FOR ED AND HELEN, LIFE’S ABOUT BRIDGING OCEANS

David Ellis

THERE's probably nothing too unusual about a bloke deciding that he's going to celebrate his next big milestone birthday by taking his wife on a world cruise.

After all, with the kids grown up and the nest empty, why sit around watching the grass grow?

But what is unusual is that the birthday this bloke will be celebrating as the ship he's chosen cruises towards Sydney later this month, will be his 93RD.

It's a pretty out-of-the-ordinary idea, but then Ed Halluska and his wife Helen are pretty out-of-the-ordinary people, because this won't be their first world cruise, their second, their tenth, nor even their twentieth.

This will be no less than the 24th time they've cruised around the world. And on top of this they've notched up close-on 320 other point-to-point cruises in the Mediterranean, South Pacific, Caribbean, Northern Europe, through the USA's New England, and just about everywhere else a cruise ship can go.

And in doing so, according to Ed's meticulous diaries, they've chalked up a staggering 3,916,656 kilometres during 5000-plus days at sea, after getting bitten by the cruise bug over forty years ago.

The softly-spoken Ed and Helen hail from Pennsylvania, and the only time Ed tends to raise his voice is when he talks about how they "got into cruising."

It goes back to his interest in the game of bridge. With this, and a few short cruises under their belts, Ed took the punt and decided to toss-in his engineering job and become a full time bridge instructor –  winning himself a cosy little role on a cruise ship, and being able to take Helen with him on many of his cruises.

From that first assignment in the late 1960s Ed and Helen decided that teaching bridge and cruising were to become their virtual full-time lives.

That was until one day the company solemnly announced: "Ed, we're going to have to let you go." It is then that the voice deepens in indignation. "They said I was too old. TOO OLD! What, I wanted to know, was wrong with turning 80?

"But they were adamant that 80 was too old, and so Helen and I decided, well blow them, and to just keep on cruising and to make it, and bridge, even more of our lives."

And so they have, and if you press him, between tales of their travels, he'll also talk about how he almost didn't live to make it all possible – because at one time he was a machinist and toolmaker with America's Manhattan Project, the building of the atomic bomb.

"I was sent to a top-secret plant at Los Alamos in New Mexico," he says. "I worked on the actual piston that would detonate the bomb, and even though we were working with uranium all around us our only protective clothing was ordinary overalls, rubber gloves and goggles.

"I was regularly tested for traces of uranium and just before the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, the doctors told me I'd tested positive to being above the permitted safe level. When I asked what that meant, the doctors shrugged and said they really didn't have a clue, because they weren't even sure in those days what was the safe level before radiation poisoning set in."

Ultimately Ed was medically cleared of any potential harm to his health

Today Ed and Helen are heading here aboard the luxury liner Queen Elizabeth that's due in Sydney on February 28 for a two-day stay, and just a couple of days before coming in through The Heads he and Helen will celebrate his 93rd birthday on board.

And with all this Good Life, how do this remarkable couple, we ask, keep as trim as they are?  "Plenty of walking ashore," Ed says. "And 80 push-ups a day," (which isn't a bad trick at 93.)

"A lot of people think if you go on a Queen Elizabeth world cruise as a passenger and don't come off as cargo, you've not been having fun," he adds. "But while we don't miss any meals, we don't clean the plate either. And we might have soup and dessert one night and a main course the next – and fish six times a week."

Good on you Ed – and happy 93rd !

                                                             ………………

PHOTO CAPTIONS:

 

[] Ed and Helen Halluska – next to Queen Victoria in Sydney on a previous world cruise (Photo: David Ellis)

[] Queen Elizabeth in the Panama Canal: Ed's choice for his 93rd birthday and 24th world cruise with Helen. (Photo: Cunard Line)

[] LUXURY: Entry to the lavish Britannia Restaurant on Queen Elizabeth. (Photo: Cunard Line)

 

 

THAMES TOWN – NEW MEANING TO CHINESE TAKEAWAY

David Ellis

THAMES Town looks as jolly British as its name implies: walk its streets and you quickly learn the traps of cobblestones, fashion boutiques rub shoulders with a pub that pumps real ale, the houses and villas are classic Georgian and Victorian, the town square sports a statue paying tribute to Sir Winston Churchill, and if you've forgotten your mobile phone there are enough red phone boxes to make that urgent call home.

