Singing Driver

Pic by Gemma Wiseman ~ An unusual sign on the back window of a car at Balnarring carpark, Mornington Peninsula
~
Signs, Signs meme
~

A song in the heart
A bold sign worth a few smiles
Tempting to listen
~


Signs, Signs is hosted by Lesley

Remember...

Pic by Gemma Wiseman edited in Picnik ~ Musician playing outside the Dromana Hub shopping centre late on a Friday afternoon in November 2010.
~
Writer's Island prompt #6 for 2011 ~ Beguile
~

{{{Just a thin stranger
Playing his soul through music
Charming diversion

In a late moment
Lost smiling dancing rhythms
Remembered to pulse}}}
~
(Haikus written for my earlier post ~ Friday Revival)
~


I wish I'd said hello

Today
A shimmering
Pale Sunday afternoon
You were walking the winding path
By the sea
Alone

Your slimness
(Almost frail
But immaculate as always)
Failed to cast much of a shadow

You seemed lost
In your world of loneness

I wish I'd said hello

But all I could feel was
The dialogue of
Your music
Your whispering spirit
As it was
On another
Pale afternoon

The beguile of that yesterday
Shone
Like an aura
A harmony of spheres

So somehow
Words
Now
Seemed
Misplaced
Like discord

Still
I wish
The ice of
Awkward shyness
Melted and...

I wish I'd said hello
~


Hosted by Rob Kistner

LOCATION: in the Sea of Words
LONGITUDE: Imagination
LATITUDE: Creativity
CLIMATE: Warm winds of wonder

Wizard Wells, Red Hill

Pic by Gemma Wiseman ~ A sign for a wine storage business at Red Hill, Mornington Peninsula
~
Ruby Tuesday meme
+
Signs, Signs meme
~

Wizard Wells magic
Legend in wine storage art
Unique promotion
~

Pic by Gemma Wiseman ~ And this used to be out the front near the road, but it has since been removed - in about early 2010.
~

Hosted by maryt/the teach @ Work of the Poet


Signs, Signs is hosted by Lesley

Saturated Identity?

Pic by Gemma Wiseman ~ Deep darkness over Dromana, Mornington Peninsula
This was a night without stars.
Only the lights of Dromana and Safety Beach were really visible, curving around the Port Phillip Bay.
I liked the mystery of light and odd tones of colour in the barely visible clouds.
It was as if all known reality was saturated with night's darkness.
~
3WW CLXXXIV ~ deviate + identify + saturate
~

Some worlds gush with darkness
For a little while
~
Formless maybe tones
Saturate a blank sky
Night eyes are prowling

Cautious need bearings
Identify known icons
Parachute safety

Children deviate
Curiosity flying
Never ends for some
~

Soft Distance

Pic on Flickr by Gemma Wiseman ~ Port Phillip Bay from Arthurs Seat, Victoria, Australia ~ 3.05.08

~

Easy Street Prompt #165 ~ At a distance

~

From a soft distance

Where I've been seems far away

Sorrows are small lights

Glittering on dark waters

Waiting for the tides to turn

~

Spring ~ for One Single Impression

A spring is a naked healing place
Where souls find neutral hot waters
Where bathing in glowing earth embers
Becomes a crystal light journey
~
Crystal Journeys
Celestial song
In dawn colours
~
Bathing in the spring waters
Of morning
~
Siesta balm
In afternoon seas
~
Dreaming in the marmalade
Of middays
~
Lonely hour
In lonely spaces
Drunk on dark wines
Of midnight
~
Medicinal vapours of the earth
Are the breath of eternal spring
Relief from the pain of winter’s chill
And the hurt of a stony kiss
~

FOOTNOTES: In Arkansas the National Park Service estimates the hot springs in the "Valley of the Vapors" have been used for at least 10,000 years and respected as an honored and sacred place by the Indians. It was believed the springs were the home of the Great Spirit who in using His breath brought forth the healing warmth of Mother Earth. These springs were neutral ground for the Indians where warriors from all tribes could rest and bathe in peace, a refuge from battle. ~ Peninsula Hot Springs (pic from website)

In 1979, natural hot mineral springs were found deep underground on Melbourne’s Mornington Peninsula. On a 17 hectare property in Springs Lane near Rye, the 50ºC waters rich in healing minerals flow to the surface and into the thermal pools.

