Today, I went to Kota, the old town area. This is where I found out how bad it is to be a pedestrian here. The sidewalks are tiny, if they are there at all. Traffic is everywhere and it can be quite treacherous to cross a street. It's like a big game of Frogger. And the pedestrian is the frog.
Kota is a pretty small area. There are some really old and decrepit buildings. I'm not sure why they would keep the area, but not restore it. Some of the buildings look like they might fall down at any moment. The old city hall/official residence/jail is now the museum. There are a lot of old pieces of furniture there and it is generally run-down and old looking, but it was a great shelter against the sudden rainstorm. And it is where I met this lovely young lady. She doesn't look it, but she had just had a fight with her Italian fiance, with whom she was to be married on Saturday after just having completed the visa paperwork to go to Italy yesterday. I'm not really the suspicious type (lord knows, I am not really the suspicious type), but I'm a bit dubious about the whole thing. If I were just about to be married and had a big fight with my intended bride to the point that I wasn't sure if it was all going to happen or not, I think I might be a little more upset. And I'm not sure I would be visiting a museum in a tourist area and chatting up visitors and having my photo taken with them. But that might just be me.
After the museum, I went for a bite to eat. I found this nice little cafe/restaurant. 
From the outside, it doesn't seem to be anything at all, it's certainly not got much pointing to it.
Then I went to see one of the last remnants of Dutch colonization, this lone bridge. I hadn't intended to go and see it. I was just walking around aimlessly and happened on it.
Then I continued to wander aimlessly, hoping to find another line of the Busway. Before long, I had wandered into a slummish area of the waterfront district. It was about this time that I began to realize that I had possibly stumbled into “the wrong part of town.” But did I turn around? No. I think it's against some kind of code of mine to go backwards. I don't like to go back, I like to go forwards. Someday, I suppose I will wander into some “wrong part of town” and not turn back, and someone is going to take me up on the offer and turn my day into a rather bad one. I should stop doing foolish things like that. But I came through it fine. I helped some people get a truck unstuck from mud. I talked to a bunch of kids on a bus thing. I smiled and nodded and walked through pretty much unmolested. (There was one guy with a taxi who tried to stop me with waves and hand gestures, basically suggesting that it was a bad idea to be walking in that area. Someday...)
And at the end, I found a Busway route and headed back to the place I'm staying and saw this sunset over the Independence Monument. It was a nice day. Maybe tomorrow I can get out to the islands in the bay, and maybe even stay on one overnight.
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