And if you want to feel the grass under your toes there's a nice little town green on which to do so, while with luck you may be on time to see the Changing of the Guard at the entrance to this quintessential market town – and if you're looking for somewhere unusual to tie the knot, there's even the Gothic-style Christ Church in which to do so, plus a 4-star hotel to celebrate in afterwards.

The only thing that's askew is that this ever-so-British-looking Thames Town, that's complete down to a traditional fish and chip shop and street signs showing High Street, Oxford Street, Queen Street and similar, is anything but British.

Because rather than sitting comfortably alongside Old Father Thames, it in fact sits beside a man-made river in China. And rather than the busy community its creators envisaged when they built it in the mid-1990s, Thames Town is more Ghost Town with most of its houses and apartments empty, its shops largely devoid of customers and its streets eerily quiet.

It's part of a Chinese takeaway scheme that hasn't quite clicked, those who conceived it believing it would help alleviate the massive overcrowding of China's largest city, Shanghai that has a population of over 23-million (just a tad more than Australia's entire population of 22.8-million.)

And in fact Thames Town was just one part of a grand scheme titled One City, Nine Towns that would see nine new communities created in an arc around Shanghai – each of them a copy-cat of typical small towns in rural England, Italy, Spain, America, Holland, Germany, Sweden, China itself, and as an architectural whimsy, an "ecological town" called Lingang.

Each would house up to 10,000 people, hopefully upwardly mobile younger and wealthier Chinese wanting to get away from being cooped-up with the in-laws. But this hasn't come about and Thames Town – despite being dubbed locally Ghost Town – is the closest to coming to success. And this modest success is not because some people in overcrowded Shanghai took the plunge and moved the 30km "into the countryside," but because many older, more-affluent Chinese have bought houses and apartments there as rental investments. But most are empty, even though Thames Town is within the boundaries of Songjiang New City and adjacent to Songjiang University Town that has no fewer than seven universities attended daily by 70,000 students and staff.

But it's attracting quite a few tourists, both local Chinese and from overseas to gawk at it's almost eccentricities, shop in its boutiques, dine in its English-style eateries, drink in the "English pub," have a cuppa at the oddly, if not prophetically-titled Incomplete Coffee shop, and even stay overnight in the 4-star Liston Hotel.

And at weekends happy-snap Chinese wedding couples who use the replica  Gothic-style Christ Church to tie the knot.

Happy-snappers also click-away at a healthy sprinkling of statues around the town that pay homage to dignitaries such as Sir Winston Churchill, royalty including Princess Diana, British book and movies icons like Harry Potter, and take a stroll along the man-made "Thames River," dine in a floating restaurant, and take-in the tranquillity of parks with shady trees…

They even find an English-style club, a supermarket, medical clinic and a kindergarten – all of them under-utilised. And as Thames Town is a kind of gated community, they can watch the daily Changing of the Guard, at the entrance to this unusual community.

Tourists visiting Shanghai can take the train from the city to either Songjian New City or Songjiang University Town and catch a local bus or taxi to Thames Town that's just 4km from both centres.

Australia's Wendy Wu Tours have independent packages to Thames Town and can add them to tours beginning or ending in Shanghai.  Details from www.wendywutours.com.au or 1300 727 998.

For general information about Shanghai: www.meet-in-shanghai.net


Photo captions:

 

[] THAMES Town – just like the real thing, but a Chinese takeaway

[] EMPTY apartments give Thames Town a Ghost Town feel

[] REPLICA Gothic-style church is popular with local Chinese for spectacular weddings

[] STREET scenes like this would make you think you were in the real thing

[] THERE are even British-style phone boxes in the streets

 

(Photos: Shanghai Tourism Board)