A SIGHTSEEING TOUR

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A SIGHTSEEING TOUR AROUND THE EARTH
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A Sightseeing Tour Around the Earth Gauteng
South Africa

• By Salvatore and Gabriella
• Homeschooled in Johannesburg South Africa by
  Penny
• iLearn ppm1- Places and Perspectives
• January May 2008

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GAUTENG SOUTH AFRICA

• We live in Bedfordview, which falls into
  Ekurhuleni. Click on the link below
• http//www.youtube.com/visitgauteng?target

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GAUTENG FACTS

• Capital Johannesburg
• Languages 21.5 isiZulu, 14.4
  Afrikaans, 13.1 Sesotho,
  12.5 EnglishPopulation 9 525 571 (2006)
• Share of SA population 20.1
• Area 16 548 square kilometers
• Share of total SA area 1.4
• Population density 576 people per square
  kilometers
• Gross regional product R413.6-billion
• Share of total SA GDP 33.3

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History of Gauteng

• Click on these links for a history of Gauteng
• http//www.xtimeline.com/events.aspx?q
• Bif200804260253058128281p1
• http//www.southafrica.co.za/history_28.html

Views of Johannesburg skyline
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Historic Buildings of Johannesburg

• Johannesburg was founded in 1886 and is the
  largest and most populous city in South Africa.
  It is the provincial capital of Gauteng, the
  wealthiest province in South Africa, having the
  largest economy of any metropolitan region in
  Sub-Saharan Africa. The city is one of the 40
  largest metropolitan areas in the world, it is
  Africa's most advanced city, and one of Africa's
  only two global cities, the other being Cairo.

Ansteys Tower, located at 59 Joubert Street is
now a national monument. This building was once
the home of Cecil Williams (actor, playwright,
and member of Umkhonto we Sizwe). Nelson Mandela
was disguised as Cecil Williams' driver when he
was captured on 5 August 1962.
Arial view of the city centre
Anglo-American HO
Barbican Building
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Johannesburg City Hallnow houses the Gauteng
provinciallegislature

• While Johannesburg does not form one of South
  Africa's three capital cities, it does house the
  Constitutional Court- South Africa's highest
  court.
• Johannesburg is the source of a large-scale gold
  and diamond trade, due to its location on the
  mineral rich Witwatersrand range of hills.
• Johannesburg is also served by O.R Tambo , the
  largest and busiest airport in Africa and a
  gateway for international air travel to and from
  the rest of southern Africa.
• Soweto is situate in the south west of
  Johannesburg. Soweto is a township that the
  apartheid government established to accommodate
  the large number of migrant workers who came to
  Johannesburg from their villages and towns to
  work on the mines of Witwatersrand.

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• The Hillbrow Tower is the highest structure in
  Johannesburg, and is probably the city's most
  recognisable landmark. The Hillbrow Tower
  (previously known as the JG Strijdom Tower) was
  built over three years, between June 1968 and
  April 1971, and is 269m high. It is owned by
  Telkom (previously by the Post Office) and is
  used as a microwave tower. It used to boast a
  revolving restaurant, but was closed in January
  1981 for security reasons. The tower had a blue
  illuminated Telkom sign installed on 31 May 2005,
  and was renamed as the Telkom Joburg Tower. It is
  interesting to note that the height of the
  Hillbrow Tower is virtually the same as the
  length of the Titanic (269m).

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Since 2007 with all the new investments into the
city centre, the money is being poured into
restoring Joburg's CBD.

• Johannesburg Art Gallery, Astor Building and WLD
  High Court Witwatersrand
• For more on the restoration of Johannesburg inner
  city click onto these interesting links
• http//www.joburg.org.za/content/view/1902/203/
• http//www.joburgnews.co.za/nov_2002/nov22_heritag
  e.stm
• http//www.joburg.org.za/content/view/126/58/

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Sir Herbert Baker buildings
Stone House, Sir Herbert Bakers home in
Parktown Johannesburg http//www.s
outhafricaholiday.org.uk/culture/fp_herbert_baker.
htm
Rodean Girls School, Johannesburg
Northwards,Johannesburg
St Johns College for Boys, Johannesburg
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GOLD REEF CITY

