcony you could easily zip-line your way over the courtyard and straight into the brewery bar. It was a large (125sqm) and unique space, which would suite young creatives with imagination and I can only imagine the kind of parties they could have there. Price? 1.5million Rand, which is around  £100,000.

Designer bathroom

Next we moved over to Main Street Life, a seven storey building with a boutique hotel on the top floor and an independent cinema and theatre on street level. The cheapest properties here are the studio flats (around 33sqm), which with their current furnishings unfortunately resembled hotel rooms. These units are on sale for 360K (about  £23K) and apparently rent for around 2,000Rand per month. For something slightly bigger they also still had a corner studio left, which came in at a considerably larger 55 square metres and was surrounded on two sides by full length windows (with views). Price? 550K (about  £35K).

Every floor of the building has its own artworks

The view from the top of Main Street Life

Maboneng are also selling properties 'off-plan' in two other nearby building starting at 580,000Rand for 50sqm in 'Revolution House' and 650,000Rand for a 65sqm loft style space in a building which, when construction finishes, will offer balconies and a communal swimming pool.

The redevelopment of this part of the city is certainly ambitious, poses many questions and has raised its fair share of controversy. The property mogul behind it all, Jonathan Lieberman, believes that in order to really redevelop and lift this tough inner-city area out of poverty and neglect, middle income and rich residents need to be looked after, as well as the existent poor population. Hence high-end properties, bijou dining spots and artisan shops have taken centre stage in the first part of the development. However, many people also argue that Maboneng currently only caters for those with money to the detriment of the local population, and certainly judging by the prices in the local bar I'd have to agree, life is pricey.

More local buildings slated for redevelopment

However, when all is said and done, as the endless spread of Joburg's northern residential sprawl is unsustainable, the regeneration and re-branding of these downtown areas is essential. Getting well-off South Africans to change their perceptions of inner-city living is a highly commendable thing. What these new urbanites do when they get there is another story.

24.05.2013 In Linden

Due to various set-backs in our flat-hunting mission, we have been forced to rent a temporary place for another 2 weeks before we can finally move into our proper home. The upside to this has been the chance to explore a new 'hood, which we wouldn't otherwise have spent much time in - Linden.

It may be a bit out of the way, but Linden is a special little place. It's got that friendly small town feel to it, with a healthy smattering of local shops and cafes, just one supermarket and not a mall in sight. There's a real sense of community here which many areas of modern Johannesburg seem to lack.

Here are some of my favourite places in Linden:

The Argentinian

Corner 7th Street and 4th Avenue, Linden

An Argentinian bakery specialising in croissants. You can get a really good fresh breakfast roll (or croissant) with eggs, mushrooms and more here, plus a juice and a coffee for about 50Rand - excellent value. The music is good old-fashioned 1960s folk from Bob, Janis and the gang, staff are absolutely lovely, there's free wifi and not a whiff of pretension. I'd breakfast here everyday if I didn't think such behaviour was absurdly extravagant.

I haven't eaten many croissants in Africa,  but these are definitely very good

The Whippet

Corner 7th Street and 4th Avenue, Linden

This is Linden's trendy cafe and it's always packed at lunchtimes. They have all kinds of smart, well-appointed design details like light bulbs in jam jars and Phillipe Starck inspired tea pots. The Whippet has an impressive selection of exotic tea blends from across the continent and great coffee too. The wifi is not wholly efficient (just 25mb at a time), but the food is gorgeous, they open late on Fridays for after work drinks and they are very dedicated to the local community - as they say themselves it's all about 'South Africans rediscovering their neighborhoods and their own history'.

The Whippet in Linden

Yugo Store

56 4th Avenue, Linden

Yugo store is an historic relic that looks like it just fell out of 1980s Bradford, although apparently according to some web reports Yugo dates back as far as 1946. Impressive. It says it's a supermarket, but actually it's more a warren of all kinds of random odds and ends, some of which have real obvious use, such as the African brand pots and pans, and others which have evidently been here for the past three decades waiting patiently for someone to come in and say 'yes, that's it! The pineapple shaped ashtray I was looking for!' It's like Poundsaver only most things cost around three pounds and some of the stuff is really old.

In fact I might go so far as to say that Yugo Store needs a blog post all of its own - it is just such a unique place in this land of countless anonymous shopping malls. It's an absolute Aladdin's cave of random stuff; bucket and spade, bicycle wheel, photo frames, nails, strange local soap brands, toy soldiers, loose cigarettes (sold individually - many people queuing up for these), sweets (so many sweets), seeds, towels, coca-cola. You can buy it all in this one shop.

There's an old fella (Mr Yugo I presume) who mans the till all hours, greets everyone by their first name and knows where literally every item in his store is. I've come here on numerous occasions in the last week looking for tin openers, irons, saucepans etc and he always reels off the exact directions 'left side of the store, 3^rd shelf, bottom' in a heartbeat. He seems to know everyone and always has time to chat. He is the reason that local stores are so important in the 21st Century - they keep communities together and remind us to be friendly to each other. Love Yugo Stores.

The Cheese Shop and Cheese Cafe

71 7th Street, corner 3rd Avenue, Linden

I love cheese. Me and my husband even had a cake made entirely of cheese at our wedding, because that was my cheese dream. For me cheese is basically an improvement to pretty much any meal. At the Cheese Shop you can not only buy fancy small-farm South African cheeses such as extra strong Karoo cheddar, you can also have a cheese meal in the cheese restaurant next door – class.

Rembrandt Slaghuis

57 4th Avenue, Linden

Slaghuis means slaughterhouse in Afrikaans (one of many amusing Afrikaans words) and Rembrandt is the real deal. This meat is really outstanding stuff, some of it is so succulent and fresh you could eat it cooked up just with salt and pepper. Damn, it just has so much flavour, it's pure meat feast luxury. Mr Rembrandt likes to give me a gentle ribbing over my terrible Afrikaans, which I actually find quite charming and not annoying as I have been wont to feel in other places. In fact he's actually trying to help me learn. Sweet.

Rembrandt Slaghuis

Oh and on Saturday mornings they set up a braai outside the shop – nyom!

Linden Cycle

63 3rd Avenue

At some point I think I am going to quit walking everywhere and splash out on a bike. When I do, I am definitely getting it from here. They have decent looking second-hand bikes from as little as 500Rand (about 35quid).

Herby's

Need a Swiss or Bavarian hairstylist? Call this guy.

The Blue Room

57 3rd Avenue, Linden

This is a cute little store specialising in 1950s era furniture and other sweet design pieces. They have a set of sparkly early 1960s kitchen chairs in there which I am in love with, but alas I think sensibility will win out. They also sell Lenin bust candles (randomly) and have a good value clothes store next door.

Amuse Cafe

34 5th Street, corner of 4th Avenue, Linden

Unfortunately there are not many bars in Linden. In fact I could rephrase that and say there are next to no bars in Linden. Thank heavens the football season's over.

Linden's one contribution to nightlife is the inviting, vaguely bohemian and gay friendly Amuse Cafe. They have live music from local bands Thursday through Saturday (acoustic night on Thursdays) and the friendly owner Dirk is so laidback he doesn't mind punters just hanging out drinking after-hours and getting on stage to mime the West End Girls video while listening to the full whack of Pet Shop Boys Greatest Hits, as we did last weekend. Thoroughly enjoyable.

Local folk singer Lucy Kruger