JOAN, MY VIEWS.: lighthouse

Showing posts with label lighthouse. Show all posts

Saturday, May 31, 2025

Colombo, Sri Lanka

While I have been spending most of my time in Sri Lanka in the country areas, yesterday my hosts took me downtown to show me the new Port City now under construction.

At lunch with Cmdr. Ravi, the number 2 officer in the Sri Lankan Navy.

This area is being developed by the Chinese on over 400 acres of mostly dumped up land. It's right across from old Colombo and beside one of the controversial container ports.

According to Dr. Damith, in 10 years this area will be Asia's predominant financial center.

Now, the only section in operation is the small beachfront entertainment area, but many people have started to visit and enjoy it already.

Love of ice cream is international, so this shop is at the entrance.

You can get a good view of the city center from there.

This is the old parliament building. (It's the only place I have seen the Sri Lankan flag, (so far) for it's the Buddhist flag that's predominant elsewhere.)

You can go to the top of this building and get a view of most of Colombo. It's called the "lotus building".

According to Wikipedia: "The lotus flower is a sacred symbol in Buddhism, representing purity, enlightenment, and awakening. Its ability to bloom in murky waters and rise above the surface symbolizes the potential for spiritual growth and transformation, even in the face of difficult circumstances."

(Because of the predominance of Buddhist symbols here one, may get the impression that this could be a theocracy.

This is not at all so, as every religion is openly practiced here and Buddhism, though powerful in the culture and religion, is not involved in civil government.)

The exercise area is already in use. It includes a jogging lane and a cycling lane.

When we left Port City, we walked a short distance to the Navy Officer's Mess Hall for lunch.

Only families and friends of senior Navy personnel are allowed there.

The Navy symbol.

Damith's friend Ravi is the head of the civil engineering division of the Sri Lankan Navy and the second highest officer in it's ranks.

That's the emblem outside the dining room. I suspect it's been there from the colonial period.

The mess hall is right across from the lighthouse.

Sections of Colombo near the train depot, remind me of downtown Kingston (Princess Street area) where everything is available in the shops and on the sidewalks.

Reminds me of the Princess Street area in downtown Kingston.

When I looked at the name of the street we were standing on, it was Prince Street.😁

After a lovely day of enjoying the downtown area, it was back home via the local train which was as crowded and rickety as a New York's subway!

Their rail system is one segment of their highly efficient transportation network that seems to facilitate their 22 million population very cheaply and efficiently.

(The population in the capital Colombo, is some 3 million)

For a cost less than $500 Jamaican, I took the train (by myself 😊) on a 7 hour trip to Anuradhapura!

The criss, brand new coach.

Admittedly, the coach I traveled in going up, was old but at least had reclining seats and foot rests.

The coach I returned in was brand new and criss, nicer than any I have ever seen in Amtrak, the US 's main train service.

I am really impressed with their cheap, efficient transport system made up of rail service, public buses, (they charge half the price of private buses and give tickets as you pay), private buses, millions of taxis and ride-share vehicles using tuk tuk (aka three wheeler), bikes and cars.

Wednesday, August 30, 2023

Illinois born.

Chicago has been given such a bad rap by the media that I was pleasantly surprised to see how absolutely beautiful it really is!

Also, I learned far more than I expected to during a four-day trip there, including that it was founded by a Haitian immigrant named Jean-Paul LeSable in 1779.

Above is his bust displayed in the middle of the city and there are a significant number of roads and bridges named after him.

The most important thing I learned though, is that Chicago is nothing like how it is portrayed to be in the news, for the normal reports I have seen about this beautiful city are only of shootings, murder, and violence.

I know you can’t judge a place after one four-day visit, but the Chicago I saw was nothing like that.

Anyway, as a Jamaican, I can sympathize with the portrayal in the press versus reality.

Sure, every major city has dangerous areas and with a population of some three million, Chicago does too, but there is so much more to this city than those minor glitches!

On my recent visit, I found a clean, beautiful city with helpful and friendly people everywhere we went!

And it’s not as if we took organized tours into so-called ‘good’ areas! No sir, we wandered around on foot, and public transportation to the places we wanted and never once did we feel unsafe or saw any act of violence.

(it's at the airshow that we realized cel phone cameras are no good really, as you will see below.😡)

The happy wanderers

In fact, the day after we arrived, we walked almost fifteen blocks to Lake Michigan to watch the final day of an air show.

When we craved Chinese food, we set off to find their China Town to eat as well as to see if it is anything like the wonderful one we frequented in San Francisco a few days before.

That’s when we started to meet the really nice and helpful people of Chicago, for the transit information system which issues the Ventra cards is a mess.

We went to a major hub called Union Station from which the Amtrak Trains, local L trains and buses leave, but would you believe we couldn’t find an information desk there to get directions?

So, we took a chance and walked to where t

he buses parked outside and it was there we experienced our first act of extreme kindness.

For not only did the first lady we asked for information, tell us which buses to take, but she took the time to help us manipulate an awfully difficult machine to get Ventra single tickets.

When we finally got the tickets, she took us on to her bus and told the driver where to drop us to catch the connecting bus.

As we finally reached to the connection bus's stop and started to look for the times and routes, a lady waiting there enquired where we were going.When we told her, she went on her phone to the local travel app and immediately told us what time that bus would arrive at our stop, without us even asking her for assistance!

There is no comparison between the Chicago Chinatown and the one in San Francisco though which is said to be the largest in the world outside of China iself.

And seeing women in Chicago sitting on the pavement while selling vegetables was a bit of a shock!

But we found a good restaurant with delicious food and the help we got from everyone we asked for directions just made our day.

For the return journey, we again approached strangers to ask about connections and would you believe the driver of the first bus we took, actually parked his bus (empty except for us) and walked us to the stop on the next street!

Women lay out thier vegetables on the street corner

The next day when we were heading out, we tried to buy our tickets on line, but the local transit web page was so convoluted and frustrating that we had to just use google. And guess what, that’s when we learned that we could actually pay on the bus if we had the actual amount quoted and better yet, as seniors we only pay half price!

Anyway, when we set out, we again got nothing but friendly assistance from everyone we asked.

So, we happily embarked on our exploits, found an informative bus driver as usual, went to the aquarium, spent the day and had no problem at all returning home.

Beautiful buildings on both sides of the Chicago River.

We also frequented the water taxis which traverse the Chicago River that runs through the center of the city. They also run in sections of Lake Michigan, down to Navy Pier.

Traversing the Chicago River is a treat in itself as it takes you past some of the most amazing architecture you will see anywhere.

In fact, many tour operators in the area offer ‘architecture tours’ up and down the river daily.

I found Navy Pier exceptionally beautiful, relaxing and healthy.

Healthy as the entire compound is a grand jogging trail which you can utilize or just walk leisurely around, as there is so much more to do.

There is something there for everyone, young people, old people and everyone in between.

Navy Pier

I fell in love with the exhibition there called ‘the state of sound’ which explored the role of ‘Chicago born’ artists to every genre of music.

I learned so much, including the fact that so many of the artists that I had adored over the years, were born in Illinois.

They include numerous Gospel artists, blues, jazz, hip hop, R&B. artists.

What made it even more wonderful was the fact that you could download and listen to mini-documentaries about these artists, including them performing some of their greatest.

That was a rewardinf experience as was just about everything we did in that much-maligned city, in just a few days.