• Built around the No. 14 shaft of Crown Mines,
  this city is an authentic reproduction of
  Johannesburg at the beginning of the 1900s.
• There are fully furnished miner's houses with
  original furniture and fittings, including
  pressed ceilings.
• The museum exhibits include antique clothing and
  children's toys, which take the visitor back 100
  years to the city that was. A train encircles the
  park and many shops offer interesting curios.
• You can also visit the original gold mine in a
  lift that goes down to 220 meters below the
  surface. An on site casino is open 24 hours
  daily.
• http//www.goldreefcity-mint.co.za/
• http//www.goldreefcity.co.za/theme_park/index.asp

Authentic mining equipment in museum
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APARTHEID MUSEUM,Johannesburg

• The Apartheid Museum was built to celebrate the
  triumph of the human spirit over adversity,
  inequality and humiliation.
• Beginning in 1948, the white elected National
  Party government implemented the policy of
  apartheid which turned 20 million people into
  second class citizens, damning them to a life of
  servitude, humiliation and abuse.
• Their liberation in 1994 with the election of
  Nelson Mandela, the prisoner who became
  president, is a climax in the saga of a nation's
  resistance, courage and fortitude. The
  Apartheid Museum , the first of its kind,
  illustrates the rise and fall of apartheid.

Click on this link to a video introduction to the
museum http//www.nowmediawebcasting.co.za/clien
ts/apartheid/
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MANDELA FAMILY MUSEUM, Soweto Johannesburg
Nelson Mandela's humble little house in Orlando
West, Soweto, now called the Mandela Family
Museum, is an interesting stopover for those who
want to peep into the life of the Black
Pimpernel, the world's most famous former
prisoner.
With FW de Klerk, with whom he was awarded the
Nobel Peace Prize
http//www.sa-venues.com/attractionsga/mandela-mus
eum.htm
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NEWTOWN CULTURAL PRECINCT,Johannesburg
For a map of Newtown click on this
link www.joburg-archive.co.za/maps/IMS_NEWTOWN.pd
f Market theatre http//www.markettheatre.co.za/
Newtown is central to all-year Jozi culture and
the annual highlight, Arts Alive International
Festival, held every September decidedly, a
high point on Johannesburgs arts and culture
calendar, when patrons of the arts spill in and
out of every available venue.
The indelible Kippies Café celebrating the
contributions of musicians to African Jazz. It is
named after jazz legend Kippie Moeketsi
Moyo (the Swahili word for soul...  ) Restaurant
at the Market Theatrehttp//www.moyo.co.za/
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NEWTOWN CULTURAL PRECINCT,Johannesburg
A bronze statue of Brenda Fassie outside
Bassline Jazz Club
Brenda Fassie, South Africa's undisputed queen of
pop, Dubbed the "Madonna of the Townships" in a
2001 Time Magazine interview, Fassie emerged at
the height of the anti-apartheid struggle in the
1980s to give a voice to marginalised black South
Africans.
http//www.youtube.com/watch?vnrinswnda3Qfeature
related
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NELSON MANDELA BRIDGE
Paris has its Eiffel Tower, New York its Statue
of Liberty, Sydney its Harbour Bridge. On 20
July, Johannesburg opened the largest
cable-stayed bridge in southern Africa. Who else
to name it after but Nelson Mandela, the man who
led South Africa across the apartheid divide?
Together, the Newtown and Braamfontein
developments form a "cultural arc" linking the
Newtown Cultural Precinct with the Constitution
Hill precinct. http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nels
on_Mandela_Bridge
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SOPHIATOWN,Johannesburg

• Originally called Sophiatown, it was destroyed,
  and a white suburb called Triomf (Triumph) was
  established in its place by the apartheid
  government, before the name Sophiatown was
  officially restored in 2006.

