Bye Cape, Hello Vineyard

Loading pictures on Blogger is such a pain. At least now they don't erase entire posts when there's something wrong and the page closes by itself. If that happened at the end of this post, I think I'd feel like throwing something breakable at the wall.

Anyway, I should really stop blogging so much about my personal life and more about what I'm doing on my little "excursions" eh? Lest I say something I cannot take back...

So since last Friday, I moved from Cape Cod to a nearby island called Martha's Vineyard. If you click on the picture you'll be able to see more clearly where I was and am.

Even before leaving, I knew that the thing I'd miss the most about Cape Cod was the sunsets over Cape Cod Bay. They are amazingly breathtaking (ran out of adjectives) and they are different every minute, everyday. Just like there are no two people on earth with the same fingerprint- there are probably no two sunsets with the same colour combinations that are ever repeated.

The sad thing about sunsets is that they end so quickly. As with everything good and lovely in this world... Summer comes and goes like a whiff of roses in the flying wind. Nothing stays the same forever here, especially not the beach where the tides change the face of the beach constantly.

But on Friday it was time to go so we packed everything into the car and drove off to the port. The only ways to get onto Martha's Vineyard is by ferry or by plane and since we had to bring the car over, we drove the car right onto the ferry for a 45 minute journey over the waters.

The boat of course was packed as usual since many people live in Cape Cod but work on Martha's Vineyard. As I soon found out, Martha's Vineyard is one of the most expensive places to live. Quoting from Wiki: "A study by the Martha's Vineyard Commission found that the cost of living on the island is 60 percent higher than the national average and housing prices are 96 percent higher." No wonder people like to ferry over to Cape Cod to get groceries. A normal packet of mince beef here can cost 10USD while it would usually be 5USD.

So we get to the house and it is absolutely wonderful. The estate is filled with 5 acres (about one and two thirds of a football/soccer field) of meticulously arranged gardens lined with statues, rare trees and flowers as well as ponds and fountains. I felt as if I had returned to Singapore's Botanical Gardens for a visit. Also, these people are obsessed with Chinese art so there are old chinese vases, carvings, chairs, etc littered around the place.

The estate has a main house as well as a gigantic guest house which we are currently living in. The house below is just the guest house. All I can say is, it is ginormous and as I sit here typing in the living room, the sound of my typing is echoing off the cavernous walls of this house.

This is just one half of the living room. The other half looks the same. There are two fireplaces facing each other and to walk between the two takes about thirty steps. I like that hanging beside this fireplace is a poster that says "Singapore/Kuala Lumpur" on it. Totally a pleasant surprise! There's a tiger and the Raffles Hotel proudly drawn on it. Apparently it's a vintage poster that the owners of this house bought at an auction... blah blah blah... Another way of saying "expensive". But it looks like something you can copy off of Google images and enlarge it then print it...

Right next to the house is a barn where people keep their horses for a monthly rent. Everyday I will walk there with the baby to give the horses some carrots or just to pet them. I never imagined in my life that I'd live so close to one of my favourite animals in the world. I had always dreamed of owning a horse (who hasn't?) but by the looks of it, it might as well always just be a dream... Keeping a horse is so expensive! The barnkeeper said rent there was 160USD a month and on top of that you have to pay for food, hay, care, shots, etc... And horses themselves don't come cheap of course.

Then after working Friday and Saturday, I had Sunday off. The lady I work for brought me a map from the gas station (petrol kiosk) of the nearby towns so that was where I went.

Edgartown!

A mere 15 minutes walk from the house, Edgartown, as every other town I've seen around Cape Cod, is very pretty. A quaint little village by the sea, Edgartown has a strong whaling and sailing tradition that I could sense even just by walking down the little streets. First of all, most of the houses there date back to the 1800s. On most of these houses, you'll see the year it was built stamped across the front of the porch. Many of these houses were also captains' houses and you'll know that because there are signs hanging out front saying "Captain so-and-so's house".

Also, if you still remember the movie "Jaws" about a great white shark that terrorizes a beach community of Amity; it was shot here in the Edgartown area. Many people regard the town of Amity to be a fictional version of Edgartown.

Everywhere I walked, I heard old people chit-chatting about sailing, fishing and other sea-related talk. There's even an old whaling church down Main Street. I truly felt the pride people had in their way of life here but also that it was a rather exclusive community that didn't look too interested in welcoming outsiders to settle down. They are fine with tourists of course, since Martha's Vineyard has long abandoned whaling as their main source of income and now relies on tourism to run the island's economy.

In fact, Martha's Vineyard is a favourite destination for many serious celebrities such as the Clintons who are known for being regular visitors to the Vineyard. The Kennedys also used to vacation here. Last year Reese Witherspoon and Jake Gyllenhaal were spotted with their kids on the beaches not far from here. Beyonce and Jay-Z came too. And most excitingly, Obama is expected to arrive with his family and entourage during the last two weeks of August to a town not far from where I am. He has not even made it here yet and people are already talking about the possible traffic jams he may cause with his presence. Apparently whenever Obama travels, he brings with him a few hundred people including secret service agents, press people, etc. The town of Oak Bluffs (about two hours walking from where I am) is in turn anticipating some sort of economic relief to come from this injection of White House money into its recession-affected tourist market.

Anyway it was a lovely morning to be strolling down 18th century-styled streets breathing in 21st century salty sea air.

I dropped in as many shops as I could but was completely turned off by the exhorbitant prices on many China-made goods. 50 dollars for a shopping bag made out of recycled vietnamese rice sacks? No thanks.

No thanks for me, but the more affluent tourists were lapping it all up in glee. The most interesting thing to do instead was really just to people-watch. It was truly eye-opening because you seldom see such people out in force. They were dressed in clean white American "Ralph Lauren" type clothes; most looked as if they just stepped out of a family clothing catalog and they all looked so gay--- as in happy. But not everybody looked happy.

It was Sunday but I felt weird entering one of those churches as the only person dressed in all black. It seems as if I was somebody who had not gotten word that the only colours that you were allowed to wear to this particular town was white, light pink, blue, light yellow, light green and khaki pants. I also felt weird since most people were already staring at me anyway. Perhaps they thought I was one of those native American Indians that used to live primarily on this island before the English came.

I had been walking around Edgartown for about four hours nonstop so I decided to walk home for a breather and a snack. But when 1400 arrived, I thought I'd try to walk to Oak Bluffs. At that time, I had no idea that it would take me anywhere between two to two and a half hours on foot to get there. So off I went, so sure of myself that I'd be able to get there and back before 1850.

Of course I didn't make it to Oak Bluffs But I made it to the jetty where I sat for about an hour eating my salted preserved fish, listening to the song that's playing on my blog right now. I found out later that this was one of the places where "Jaws" was filmed.

The water was so clean...

Looking off of the bridge where people crowd in queues waiting to jump off into the icy waters below... Are they crazy?

But as the sun sank lower, I realised that I still had a long way to walk before I reached the house. I haven't had such a long walk since last summer but I'm glad I took it. My legs felt like jelly when I got home but I gained so much more that I can't explain...

There shall be more adventures soon. I have the morning off tomorrow and I plan to use it...

:)