Peninsula Hot Springs opened in June, 2005.

Geneva on Ice - Rod Beglerf's amazing pics

For details of the story behind these amazing pics, see Rod Beglerf on HubPages

~

Some dawdle

Mesmerised

In

Sunny domes

While others

Cringe

Blindly

In caves of ice

~

Some dance

Nonchalently

In warm climes

While others

Stiffly

Tread

A cooling

Silk road

~

Some bathe

Numb

On burning sands

While others

Skate

Brazenly

On

Thin ice

Desire - for Writers' Island

Conched
Enchantment
Drunk
With purple light
~
Pulsing longing
Scans
Softly
Undulating
Waters~
And in the ray
Is a fjord~
A possibility
Of sailing
Between
Tight
Craggy
Peaks
~
But the closer the dream
The further the fall
~
A heady spiral
Fractured
With
Invading
Rocks
And stones
Spins~
(like riotous anarchy)
Into some abyss
Seething
With hot
Golden orbs
~
Heaven is
A fractal place~
A helpless
Plunge
Into hell
~
Awakening~
If there is one~
May only be a
Midnight moon
Darkly lighting
Old
Slumbering
Textures~
Skeleton silhouettes
Like willows
Weeping~
Weeping
By still
Desirous waters
Running
Very
Very
Deep

Another Australian closure - just a day later

When The Bulletin's young, enterprising proprietors threw open the shutters in 1880, most Australians lived in the country; 20 years later, they had shifted to the cities. The poet A.B. "Banjo" Paterson recorded the change by collecting and publishing the old bush songs treasured by generations of Australians.

MEDIA RELEASE
Thursday, 24 January 2008
ACP Magazines Chief Executive Officer, Scott Lorson, today announced that weekly news and current affairs title The Bulletin with Newsweek would cease publication from the current issue of the magazine which went on sale on 23 January 2008.
The Bulletin is Australia’s longest running magazine and was launched in 1880.
In the latest Audit Bureau of Circulations figures, The Bulletin had 57,039 in sales (Sept 07), which is down from circulation highs of over 100,000 in the mid 1990s. This trend is consistent with that experienced by many leading weekly news and current affairs magazines globally and is somewhat symptomatic of the impact of the internet on this particular genre.
“This is a sad day for all of us at ACP Magazines. The Bulletin has been an institution in Australian publishing and has provided its loyal readers with the best quality, in-depth news and current affairs analysis in the country. The Bulletin has often set the political agenda, broken many important stories and won many awards for journalism over the years,” Lorson said.

And the final publication was a special Australia Day edition.

~

Ref: Wilsons Almanac - 1856 JF Archibald (Jules Francois Archibald; b. John Feltham Archibald in Warrnambool, Victoria; d. September 10, 1919), Australian publisher who in 1880 co-founded (with John Haynes) The Bulletin, which published a great many of Australia's writers and artists.
Like many Australians of his day, he was fascinated by all things French, changing his name from John Feltham to Jules Francois; he even wore a French goatee beard although they were not fashionable. Under Archibald's sole control, and with AG Stephens as his literary editor, The Bulletin became Australia's leading outlet for poets, cartoonists, short-story writers and comic writers. Henry Lawson was one who 'Archy' of the 'Bully' took under his wing as a young writer.

In his later years, when he was an inmate of Sydney's Callan Park Lunatic Asylum for the Mentally and Criminally Insane, Truth magazine wrote of him (1916, following a Bulletin attack on the recently deceased Truth publisher, John Norton): "The crank used to go tearing around Sydney buying diamond necklaces for flash barmaids: he used to imagine he was Moses, and was writing a new set of commandments; he drove his wife to drink, he behaved like an orang-outang at the Zoo, and, generally speaking, was as freaky a freak as was ever permitted out on probation from a lunatic asylum." There was some truth about "Archy's" wife, the drink and the asylum.
In his will, he made the two bequests by which he is best remembered by the general public: funds for the Archibald Fountain in Sydney's Hyde Park, which he specified must be designed by a French sculptor, and the Archibald Prize for portraiture, now Australia's most prestigious art prize ...