In the early hours, heavily armed police entered
Sophiatown to force residents out of their homes
and load their belongings onto government trucks.
The residents were taken to a large tract of
land, thirteen miles from the city centre, to the
aptly-named empty fields of Meadowlands (now part
of Soweto) Resistance was only peaceful. The
government bulldozed Sophiatown by the end of
1963(except for the Anglican Church of Christ the
King and rebuilt it as a white only suburb named
Triomf (Afrikaans for triumph). The ANC
government restored the name Sophiatown in the
late 1990s, although the name change was only
completed in February 2006.
Sophiatown became the symbolic center of black
culture around Johannesburg in the 1940s and
50s. It was a focus of arts, politics, religion,
and entertainment.
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OLD FORT, CONSTITUTION HILL Johannesburg
The Constitutional Court is a groundbreaking
building that not only houses the 11 judges who
guard South Africa's Constitution but also which
stands as an icon of our new culture of democracy
and human rights.
http//www.doj.gov.za/trc/media/1997/9707/s970714b
.htm
http//www.constitutionalcourt.org.za/site/home.ht
m http//www.concourt.gov.za/text/tour/main.html
It is fitting that the Court, a symbol of the
democracy that replaced apartheid, has been built
on the site of the Old Fort, Johannesburg's
notorious prison - symbolising the triumph of
hope over a troubled past. The building, which
reflects the values of our new culture of
constitutionalism, needed a court chamber, public
areas, a library, public reading space and rooms
for 11 judges and other staff. Few modern South
African buildings have inspired as much awe and
excitement as this one.
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http//www.jhbzoo.org.za/
The main purpose of the Johannesburg Zoo is the
accommodation, enrichment, husbandry and medical
care of wild animals. The Johannesburg Zoo
contributes to the quality of life of the
citizens of Joburg through education,
conservation, research and recreation of wild
animals.
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JOHANNESBURG BOTANICAL GARDENS

• As Joburg started as a fast growing, rough and
  raw mining camp little attention was paid to the
  provision of parks for its residents. Joubert
  Park, the first established park in the city and
  later home of the Johannesburg Art Gallery. A
  parks department was established only after the
  Anglo-Boer South African War (1899 1902) when a
  start was made with the development of parks and
  recreational spaces.As land along the main
  Witwatersrand gold reef was being mined for gold,
  it was hard to find land for recreational
  purposes. The Wilds a reserve for indigenous
  shrubs and flowers in Houghton was established
  in 1938. Bezuidenhout Park, on the eastern
  outskirts, was developed in 1945. The homestead
  and cemetery of the original owners, the
  Bezuidenhout family, still exists. Many other
  parks and sanctuaries followed all over the city
  and its suburbs.The Botannical Gardens opened
  in 1968.

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• The Crocodile Ramble, Magaliesburg

http//www.theramble.co.za/
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Croc City Crocodile Farm provides the opportunity
to observe one of the world's most spectacular
predators at close range. You are also given the
chance to HOLD a hatchling. On display we have
croc hatchlings to large adults of up to
five meters in length.
The maze is now 30 larger and the beautiful
Garden of Reflection is filled with poetry and
roses and things spinning and dancing in the
wind!
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The Lion Park offers terrific close-up views and
other experiences with lions, as well as rare
white lions. Other large predators at the Lion
Park include cheetahs, brown and spotted hyenas,
wild dogs and jackals. Superb filming and
photographic opportunities are also
possible.http//www.lion-park.com/
Dangerous Liasons A story about dangerous
companionshttp//www.lion-park.com/companions2.ht
m
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The colourfully painted homes of the Ndebele
villagers are an irresistible photo opportunity,
and you must buya beautiful Ndebele doll!The
sensational handcraft beadwork of the Ndebele
woman folk make for a special addition to you
curio collection.http//www.lesedi.com/
Lesedi Ndebele Village MAPOCH VILLAGE
This is a charming, authentic and earthy African
experience in the heart of the bush, a cultural
village with exciting traditional dance display,
craft market, pub, restaurant, junction venue and
conference centre.
This living cultural village (a kraal) offers
fascinating history and an environment where
modern cultures blend naturally with the values
and norms of the Ndebele people.
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CONCLUSION
Beautiful art and crafts in Newtown Cultural
Precinct
We hope that you have not only enjoyed our tour
of Gauteng, but that you have learnt about of
interesting, beautiful country and in particular,
the province where we live.

• There are many more fascinating and beautiful
  places to visit in South Africa, but we have
  chosen places which we really enjoy visiting, and
  which are of historical importance for us.
• Visit this blog and have a look at the tour you
  are taken of around Johannesburg.
• http//johannesburgdailyphoto.blogspot.com/
• http//gardkarlsen.com/johannesburg_south_africa_2
  004.htm

Bruma Craft Market
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ENJOY YOUR TRIP!
HAVE A NICE TIME!