Napier - Earthquakes and art deco

Haku Falls, New Zealand

After leaving behind the not-so pleasant smelling Rotorua, we drove down to Napier, with a couple of quick stop offs along the way. 

The first was at the Haku Falls on the Waitako River. The name is Maori for foam, and you can see why they called it that. Apparently 200,000 litres of water goes over the nine metre drop every second. That is the equivalent of five Olympic swimming pools worth of water every minute.

Haku Falls, New Zealand

Lake Taupo

The second stop was at Lake Taupo for lunch and a look around. There wasn't a great deal here, but it was interesting to see an aeroplane at McDonalds.

Lake Taupo

Lake Taupo

Napier

After lunch, we soon arrived in the beautiful art deco town of Napier. This being New Zealand, with around eight major fault lines running through North Island alone, it is perhaps not surprising that the town was destroyed in an earthquake. Not when we arrived - just previously.

The 7.8 magnitude Hawkes Bay earthquake struck at 10:47am on 3 February 1931. It lasted only two and a half minutes, but in that time many of the buildings in the centre collapsed, caving in on those inside, and raining down the masonry of their ornate edifices on those outside. 258 people were killed, including 161 in Napier, and 93 in Hastings.

Napier

After the quake, came the fires. Chemists in the central business area caught alight, and the fire spread vigorously. That it was brought under control within 36 hours was a testament to the hard work of those involved, as water pressure was ridiculously low and attempts to pump sea water failed when the shingle blocked the hoses. Eleven blocks of the town centre were gutted.

Napier

With insurance companies not paying out for earthquakes, much of the money for rebuilding came from the charitable donations that flooded in. Rather than rushing the rebuild of the town centre, they took the opportunity to do it in a planned way over several years. In the meantime, a temporary shopping area called Tin City was put up.

Being the early thirties, the architectural style was art deco, and that is how the town was rebuilt - a world away from the fancy stonework that killed so many people when it crumbled in the quake. It has made Napier a real destination for art deco fans.

Napier

The quake also presented another opportunity for Napier to improve itself, as it raised the ground level elements slightly, including the seabed near the shoreline, permanently pushing the sea further out.  The town took advantage of this to build a new Marine Parade with gardens and other facilities.

Napier

As someone who likes art deco, I enjoyed being in Napier. You can take guided tours around the town, or do as we did, which was to buy the tour route and notes from the Art Deco Centre.

Napier

Napier

Napier

Napier

Napier

Napier

Napier

Napier

Napier

Napier

Yokohama - Craft beer central

Yokohama

Our next stop after Matsumoto was actually Tokyo - we sort of flitted in and out of there a few times  - but I will do all of the posts from there later. For now, we'll fast forward on to Yokohama.

Yokohama

This stop was really all about the beer. It certainly wasn't about the accommodation; we had a truly tiny room (so small you could only just about put the bed mats down), at the top of a block that was probably best described as boarding rooms.

Hikawa Mura, Yokohama

We had read that this was the place to come for Japanese craft beers, and it certainly was. But we did fit in a little bit of sightseeing. We didn't bother to go on the ferris wheel, but we did take a walk through the park, with its floral display competition going on, and visit the old ocean liner, The Hikawa Maru.

Yokohama

The Hikawa Maru was built in 1930, as Japan's response to the ocean liners of the UK and USA. It was introduced to sail the Japan-Seattle line, and was state of the art, with some beautiful art deco style interiors.

Hikawa Mura, Yokohama

The Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK) shipping line was keen to entice some big names to its ship. On hearing that silent movie star Charlie Chaplin was planning a journey, and that he loved the tempura made by the exclusive Hanacho restaurant in Tokyo, they sent one of their chefs to the Hanacho kitchens to learn their secrets.

The ploy worked, and Charlie Chaplin chose the Hikawa Maru for his trip, and reportedly ate the tempura every night.

Hikawa Mura, Yokohama

During the war, the ship was pressed into use as a Japanese Navy Hospital ship, and managed to survive striking mines three times without sinking.

Hikawa Mura, Yokohama

She resumed life as a cargo and passenger ship on the Japan-Seattle line in 1953, before being retired in 1960 after 254 voyages and carrying over 25,000 passengers. She was refurbished in 2006-8, and visitors today can see the style that the first class passengers travelled in.

Hikawa Mura, Yokohama

Hikawa Mura, Yokohama

Hikawa Mura, Yokohama

Hikawa Mura, Yokohama

Red Brick Warehouses, Yokohama

Our second bit of sightseeing was to the popular red brick warehouses, which contain a variety of shops and eateries. We did have a bit of a look here - and bought some rather tasty apple pie from the very busy Granny Smith shop - but quite by chance, we also came across a beer festival.

Beer Festival, Yokohama

It wasn't especially big, but it did have quite a good range, albeit that it had quite a few imported German beers. One German import that we hadn't expected to see here, was a Bavarian Oompah Band. They were very popular, though most of the songs that they did were English.

Beer Festival, Yokohama

There was something quite strange about standing in a beer tent in Japan, listening to a German band play Let It Be, with hundreds of Japanese drinkers singing along and waving their arms in the air!