~

~ And today, it was reported that people were stranded on Luna Park's Mad Mouse. Curious! Now I am told by a reader it happened in Melbourne! But all I find of Melbourne's accident did not occur today, but earlier - December 28 when there was a power blackout! Yet TV news flash (no details - just a line) said Sydney! Curioser and curioser! Yes! There are 2 Luna Parks! One in St Kilda, Melbourne and one on the shores of Sydney Harbour near the Harbour Bridge! Too hasty reporting? Hmmm Perhaps tomorrow will bring more enlightenment!

~

And I heard from some voice on another TV report, I hated travelling after 9/11. Thankfully, I wasn't actually watching at the time. I just heard the distant voice.

~

There is a sense of losing

Sense~

As if the safety ropes

Are slowly being

Cut

One by

One

~

It would be so easy

To throw up the hands

In utter despair

And scream

A soundless

~

WHY!

~

But

I remember a Queen Mum

Of some old England

Far across

Commonwealth seas

Who stayed

Unflinching

At the heart of

The bombing

~

Perhaps

I could pretend to be

Some royal mum

~

Then

Perhaps

As fortune

Smiles

A little

Again

The pretence

Will fade

And

There really will be

A commonwealth

Of hope

~

There MUST be

~

Australia Day

Is just a tomorrow away~

And her spirit

Must smile

For her birthday!

~

P.S. LATEST LATE NIGHT NEWS! China is experiencing its fastest economic growth in 13 years! So it's China! It's good news at last! (Does little happy dance!)

Tribute to Heath Ledger - The rains of yesterday are still lightly falling for Heath Ledger

The tears of yesterday still linger. So to transform the sadness of tears, here is the beautiful cleansing of Indian Rains. A Beautiful song for the exotic Indian Rain. One of the sensuous songs from the critically acclaimed award-winning 'MTV Album of the year' by the most popular singers of Indi-pop music,Hariharan & Leslie Lewis a.k.a Colonial Cousins.A suitable song to be heard when u feel bored & sit in your lawn having a hot coffee in the cold rains to make you feel the nature's beauty.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Why did I choose rains from India? I have no real idea! So here are a few rains in my songlines.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When I think of gushing, swirling waters

Gorging

Fruitless

Possessions~

~

I think of India

~

When I think of ancient waterworlds

Singing old sweet rivers

Of motherly love

And kindness

~

I think of India

~

When I think of eternal rains

Springing hope

From luminous

Rocky ochres

Of dreaming monoliths

To the choking dusts

Of Deccan plains

~

I imagine

Uluru

Reaching out

Longingly~

~

To Indian rains

~

P.S. I imagine Heath Ledger is Uluru. May he walk eternally in the love of Indian Rains.

Tribute to Heath Ledger - a little James Dean, a little Bob Dylan, a little Michael Dransfield. A "zero joker" - but "I'm Not There"

