Squeezing through that Aussie submarine

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Today is World Water Day so let's go underwater and walk through the long (300 feet) and narrow Australian submarine Onslow.
We saw its exterior in an earlier post.

If I remember correctly, these suits were meant for emergency evacuation if the sub was in trouble when submerged.

The eerie redness of an empty torpedo tube.

And here a torpedo IN the tube.

Umm . . . some important part of equipment.
Gyroscopes?

A Japanese tourist and his father were the only other visitors on board.
It was kind of creepy exploring inside almost alone.

The Red October game!

Fortunately it was not allowed to descend to the "snake pit."

Ha!  My kids used to play this Battleship game decades ago.
Well, the Onslow was in service from 1969 to 1999. 

Tight quarters -- three bunks!
Oi, I could never be a submariner.

Through the periscope I could see beautiful Sydney across the harbor.

Respect to the brave sailors who do this job.
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(Linking to ABC Wednesday.  K is for Klaustrofobia, as it is spelled in many non-English languages.)
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For Submarine Day, an Australian sub

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In honor of Submarine Day  let's look at the HMAS Onslow.

The submarine is now part of Australia's National Maritime Museum.

The sub has a lovely view of Sydney.

The Onslow was built in Scotland, commissioned in 1969, and saw service until 1999.
I was brave and went inside, walking mostly alone all along its almost 300 foot length.
In the next days I can show you the claustrophobic quarters.
You can read about some tragic and strange incidents in this submarine's history.
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The green stone

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Eyal, my sweet grandson in Australia, can help illustrate another Yiddish proverb.

If a stone stays in one place, it becomes overgrown with grass.
Az der shteyn ligt af eyn ort vert er oykh bavaksn mit groz.
.אַז דער שטיין ליגט אויף איין אָרט ווערט ער אויך באַוואַקסן מיט גראָז

English proverb expressing the converse: A rolling stone gathers no moss.

German gloss (unattested): Als (wenn) der Stein liegt auf einem Ort wird er auch bewachsen mit Grass.
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Check out the proverb in many languages at Proverbial Planet.
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P.S. I added an update to the earlier post if you'd like to learn more about illegal firearms in my country.
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Back when people still lived in this forest

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Let's continue the previous two posts and stay in Australia's Ku-ring-gai Wildflower Garden.
Here's daughter Naomi surveying the trails before she and I set out into the wild bush country.
You can click a few times and enlarge the photo to see the topography.

The maps says that "Guringai was the language of the people who first inhabited this area."

In many locations in and around Sydney, where I was visiting,  I saw statements like the one above:

Acknowledgement of Country

We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land, the Guringai people on whose land we now stand,  we pay our respects to Elders past and present. 

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(Linking this M is for Map post to ABC Wednesday.)
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Organic bush crafts at Wildflower Garden

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A "Bush Birthday Party"!
My grandson's classmate had his 8th birthday at the big Ku-Ring-Gai Wildflower Garden in NSW, Australia.

Before they sat down to eat,  the ranger took them on a guided walk on the trails and they collected natural things from the ground, like seeds and pods and leaves.

The ranger held a bowl of brown balls and cautioned the kids not to bite them because they were not chocolate.
They were lumps of moist clay!

Here's my sweet Eyal contemplating what kind of "bush critter" to make from the raw materials.

Here's what came out.

Two girls created these fanciful gardens.

What a fun way to combine nature walks with "organic bush crafts."
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(Linking to OurWorld Tuesday.)

Keep looking up

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These are such sad and terrible times inside and just across our borders lately, I have to keep urging myself:  "Keep looking up."

Especially now, on Hoshana Raba and on Simchat Torah, which is supposed to be a joyous holiday.
Simchat Torah mean Rejoicing in the Torah.
In Orthodox synagogues the men dance and sing with the Torah scrolls, while in Reform and liberal congregations the women and children join in in carrying the scrolls and everyone celebrates together.
The last parasha or portion of the last book, Deuteronomy, is chanted.
To keep the reading cycle going unbroken, the scroll is either rewound or a different scroll is opened and the first chapter of Genesis is begun immediately.

And so life goes on, at least for the lucky ones.
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Libby makes capsicum boats

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 Granddaughter Libby is only 5 but she is already a specialist at making capsicum boats.
She fills capsicums (bell peppers) with tuna and avocado.  

During my recent visit to Australia I was surprised to find my daughter's new kitchen has dappled mirrors as splash boards. 
Just the thing for the bloggers' weekly meme Weekend Reflections.

Libby is so cute in her school uniform.  (This is the winter one.)
She is in kindergarten at a friendly public school.
It was the end of winter when I came to Australia but by the end of my visit, two weeks ago, the kids were just switching to the cooler summer uniform.
Libby's brothers go to the same school and must wear a white shirt and sometimes even a tie; and all the kids need a wide-brimmed hat in the sun.
I think it looks nice and gives a good feeling to have all the schoolkids looking so tidy.
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A century-old reservoir

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I discovered this beautiful mysterious old structure at the top of a hill near Bondi Junction, Australia.

Now that I'm back home in Israel I have time to research what it was that I saw.
Turns out that this is Waverley Reservoir (Elevated) (WS 136) and its story is here.

The water supply reservoir was built a century ago, completed in 1917.
I hope the heritage people will take good care of it.
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(Linking to Watery Songlines meme in Australia.)
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What Lifts You, at Bondi beach

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Not a great photo but I had to shoot fast (and into the sun)  because a constant line of tourists was waiting to get their picture taken posing with the wings.
(Clicking a few times to enlarge helps a bit.) 
It is found along the line of murals at beautiful Bondi beach, Australia.
(Was it only ten days ago that I was there, in Sydney . . . ?)