Yokohama

Which leads me nicely on to the rest of the beer here. We tried a range, from the large 'Yokohama Brewery', to the much smaller 'Bay Brewing Yokohama' microbrewery, and various ones in between. We spent quite some time searching for 'Craft Beer Bar', discovering 'The Taproom' on the way. When we did find it, we discovered that the owner isn't keen on foreigners; he seemed OK with us though, and we enjoyed a quick few there.

Yokohama

While failing to find another bar that we were looking for, we came across the local British Bar, 'The Full Monty', and decided to check that out. We spent some time chatting with the owner, especially when it turned out he was a Liverpool FC fan. When they closed, we ended up going with him to another bar, this time a Scottish Gastro pub called Wyvern

El Nubichinom, Yokohama

And the next day, we did find the one we had missed the day before, El Nubichinom must be the smallest bar I've ever been in, or am likely to go in. It takes about six of us foreigners, or maybe a few more if they are the somewhat smaller Japanese. The photo shows basically the whole bar.

Sweet shop, Yokohama

The owner knows his beers - he judges national beer competitions. With room for only six different beers at a time, he picks them carefully, and changes them regularly. This bar was a great little find, and I would definitely recommend it, though it is best to plan to go for just one or two, as it is only reasonable to move on and give the next person a chance to get in!

Sweet shop, Yokohama

There was one other thing we quite enjoyed here, which was spending a while watching a sweet shop making their little pulled sugar delicacies. it was fascinating to watch them make the little ones, but I would rather have liked to have seen them make the shoes too.

Sweet shop, Yokohama

Sweet shop, Yokohama

Drain cover, Yokohama

Art Deco in Miami

Not being people to spend time on beaches, the main attraction of Miami for us was the abundance of art deco buildings along the South Beach area.  And we had been pleased to find that we could coincide our stay with the annual Art Deco Weekend.


When we worked out the bus systems and got our two buses into SoBe, we certainly saw a lot of great art deco architecture.  Some of it was the classic white style that you often see along beach fronts in the UK, which I have to  admit to being my own preferred type, while some had gone for more colour.

Art Deco gets its name from the 1925 Paris Exhibition of 'Arts Decoratifs', which focused on displays of modern art of the period.  As this was one of the biggest viewings of these new styles, the abbreviated name of the fair was adopted as an easy description of this post WW1 modern style.

Some of the art deco style uses a lot of Egyptian inspired imagery and colouring.  This came out of the rise in popularity of all things egyptian following the 1922 discovery of King Tutankhamen's tomb.

There is a lot of this more ornate style here in Miami, as well as the simpler, more common influence of the pyramid in the stepped levels of building structure and decorative lines.

So we enjoyed looking at the buildings.

We didn't do the Art Deco tour though, preferring instead to do the 'underworld' tour, which promised stories of crime and mafia that happened in these parts.

Sadly the tour was a bit disappointing.  For a city that was - and possibly still is - so steeped in mafia connections, it was a bit thin on underworld stuff.

 

He did tell us that the decorative lines and arrows built into the flooring of some hotels probably pointed to the direction of the prohibition era speakeasies.

He also said that when the speakeasy got a tip off that they were about to be raided by the police, they would take most of their stuff to the Wolfsonian, which at that time was a storage company, to hide it until after the raid was over and they could get back to business.

 

Aside from those two points, and showing us the spot where Versace was shot, the only things we got were film and TV references, such as the fact that the neon work inside Club Deuc, the oldest pub in Miami, was brought in when they filmed some of Miami Vice there.

He did repeatedly tell us that everyone was corrupt during those mafia days, which was probably rather unnecessary for a group on an underground tour.  But if you were in the market for an expensive property, he did tell us that the house that Al Capone retired to in Miami is up for sale.

 

And unfortunately the market was a bit of a let down too.  As markets go, it wasn't bad.  There were some nice antiquey bits, some jewellery, and lots of other things, but it wasn't really art deco.

 

We had expected that there would be a lot of art deco related stuff here.  Obviously not all original, but we had thought we would see some good reproduction bits and other things that were clearly inspired by the art deco period.  There was a little bit of this, but not much.  The vast majority was what you would expect to find at any flea market.

 

We went along to the Art Deco Welcome Centre to see the 'bounty of Art Deco furniture' and saw about ten pieces.  Though admittedly one was a rather large and elaborate light which I though was pretty amazing.  Still, not much of a bounty, more of a smattering.

 

The parade of vintage cars was interesting to a point.  There were some nice old classics.  But even then, they were stretching the idea of vintage.  It was bad enough that they included cars from the eighties, but some of the cars being driven must have been from within the last ten years; I think a couple towards the end were just showing off their latest acquisition!

 

We had hoped for a bit of canine amusement with the Arf Deco parade of dressed up dogs, but they were a bit thin on the ground and very few really dressed for the occasion.

 

So overall we weren't especially impressed with the Art Deco Weekend.  A bit like Miami as a whole really.  It was alright, there was some stuff to see and do, but it wasn't as good as we'd expected and we not really sure what all the fuss is about.  Perhaps it really is just all about the beach here.

But hey, we had a couple of huge cocktails at a bargain happy hour price, so we were contented enough!