Seaside Year
Home
Pictures
Seaside Year, including seaside year in my blog, and seaside year in Folkestone.
Blog / forum etc:
Sep23
Just setting up a place holder here where I will post the next part of my holiday honeymoon writeup... on leaving San Francisco we went to Monterey, before heading to Santa Barbara and Los Angeles.
First we had to get out of San Francisco, which meant going and picking the car up - we'd decided to leave it at the airport, so as not to have to pay for parking for our four days in San Fran. Some reports have it that our hotel has free parking for guests, but this is not how it seemed while we were there. We thought we'd grab a shuttle back to the airport, but a porter at the hotel told us they only take people one way, don't fret, he'd get us a car and it'd cost about the same. Bastard, it was double what the shuttle would have been, and the driver had NO IDEA how to get into the airport. Dealing with these two guys lowered my expectations of service in America - people are keen to try and help you, but only because they're expecting a tip, and if you're not prompt with your tipping some people get a bit funny. Not keen on that way of doing things at all. When we FINALLY got our car, it was alright, the smallest car the rental company did, but still an 1800 Nissan something or other, with air con and cruise control and things, not too shabby at all. I think the drive from the airport was alright, despite my lack of recent driving experience (hadn't really driven in the previous ten years), and my lack of ANY foreign driving experience. Some of the signs on the freeway were confusing, it takes a little while to get used to exits being on both sides of the road, but we just about got to where we wanted.
Monterey is a bit rubbish. I know I thought this at the time, it was a bit of a sleepy town, too many things seemed to be shut / shut down, so I'd not recommend going there. However, we were only there for 3 days, and now I come to look back on it there were highlights. First off though, our hotel was the Embassy Suites, actually in Seaside, a few miles outside of Monterey. So we weren't even in the middle of the sleepy town, we were a cab ride away from it, not a promising start. The hotel is very nice though, as the name suggests you get a suite, with kitchenette, lounge etc. The place is twelve stories high and the centre of the building is open all the way up. The ground floor has a restaurant and bar and breakfast room and things, and we were delighted to find that "happy hour" started just as we got there, which meant entirely free booze for the next two hours. Also the parking was free for the length of our stay. Good work!
Heading into town was a disappointment. As I mentioned most things seemed to be close, it felt disctinctly out of season. There weren't too many places I could have much choice of what to eat, even if they were open. We ended up in a grubby English style pub again and ate chips.
We went back to Cannery Row, the main stretch of Monterey the next day, and it wasn't much more exciting. Bit tacky, not so much as Fisherman's Wharf, but still not thrilling - seems to be aimed more at retired folk. We went to a bar called Blue Fin because it had pool tables and a dartboard, but then didn't play darts or pool in there at all, we mostly sat at the bar playing interactive quiz games against other pubs. I remember this from the Chav Monkey in Fareham, when it was called The Bugle - seems to have caught on the US of States now, about 15 years later. It's distributed by www.ntn.com have a look out for it, it was fun.
We also went to the ]world famous aquarium, not really my cup of tea but I found the jellyfish quite fascinating and took quite a lot of pics. We also went through 17 Mile Drive - it's a toll road much bigged up by guide books, but really you're just paying to subsidise a swanky gated community. We did see some very cute squirrels, but apart from that it's not really worth going through.
The best thing about Monterey was our day out in Carmel, that's a nice town. It's hard to believe that it's a real town where real people live, as it only seems to consist of galleries, antique shops, and restaurants. We had a lunch at a great place called Forge in the Forest, that's where I had my first meal that was how I expected all the food to be, a plate piled high with all sorts of extras, very nice indeed.
We came back into Carmel on our way between Monterey and Santa Barbara, to stock up on lunch provisions, as we had a five hour drive ahead of us...
2005 :: Comment / reply
Nov10
Pictures
Folkestone is to see a new creative project arrive in the town this winter with the launch of A Seaside Year bringing twelve months of new performing arts events and activities to the town.
Four key scheduled events for Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn will make up the programme for A Seaside Year, which is organised by local company Futuredream Media.
The first event A Seaside Year: Winter will take place in December with artist Lottie Child exploring what the community thinks about Folkestone’s Old Town. This thought provoking event will invite local residents to speak with Lottie at the People’s History Centre on The Old High Street between Monday 4th December and Thursday 7th December.
Lottie will gain a sense of identity for Folkestone’s Old Town area, through the thoughts, memories and narratives of its people, by speaking to them and going for walks around the Tontine Street / Old High Street area. Lottie says, “My question is how does the built environment shape our behaviour, movement and thoughts? I would like a variety of people to take me for a walk around Folkestone and show me the town as they inhabit it. From these walks, I will create a trail with activities for participants to try.” Lottie is looking for a wide variety of people to speak to and can be contacted by sending an email to lottie@seasideyear.co.uk or by telephoning 0796 201 2822
The result of Lottie’s interviews with residents will be a trail for all of the community to participate in on Saturday 9th December. Participants will be armed with a map, clues and their wits to follow the trail, which will be available from the People’s History Centre and other locations in the Old Town and harbour area between 10am and 3pm.