One day

A webbed

Blonde

Mop

Framing

A scrunched

Grin

Sidled out of

The cooking place~

A little like a

Scrambled

Unknown

Soldier

With no

Clear past

And a future

Staggering

Forlornly

With a knapsack

Of backpacking

Questions

~

And there were many one days~

Some James Dean rebellions~

A shred of Byronic romance~

A slow cowboy of all things gaiety~

A sliver of Dylan's gravely flair~

Till finally emerging

Cautiously

As a zero joker~

A small watcher

Of Batman wings

On a dark knight

Of nights

~

But

Like

The star of

Michael Dransfield~

Young

Drugged

And

Dreaming odd dreams

Till Good Friday

Wiped him away~

Ground zero locked his moccasins

In muddy

Boggy

Footprints~

~

Old Perth is so far away~

His eternal heartland

~

And Matilda

Must waltz

Alone

~~~~~~~~~

In response to Heath Ledger found dead at NY apartment - National Nine News - 23.01.08 + In Stetson or Wig - he's hard to pin down - New York Times - 4.11.07

~~Also posted on HubPages with pics and some extracts from New York Times

Troubled souls live in Africa

Rainbows are a little thin
And scarce
In parts of Africa ~
Especially for animals
Especially for animals
In Tanzania
~
Their songlines are burning
At an alarming rate!
~
Poachers
Nasty
Devious
Poachers
Are rampantly killing
Chimpanzees
Zebras
Buffalo
~
The Lichtenstein’s Hartebeest
Is simply
No more!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rainbows are a little thin
And parched
In parts of Africa ~
Especially for refugees
Especially for refugees
In Tanzania
~
Their bloodlines are burning
At an alarming rate!
~
Refugees from war-torn
Burundi
Rwanda
The Congo
Are desperate
Poor
Lost
Hungry
Starving
~
Starving
At an alarming rate!
~
Blindly
They trade
Cook
Consume
~
Crippled
Hungry
Ugly
Poachers
With or without a cause?
~
Only the rainbows know
Their heartbeat
Their soul
Is simply
No more!
~~~
~In response to Refugee link to wildlife decline – BBC News – 22.01.08 The UN says there are more than half a million refugees in the country, mainly living in camps near the western border. The border is also home to important wildlife refuges such as Gombe National Park, which achieved international fame as the site of Jane Goodall's pioneering studies of chimp behaviour...In 1994, when intense ethnic fighting in Rwanda drove an estimated 600,000 refugees into the area of Tanzania surrounding Burigi National Park, wildlife in the park declined sharply.
Buffalo numbers fell from about 2,670 to just 44. Roan antelope declined from 466 to 15 and zebra from 6,552 to 606, while the estimated population of 324 Lichtenstein's Hartebeest, a type of antelope, vanished completely.

** Modified version added to Writers' Cafe.

My January shower of "holiday songlines" breeds blots of sleep

The more I untangle the webs
The more there are
~
The more I dream
The more reality I see
~
The more I linger by windows
Staring in wonder at seasonal landscapes
The more they cycle by
~
The more I open doors
The more I sense promise
Hope
Magical miracles~
In a drop of dew
Misty sunlight
A scent of eucalypt
A sprightly linnet or
Blue wren dancing
A whisper of wind
~
The more I seek lands afar
The more lands appear
~
The more I wander in rainbows
The more colours emerge
~
The more I feel the pain of
The hungry
The lonely
The sad
The lost
The poor of spirit
The more I feel the pain
~
The more I linger by earth's deep wells
Tasting sparkling
Fresh
Streams
The more they flow
~
The more I remember
Ancient songlines
From somewhere
The more they sing
~
The more I touch the mystique of stars
The more they gleam
Impishly
~
The more I sail
Into horizon sunsets
The further they seem to be
~
The more I empty the cup
The more it fills
~
The more I slip into sleep
The more I wake

Panning Tibet

Panning

May mean

To scour

A landscape~

Swinging

Colours

And shapes

Into one

Arching

Perspective~

But panning

May also mean

Sifting

Out

The gold

Drifting

In beds

From old

Seams

~

And then there is the

Pan Himalayan

Railway line ~

Very new and fresh

On the corporate

Blog roll

~

World's highest train route?

Or lowest scam?

~

BBC reported

The railway snakes for 1,000km across 'the roof of the world'

~

Think about it!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In response to "Tibet railway firm seeks listing" - BBC News - 20.01.08

China Railway Construction, which built the rail link to Tibet, plans to list shares on the Hong Kong and Shanghai stock markets, state media have said.
The firm will issue 2.8 billion shares in Shanghai and at least 1.8 billion in Hong Kong, according to China's official Xinhua news agency.
It plans to use the cash raised to expand construction capability...The high-altitude rail link between China's western Qinghai province and Lhasa opened in July 2006.
In the past, Lhasa could be reached only by plane or after a long, arduous road journey.
Hailed as an engineering feat by Beijing, critics fear it will undermine traditional Tibetan culture.

Further details to be found on an earlier article "China completes railway to Tibet" - BBC News - 15.01.05. China has announced the completion of the first railway line to Tibet - one of the world's highest train routes.
The pan-Himalayan line climbs 5,072m (16,640ft) above sea level and runs across Tibet's snow-covered plateau - dubbed the roof of the world.
Trains travelling on the line will have to have carriages that are sealed like aircraft to protect passengers from altitude sickness... The workers who built the line had to breathe bottled oxygen in order to cope with the high altitudes.

