They're Not Subway Entrances

They're pedestrian underpasses.  And it turns out they're pretty useful.

I went for a walk in the mid-day sun.  This was for several reasons:

1. To see how hot this place gets and if I could tolerate it.
2. To look for mobile phone / personal hot-spot providers.
3. To get my bearings in the city around me.
4. To get some food and other supplies for the room.
5. To get some lunch.
6. To walk.

The success of these endeavors varied.

It's pretty hot out there, but tolerable in reasonable doses.  The locals were carrying umbrellas to protect them from the sun.  I may want to look into that.  I wouldn't mind a little color while I'm here, but I would mind cancer.

There are plenty of places which sell mobile devices.  But apparently there's, like, one place which actually has plans for those devices.  It was at a mall several blocks away.  I'd heard about this mall, and I knew that it was "kind of vaguely that way," so I went kind of vaguely that way and found a mall.  The people who worked at the mobile phone store were trying to be helpful, but it was clear they're not accustomed to dealing with a techie.  I don't want to just give you money in exchange for service.  I want to know about that service.  And they couldn't really help with that.  I'll wait until Monday and ask colleagues.

I definitely got my bearings, found some landmarks, etc.  For a little while I was having trouble going in the direction I wanted to go.  Crossing streets isn't a problem here; It's no different than any other downtown area.  But a lot of corners and intersections had barriers preventing pedestrian access.  What the crap?  I kept passing what looked like subway entrances, so eventually I wondered if I could cut through there and go up the other side without using the subway.  Turns out there's no subway.  They're pedestrian underpasses specifically designed for exactly what I'm trying to accomplish.  The barriers are there to make sure people safely use the underpasses instead of darting out into the larger intersections.  Now I know.

There are what I can only assume are cops everywhere.  Hopefully that's a good thing.  Of course, they could just as easily be off-duty bus drivers, I don't know.  But getting around isn't a problem, really.  I kind of stick out around here, and occasionally I get a look (or so I think, anyway).  But, again just like any other downtown area, all I need to do is walk with purpose.  Have a direction, move in that direction. Don't look lost, don't look like a tourist.  Just go.  Nobody bothers you if you walk with purpose.

There's a 7-11 very near the hotel, so I can get some decent food supplies there.  I'll have to look for a proper grocery store or market of some kind, of course.  But for now I have some cup-o-noodles (of various unfamiliar varieties that look pretty good), snacks, drinks, etc.

For lunch, you're going to laugh.  I stopped at McDonald's.  No, I didn't fly to the complete other side of the planet to go to McDonald's.  However, this was an interesting experiment.  I was kind of excited that the meals are a lot cheaper, but it turns out they're also a lot smaller.  You should see this tiny little Coke.  Where's my 64-ounce big gulp?  They also have weird things.  They have a McSpaghetti.  And something called a McDo, which looks to just be fried chicken.  Maybe another time.  For now I got a McNugget meal, mostly to see how different it is.  The Coke is pretty similar, but the fries taste a little different (probably the salt's doing), the barbecue sauce is way different, and the McNuggets are about the same.  All in all not bad, and hopefully it'll help ease me into the local diet.  As for that fried chicken though, I probably won't try that.  A block past it there's a KFC.  I'll give that the same comparison test someday.

For now I'm just hoping the food doesn't kill me.  For example, on the cab ride from the airport this morning when we were passing through the machine shop district, I noticed a small gathering of people under an elevated highway ramp, not near anything else.  They turned out to be a bunch of partially toothless old men standing around some kind of hotdog cart thing (though probably not hotdogs) eating.  And I thought... If I eat that, I would die.  Fast food chains may not be the best thing for me, but it could be worse.

All things considered, this place isn't really all that different.  The people are just a little darker than they are back home, that's all.  Oh, and apparently there's some kind of independence celebration thing going on this weekend.  A lot of local pride posters and whatnot, and a gathering of people in a nearby park.  It looked like a band may have been setting up, so I might go check it out again later.  But for now it made for the only decent photo-op of the area so far:

Hopefully I'll be able to get better photos.  So far I haven't found a nice vantage point.