A Very Sad Goodbye to Brixton the Cat
I was ambivalent about writing this post. The last time I wrote about Brixton -- a cat named after a suburb -- was in December 2022, a few weeks after she walked into our lives. Now I'm writing to memorialize her, just a year later, and a part of me feels like it's a...
A Stance Car Park-Off at FNB Stadium
Some of you might remember a post I wrote last year about bicycle spinning and stance in Soweto. The bicycle stance subculture, which is the art of transforming regular bikes into flamboyant showpieces that ride very close to the ground, stemmed from the car stance...
A Belated Kensington Jacaranda Walk Post
I'm suffering from a creative block this week and couldn't think of anything to blog about. Then I remembered I have a set of pictures and sketches from my jacaranda walk in Kensington, which I hosted with Johannesburg in Your Pocket a few weeks ago. I never got...
Greylene the Suzuki Jimny Hits the Road
For those of you who didn't see on social media already, I bought a car. Her name is Greylene and she is a 2022 Suzuki Jimny. Greylene and me in front of a weird boat in Deneysville (more on Deneysville in a minute). Thorsten threw out the name as a joke but I...
Visiting Dolobran, Joburg’s Quirkiest Mansion
Last weekend Thorsten and I visited Dolobran, one of Joburg's oldest, quirkiest, and most mysterious mansions, on a tour with the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation (JHF). Dolobran is unique among Joburg's "Randlord" mansions (other examples of which include Villa...
Rugby in South Africa Is Not Only a Game
I know nothing about rugby. In 13 years of living in South Africa I've attended only one live rugby match. But I know a lot about sports and I know a lot about people. And I know that Saturday's Rugby World Cup final between South Africa and New Zealand was something...
Pretoria Jacarandas: A Photo Bonanza
This week, the last week of October, is peak jacaranda week in Joburg. The trees are laden with flowers and each breeze brings a shower of purple blossoms raining down onto the street. But the Pretoria jacarandas peaked about two weeks ago, and I was lucky enough to...
A Jacaranda Special: Purple Pastries in Westcliff
It's that time of year again: October in Joburg. Jacaranda trees all over Joburg (and Pretoria, too -- more on that in a future post) are exploding with purple blossoms and everything wrong with the world feels right again (mostly). To make matters better, Joburg's...
A Morning in Noordgesig
I recently connected with Fabian and Lavinia Otto during a Johannesburg Heritage Foundation tour of Coronationville and Bosmont. Fabian and Lavinia were our guides for the Coronationville/Bosmont tour but they actually live in Noordgesig, a historically coloured...
Walking Downtown Jozi: A Photo Story
There are many tales of woe in Joburg right now: building fires, exploding streets, absent mayors, water outages, an ever-widening wealth gap, and a general spiral of doom. And these stories aren't exaggerated. The struggle is real, people...The city is in a dire...
Asian Food Explorations in Rivonia
I've been meaning to write this blog post for weeks but I kept getting distracted by other adventures: a dazzling community light festival, a 2-billion-year-old meteorite crater, and a Heritage Month tour of churches. Now I'm back on track and ready to tell you about...
Joburg Heritage: Churches of Coronationville and Bosmont
Apologies to everyone who received this post in their inbox last week and has now received (and opened) it again. My site experienced a problem this week and the original version of the post was deleted, so I had to reload it. The text and images in the post are the...
The Spectacular Brixton Light Festival, Revisited
Last weekend I attended the Brixton Light Festival (hereafter referred to as the BLF) for the second consecutive year. I wrote a comprehensive post about the BLF last year, so in the days leading up to this year's event I thought maybe I wouldn't need to write another...
Vredefort Dome: The Ultimate Weekend Getaway Guide
People of Joburg: Pay attention because I'm about to let you in on a seriously good travel secret. Most of you have probably heard of the Vredefort Dome. But if you're anything like me (up until a few days ago), you have only a vague idea of what it is. Even this sign...
Heather Mason
I’m an American writer/blogger/photographer living a quirky life in Johannesburg. Follow along as I explore Johannesburg, South Africa, and the rest of the world.