And in an earlier article still "China's drive to transform Tibet" - BBC News - 6.09.04 - A Chinese flag hovers in front of the Potala palace, the imposing hilltop landmark which once housed Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.
A monument - supposedly to China's peaceful liberation of Tibet in 1951 - is also clearly visible from the Potala, an ever-present reminder of China's political dominance...Mr Fan is the visible face of China's economic juggernaut, and sees himself as performing a public service.
"Everybody is coming here to build Tibet. Today's Tibet is richer than it used to be, and there's no question of us stealing jobs from Tibetans," he said...
But at the site of the new railway which will connect Tibet to the outside world, there are few Tibetan faces.

Fire and Ice

Once upon a time

Many long

Midnights ago

Plumes

Of ash and

Gas

Sheered

A canyon

In ice~

~

Sulphurous

Secrets

Became

Locked

In chunks

Of

Solid

Thick

White

~

Aeons of snow

Passed~

Burying

Static

Electric

Dreams

~

Until

Human guilt

Drove

Cadets of dreams

To nature's stage~

Hoping

Quizzically

To find

A play

With alternate

Answers

~

(Even a "Waiting for Godot"

Re-run

Would do)

~

But sometimes

Answers have a habit

Of getting lost

In more

Ridiculous

Questions

~

For all they found

Was a mountain~

A volcanic mountain~

Like a rainbow serpent~

Pulsing

Echoes

Echoes

Of some very

Ancient life

~

Fire

Beneath

The ice

~

They left

Empty handed

~

The only sign

Some monumental

Wisdom

Passed by

Was the river

Coursing

Through veins

On bland brows

~

Snaking

Melting

Smiling

~

In response to "Ancient Antarctic eruption noted" - BBC News - 20.01.08

Scientists have found what they say is the first evidence of a volcanic eruption under the Antarctic ice sheet.
They believe the volcano erupted about 2,000 years ago, and would have burst through its ice covering, producing a burst of steam and rocky debris...The thickness of ice above suggests the eruption occurred just over 2,200 years ago..."We believe this was the biggest eruption in Antarctica during the last 10,000 years. It blew a substantial hole in the ice sheet, and generated a plume of ash and gas that rose about 12km into the air."...The Hudson Mountains lie close to Pine Island Glacier, one of the West Antarctic glaciers whose flow has accelerated in recent years...But volcanoes which are not conspicuously active at present may also be generating heat under the ice..."This complicates things. However, it cannot explain the more widespread thinning of West Antarctic glaciers that together are contributing nearly 0.2mm per year to sea level rise."

Snow Leopard Mystique

Somewhere
In distant
Mountain
Snows
Wanders
A lone
Spectrum of
Insular
Happiness~
Many try
To tap
And tag
And ping
The elusive
Mystique~
But success
Depends
On veils
Of snow~
On insular
Footprints~
And depths
Of snowdrifts
~

In response to the article "Collar 'key' to the snow leopards secrets" - BBC News - 16.01.08 Lying somewhere in the mountainous, snow-cloaked terrain of Pakistan's Tooshi Game Reserve is a collar that could help unlock the secrets of the elusive snow leopard.
For the past year, this piece of hi-tech equipment has sat around the neck of a wild snow leopard, recording, via the global positioning system (GPS), almost every step of her travels as she roamed the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
~

Well organised details about the snow leopard can be found at Defenders of Wildlife Snow leopards are found at altitudes between 9800 and 17,000 feet in the high, rugged mountains of Central Asia. Their range spans from Afghanistan to Kazakstan and Russia in the north to India and China in the east. China contains about 60% of snow leopard habitat. They have already disappeared from certain parts of Mongolia, which is part of their historic range.

Pilgrimage painted with Zulu colours

Climb
Just one
Holy mountain~
Beyond
The crush
And stench
Of parchment city
Walls
~
Push the boundaries
Of old visions
But respect them for what they were



