Monday, June 27, 2005
Lazy Days, Sundays, and St Louis
Nian and I both had an attack of the lazies on Saturday. We had originally planned on going to Chicago for the Wired magazine NextFest, but I didn’t get the tickets in time plus I had heard the event was overrated, plus-plus Nian and I would be in Chicago this next Saturday anyway, overnighting before our trip out to New York city (the Fourth of July weekend we will spend Sunday through Wednesday there), plus-plus-plus I don’t think Nian was as anxious to see a bunch of tech toys as I was.
Anyway this last Saturday was spent mostly lounging around in bed and watching movies on the big projection screen in the bedroom. I have a rather modest apartment, but my HDTV/DVD/Computer setup is way over the top with a room dominating 10’ screen – a homebrew system I have been building around a NEC-1351 projector I purchased over 3 years ago used, but sill beats anything you will see at BestBuy in HDTV.
Sunday we decided to go to St Louis, even though the Chicago NextFest and Taste of Chicago would still have been options. I missed my shortcut turn onto 148 however and we decided to head on into Springfield first. While there we visited Abraham Lincoln’s house, an exhibit that I think Nian enjoyed quite a bit -- then onto St Louis and the famous Gateway Arch. After an hour and a half wait we made it to the top. A glorious view from 630 feet high and I’m glad we did it, but I’m not very happy with how the trips up the Arch are scheduled. If you buy a ticked for 1:10, it seems you should be boarding at approximately 1:10, not waiting in a long line behind 1:00, 12:50, 12:40, 12:30, etc. ticket holders who have not yet boarded. I understand having to wait until your boarding time, but what is the purpose of making you wait an additional hour past your ticket time, and to do so standing in line. This seems to be the natural course of events at the Arch however and not due to any unexpected delays or overflows, as the actual ticket sales booths had no lines at all, else they should have been adjusting their schedule times if they where falling behind.
We made a little excursion around St Louis trying to find a restaurant and got a little lost while doing so. We seemed to drive for miles and miles and miles of mostly run down areas of St Louis with few restaurants and the few of which we did spy where either all closed or of the fast-food variety that Nian would have us avoid like the plague – not because of cost, but because she has a rather low opinion of the healthiness of most American faire. In the end we circled back to the downtown.
One thing we had not anticipated was the near total shutdown the St Louis downtown has on Sundays. Nian wanted to find a nice Chinese restaurant to eat at, as she had been having to put up with American fair for the last two or three days. We walked around on foot a little in the main downtown area, but most of the restaurants were closed. We asked a few passers-by on the street if they knew of a Chinatown section to St Louis, but they all turned out to be out-of-towners like us and had probably just come to see the Arch. Nian opined that while most of the American restaurants where closed for Sunday or Closed early, that should we find a Chinese restaurant it would likely be open, as the hard-working, industrious Chinese would not be so bound to the American tradition of taking a break-day on Sunday. As we rounded a corner Nian perked up at the sight of familiar Chinese characters. There didn’t appear to be much activity in the outwardly nice appearing Chinese restaurant, but a small white sign in the window said Open -- a pull on the doors proved otherwise however and the hours listed just inside the glass showed Closed Sundays.
Nian was a little crestfallen that we really only had two reasonable choices between a TGI Friday’s and some Italian restaurant with the Italian flag’s red, green, and white, strips adorning its awning, within obvious walking distance. I couldn’t help but needle her about how we should be able find food with “those hard working Italians,” so Italian it was and Nian did seem to enjoy the Chicken-Marsala.
On the whole it was a good day, but Nian was a little surprised with the tracts and tracts of dilapidated areas that most American cities seem to have. Not that all of China is modern and clean, but America is considered “rich” after all. Add to this the constant brushes we seem to have with beggars in Chicago and Indianapolis it’s no wonder Nian wonders about our apparent prosperity. St Louis was no exception and as we left the restaurant some emaciate, probably homeless women asking me about my box of leftovers I had from the restaurant, I hadn’t even eaten a half of the large pizza that I had purposely over ordered so as to have something to brown-bag to work the next day or two. I handed the box over quickly without hesitation knowing here was another black eye for America in the eyes of a visitor, earlier we had practically been accosted by some black couple in a van for parking too close. I had really been expecting them to extort money from me for a collision that never took place. The women had been quite insistent we had “hit” their van while neither Nian nor myself had felt anything. I think it would be safe to say most Chinese visitors are leery of American blacks in open settings and this couple did nothing to dispel the stereotype of blacks being easy to anger and unreasonable. I hesitate to write this in my blog for fear of PC backlash, but all I can do is reports the facts as accurately as I can. Having had a great many friendly and competent coworkers and friends I know this stereotype is not true, but to many visitors America can seem a very unfriendly and unsafe place. Trying to explain the complexities of America’s homeless and poor problem can be very draining.
We escaped St Louis without further incident and made it home without getting lost again. Nian probably thinks me an incompetent, since most of our long excursions have included at least some backtracking or direction asking.
Next Week the BIG ADVENTURE
Stay Tuned.