Apparently these #whatliftsyou angel wings by Kelsey Montague are appearing in cities all over the world. 
Mashable talks about What Lifts You as "The intersection of street art and social media."
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(Linking to Monday Mural at Oakland Daily Photo.)
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Eerieness and the star of David

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No, unfortunately it's not the finger of God in the sky.
But it was my hand and camera and face reflected, rather unintentionally, so hey, let's share it over at James' Weekend Reflections.
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Thai citizens en route to Israel

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My month with the grandchildren came to an end all too quickly.
Early Saturday morning I bid farewell to my daughter's family and boarded a Qantas jet at Sydney airport.
After sitting in the plane half an hour waiting for two late passengers, we took off and had a nice10-hour flight to Thailand.

The 7-hour wait time in Bangkok airport was very long.
Sitting in this cavernous terminal until their midnight, with the reflections above and on every side, was kind of creepy. 

The second flight took 11 hours but after a long dark night we were rewarded with a lovely dawn, with El Al's star of David in the changing sky.
The sun was just rising and the views of southern Israel's deserts were breathtaking!

Touchtown at Ben-Gurion airport and, following tradition, everybody applauded.
It was a joy to be back home in the Holy Land, my land.

But as I looked around in the now-light plane, an El Al  jumbo jet, a code share flight with Thai Airways, I realized that very many of the hundreds of travelers were Thai citizens.
These are the men and women who come to work as in-home caretakers for our elderly.
These are the men who labor in our fields and our very hot hothouses, producing the food we eat.

It made me sad.
What has happened to our once pioneering country, that for the last several decades Jewish Israelis no longer do such physical work?
A.D. Gordon, who died in 1922 in Kibbutz Degania, must be turning over in his grave at the situation today.
He was a Zionist ideologue who believed that physical effort on the land would bring about the redemption of the Jewish people.
He attributed pioneer work a semi-religious status, arguing that it created an organic interrelationship between man, the land and culture.

A. D. Gordon: "Tolstoy in Palestine" - Poem - by Steven P. Schneider
Like Tolstoy, you longed to connect your life
to the soil.
You turned your back
on property, family, the high culture of Russia-
to live with peasants,
to work the vineyards and orange groves of Rishon Le-Zion.
Your stamina stunned the younger men
and women who worked beside you.
Your labor connected you to the land of your people.
It made you free.
Turning your back on the occupations of the Pale--
Talmudic scholar, money lender,
peddler, victim of pogroms--
You wanted to remake the Jew into a farmer.
Your weapon against history was the hoe--
Your work in the fields a new kind of worship.
With each digging of the hoe--
you discovered a new rung upon which to climb to heaven.
The sweat bathed your white beard.
Your eyes burned with the fire of holiness.
Tolstoy in Palestine,
you scribbled "Some Observations"
by candlelight in the predawn hours--
"our people," you wrote, "can be rejuvenated
through labor and a life close to nature."
At night, under the moon of Zion,
beside the campfire,
you preached your religion of labor
to all who would listen.
And when the dreamers of Israel
sang and danced,
you joined them
in the hora of the body reborn.
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(Linking to OurWorld Tuesday.)
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Windswept in Bondi

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For a desert-dweller like me, feeling the expansiveness and smelling the salty air of the Pacific is immensely refreshing.
And down here in the south of Australia, standing on the shore feels like standing at the edge of the known world.

I felt so grateful for this gift and said the Jewish blessing that is said when seeing the ocean after a long time away: "Baruch Ata Adonai Eloheinu Melech HaOlam, Oseh Ma’asei Vereishit -- Blessed are you, Lord our God, Master of the universe, Who creates (i.e. renews daily) the work of [the original] creation [of the universe]."

  The famed Bondi Beach!

Yesterday was a windy, cool day at the beginning of spring.

The "surf culture" of Bondi.
You can enlarge the photo to read the rules.
Ah, life is so civilized here, Down Under.
I'll miss it when I fly back to the chaotic Middle East in a few days.
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(Linking to signs, signs and Our World Tuesday.)
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Honey for a sweet new year

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Tonight is Erev Rosh Hashana when Jews everywhere dip apples in honey and say the blessing asking God to grant us a sweet new year.
The tree hollow you see in the photo contains a hive of native Australian bees, busy making honey. 

It says they are stingless, never come out if it is raining or below 18 C, and pollinate within a half kilometer radius.
You can enlarge the photo to read the sign. 

The unusual hive is but one of the discoveries we made today at the Ku-ring-gai Wildflower Garden.
Sweet daughter Naomi took me around the trails for several hours in the warm spring sun.
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A good and sweet new year 5776 to all!
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UPDATE: Just saw this interesting article about how Israel is teaching America successful methods of using eucalyptus trees and flowers and Texas bushes underneath to help bees in their pollination. And also selling eucalyptus seeds to Jordan and India for the same purpose.   Beekeepers in Israel have not suffered from  the Colony Collapse Disorder that threatens many countries.
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(Linking to Camera Critters.)
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Sydney reflections

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The flag and beautiful Sydney reflected today in the facade of the Australian National Maritime Museum.

The Sydney Harbor Bridge reflected in a building in Milsons Point.
From the museum at Darling Harbor I took a ferry to Milsons Point (home of the Luna Park) in order to catch a train to the North Shore suburb where I'm staying with family this month.
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(Linking to Weekend Reflections.)
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Pure and simple

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My daughter, the healthy-eating expert.
And what a cool juicer she has. 

I enjoy eating and drinking Australia's delicious fruits and vegetables (and more!) this month at Naomi's house. 
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