Director, Cathy Westbrook from Futuredream Media, located in Folkestone, says; “A Seaside Year: Winter is a great opportunity to help create and experience an alternative “winter wonderland” walk of Folkestone. The trails will be available on Saturday 9th December. With lots of other traditional goings-on in the town in the run up to Christmas, this will be something quirky and off-beat for people to explore.”
The results of A Seaside Year: Winter, will also be archived at the People’s History Centre as an oral narrative of Folkestone’s history, building up the long-term history of Folkestone for future generations.
More Seaside Year for 2007
The Winter event launches A Seaside Year. There will be more activities to get involved in as the year progresses. Artist-in-residence, Geraldine Pilgrim, will be following the events and working with various groups to look in more detail at some of the ideas which arise. There will be performances on 31st March, 4th August and 27th October 2007. For more information see www.seasideyear.co.uk
2006 :: Comment / reply
Jul14
Pictures
Here is the article from the Guardian that bigs up Folkestone, "This is an English seaside town that breathes creativity as deeply as it does the saline air that blows in from the Channel" it says here... nice one, lots about Saga founder Roger De Haan's investment, what's it doing to those property prices then..?
A mention in that article also of the new mural at Folkestone Central Station, saw it at the weekend, it's spooky and cool, though I forgot to take a picture. It's bronze hand casts of the people of Folkestone born in every year from 1900 to 2000. The surroundings of the bronze don't quite match up though, looks a bit like a swimming pool.
2004 :: Comment / reply
Events:
Lecture - Seaside Modernism, enjoying it more The Creative Foundation Glassworks Building 20 Aug 2007 Dr Paul Rennie (Head of Context at Central St Martin's, London and of Rennie's Seaside Modern, The Old High Street, Folkestone) continues his cultural history of the seaside with the Second Folkestone Seaside Summer School. - This year Paul will start eac
Rate Lecture - Seaside Modernism, enjoying it more
Lecture - Psychological Training, environments and psychologies The Creative Foundation Glassworks Building 13 Aug 2007 Dr Paul Rennie (Head of Context at Central St Martin's, London and of Rennie's Seaside Modern, The Old High Street, Folkestone) continues his cultural history of the seaside with the Second Folkestone Seaside Summer School.
- This year Paul will st
Rate Lecture - Psychological Training, environments and psychologies
Lecture - Keeping Going, sustainability The Creative Foundation Glassworks Building 06 Aug 2007 Dr Paul Rennie (Head of Context at Central St Martin's, London and of Rennie's Seaside Modern. The Old High Street, Folkestone) continues his cultural history of the seaside with the Second Folkestone Seaside Summer School.
- This year Paul will sta
Rate Lecture - Keeping Going, sustainability
Lecture - Maritime Adventurers, daring-do and good-works The Creative Foundation Glassworks Building 30 Jul 2007 Dr Paul Rennie (Head of Context at Central St Martin's, London and of Rennie's Seaside Modern, The Old High Street, Folkestone) continues his cultural history of the seaside with the Second Folkestone Seaside Summer School.
- This year Paul will sta
Rate Lecture - Maritime Adventurers, daring-do and good-works
Lecture - Shelter & Safety, sea walls and fortifications around Kent The Creative Foundation Glassworks Building 24 Jul 2007 Dr Paul Rennie (Head of Context at Central St Martin's, London and of Rennie's Seaside Modern, The Old High Street, Folkestone) continues his cultural history of the seaside with the Second Folkestone Seaside Summer School.
- This year Paul will st
Rate Lecture - Shelter & Safety, sea walls and fortifications around Kent
Lecture - Shelter & Safety, sea walls and fortifications around Kent The Creative Foundation Glassworks Building 23 Jul 2007 Dr Paul Rennie (Head of Context at Central St Martin's, London and of Rennie's Seaside Modern, The Old High Street, Folkestone) continues his cultural history of the seaside with the Second Folkestone Seaside Summer School.
- This year Paul will st
Rate Lecture - Shelter & Safety, sea walls and fortifications around Kent
Lecture - Gale Warnings The Creative Foundation Glassworks Building 16 Jul 2007 Dr Paul Rennie (Head of Context at Central St Martin's London, and of Rennie's Seaside Modern, The Old High Street, Folkestone) continues his cultural history of the seaside with the Second Folkestone Seaside Summer School.
- This year Paul will st
Rate Lecture - Gale Warnings
Also there's an xml feed of seaside year, a JSON feed, and a KML feed of seaside year , search my seaside year venue info.
Hope you found what you're looking for, if not please leave a message about "seaside year".
Add seaside year as a venue here, help me out, and the next person.
Google the site here
