[niwell]

Thanks for the comments!!!

Originally Posted by xzmattzx

Nice pictures! It was interesting to follow along on your trip. I was most interested in seeing the integration following apartheid, and in seeing the African countryside. For some reason, I figured Johannesburg had some more gleaming, glass postmodern skyscrapers, like a city like Houston. I was surprised to see the buildings from the midcentury all over.

Downtown hasn't seen too much construction since the 80s, hence the lack of new flashy towers. At the time there was way too much office space built on spec which was only exacerbated by the business flight to Sandton in the early 90s. The banks that stayed have built some new low to midrise complexes to compliment the older skyscrapers, which in turn often have plans for conversion into mixed use complexes.

ABSA built this new building in 2010 or so and is in the process of renovating the rest of their buildings in the precint (and turning the tallest one into primarily residential): https://goo.gl/maps/jou7RcXc6T22


Standard Bank built this newish complex: https://goo.gl/maps/c7eFPpqFBEk


And FNB this one: https://goo.gl/maps/bJyA5jsaFDr
https://goo.gl/maps/iDiNsbY8AUD2


Sandton City is pretty flashy but none of the office complexes are too tall - generally peaking at around 20 storeys for the newer ones. Further north a new commercial node is emerging around the absolutely massive mall of Africa and PwC built a new tower for their African HQ that fits the bill a bit better: http://marketplace.infrastructurepho...3_11_34_57.jpg

The area is extremely suburban and is about halfway between Joburg and Pretoria, which are increasingly connected by urban growth: https://goo.gl/maps/9weFSKhED1B2

Originally Posted by xzmattzx

How much did the roundtrip flight cost? Where did you depart from (YYZ, I'm assuming), where did you arrive, and where did you connect?

Roundtrip it cost about $1050 Cdn, or about $700 USD, which seemed extremely cheap. I've paid almost that much to travel from Toronto to Calgary....

On the way there I went YYZ to Adis Ababa (13 hrs) and then Adis to Jobug (6 hours). On the way back it was JHB-Adis-Dublin-YYZ, although the Dublin stop was for refueling only. The longer legs of both trips were on a brand new 787 too.