Let bare feet
Liberate
The auras
Of grasses
Twigs
And
Cooling
Bristly
Stones~
Linking
Tired frames
To sacred pictures
Of old motherlands~
~
Burn wasted scrolls
Along the way
~
Izimboko
Symbolic staffs
Of fighting
Spirits
~
And remember
To sing
Death's lullaby~
For legends~
With a fragrant essence of
Flowers~
~
Izimboko
Symbolic staffs
Of fighting
Spirits~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In response to South African pilgrims in pictures - BBC News - 21.01.08
An estimated one million followers of South Africa's Nazareth Baptist Church are coming to the end of their annual pilgrimage. They have spent the past two weeks on their holy mountain of Nhlongakazi, north of Durban. The church, also known as Shembe, has an estimated 4 million followers, or amaNazarites, mostly Zulu-speakers. The church was founded in 1910 by Isaiah Shembe, who died in 1935. Since his death, the church has split into several factions. The pilgrims walk barefoot for three days, covering 60km and sleeping in the open. They build fires along the way, sing and burn litter to purify their surroundings...Devotees or preachers wear white gowns and headdresses made of animal skins. They carry traditional Zulu fighting sticks called izimboko. Shembe women worship separately from men. They gather in a group and lay flowers on the hillside to remember the souls of the departed...Pilgrims believe if they reach the mountain, God will ease their pain, enable them to find employment and keep them safe in the year ahead. ~~Pictures and text by Alice Lander.

A little Mummy Bunny wisdom

Kittens climb on Summer the rabbit - Aberdeen
Summer
Is a good season
To feel
Wanted
By sunlight~
Desired
By cool surf
Running to meet you
Sinking
Footprints
In pools
Of silken sands
~
Summer is a good reason
To know
There is always love
Even for
Castaways
Abandoned
By Winter
~
If only WE believed
There are no
Berlin
Or Gaza
Walls
In
Nature's reality!
~~~~~~~~~~
In response to Kittens 'adopted' by pet rabbit" - BBC News - 19.11.07
Veterinary nurse Melanie Humble took the three-week-old kittens to her Aberdeen home.
The kittens seemed to think Summer the rabbit was their mother and began to climb all over her and try to feed from her..."Summer is five months old and she's gigantic. It is lovely to see them all together."...

It is dark tonight in Gaza

It is dark tonight

In Gaza

~

Even sanctuaries

Are cold

~

The air

Feels

Like stones

In ancient ghettos

~

The power

Of one

Simmers

Like a disgruntled

Chunk

Of kryptonite

No Superman

Cape

Visible~

Not even

The handshake

Of a white flag

~

But while

Ignorant

Rocket powers

Mess

With eternity

Ordinary

Walkers

Kindle light

In phoenix wells

And parade

Stars

In their

Thousands

Upon

Thousands

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In response to Gaza City plunged into darkness - BBC News - 20.01.08

Gaza City was plunged into darkness after the plant's turbines stopped.
Israel's closure of border crossings amid continued rocket fire from Gaza has brought the delivery of almost all supplies, including fuel, to a halt.
But Israel, which provides 60% of Gaza's power, says the territory still has sufficient fuel stocks..."At least 800,000 people are now in darkness. The catastrophe will affect hospitals, medical clinics, water wells, houses, factories, all aspects of life."...Several thousand residents staged a candle-lit march through Gaza City after the blackout...Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Arye Mekel said the border closures were intended to apply pressure to the Palestinian authorities to stop militants in Gaza firing rockets at Israel.

A house - Private property sails the skies?

To dream
The impossible
House
To fight
The unbeatable
Banks
To bear
Vacant
Distant
Tomorrows
To plant
Where the sane
Do not sow
~
To face
The unfaceable
Land
Set high
On mountains afar
To love
Bushland mists
By the sea
To touch
Untouchable stars
~
This is a quest
To follow that life
No matter how fruitless
No matter the strife
To fight
For the light
Without question
Or laws
To be willing
To dive
Into hell
For a visionary cause
~
And I know
If I only imbue
This heavenly quest
With dreams
I'll sail
Joyful and free
Till I lay in my nest
~
And the world
May be better for this
That one life
Torn
And riddled with scars
Still walked
Weighted
Heavy
With anguish
To touch
Untouchable
Stars
~~~~~~~~~~
In response to "High prices end Australian dream" - "The Age" - 21.01.08
The least affordable city in Australia is Mandurah (sixth-least affordable overall), south of Perth, where houses cost 9.5 times a household's average annual income, with Sydney (8.6), Perth (7.6) and Melbourne (7.3) in 11th, 19th and 22nd place overall... Only US and Canadian cities featured in the top 50 affordable cities, including Dallas and Kansas in the US and Quebec in Canada...The survey found the top five least affordable cities in the world included four Californian cities led by Los Angeles, along with Salinas, San Francisco and San Diego with Honolulu in Hawaii coming in at number four.
** Posted also on HubPages under AuraGem