Perplexed Orange Independent Biker

Construction

More new photos today, too

Now that I’ve gotten over the shell-shock, I’m starting to see a little more. Today on the way to the office I saw several buildings under construction and renovation. Like this one which is getting new layers of insulation and skin.
Friends told me that one problem is that so many of the buildings were built by and are still owned by the government. And they can only fix so many at a time. So they don’t have the same incentive that private owners do for keeping the place nice and maintained to keep rents up.
Good day here today, couple of harrowing taxi rides. Lunch at a “Mexican” restaurant but you could have fooled me, I thought we were having another traditional Russian meal.
Dan out.

Office coffee

If you know me you know this is a difficult choice, which instant coffe to use. However, I have already found at least one coffee shop in town serving a very competent double espresso. So all is not lost.

Novosibirsk apartments

Russia is just plain run-down. I’m sure the center of Moscow and St Petersburg are up to snuff with other world captials. But out here where it matters, things just look kinda hard. Old vehicles, old shoddy buildings, that’s all you see. Being in the midst of the dirty spring thaw doesn’t help. On the flip side there are happy, industrious young people here getting on with life and it looks nice. And after work we went out for a great dinner of nouveau-Russian food.

Map

Originally uploaded by dansteeves68.

Late-night surfing google maps to get a sense for where I’m going tomorrow morning. I found the client office, which turns out to be less than a kilometer from a top-secret place that google blurs out. I understood that the Soviets set up Akademgorodok for state-sponsored research, but this is kind of wild. If you click through you can see the notes I added in flickr.

Want a smoke?

Click to see more pictures of Istanbul.

Friday morning I was a tourist in Istanbul. Rode the metro to the funicular to the tram, to Sultanhamet Square. Then paid visits to the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sofia.

Hagia Sofia is pretty cool. I didn’t remember a thing about it from 10 years ago. I was kind of surprised that I hardly recognized anything in Istanbul besides the Kabatas and the Flower Courtyard from my trip 10 years ago. My memory of other cities I visited in 1997 has been much better. Afraid I’m getting old.

Between the man in this picture and the Starbucks nearby, I’m reminded how much Disney-fication is happening to the world’s most meaningful places. Check out this video by Bruce Sterling for more of what I mean.

Today I am in Akademgorodok, a nice area outside Novosibirsk, Siberia, Russia. After the local DST “spring forward” last night I am fully 12 hours ahead of home.

After 13 hours of sleep last night, I went for a walk today. My hotel is right next to a sort of shopping mall, so there were plenty of options for people-watching, eating, and even a very good cup of espresso.

More pictures to come, I have to catch up with sightseeing in Istanbul on Friday even. The hotel charges me per MB, so I may be waiting to post from the client office tomorrow.

Colors

Sasha took this picture of a fruit & vegetable stand just off Istiklâl Caddesi last night. I love how the colors pop.

"This is good pork"

This is a picture of some very tasty lamb. We ate dinner at the Çiçek Pasajı, a former flower market which now houses many restaurants in a fun atmosphere.
There were three good quotes on the night. I said “this is good pork.” Regarding the meat/tomato/cheese dish, Sam said “this is not kosher.” And Emre took the night’s award for worst bad driving excuse when he said “wow that is a long bus.” Sorry, I guess you had to be there drinking the raki.

Raki

Emre explained that there are two ways to drink raki. Both involve drinking too much, but we didn’t go too far overboard. Click through to the flickr stream for more photos of the evening, I’ll be blogging more as I find time today. My body needs a bit of yoga, a shower, coffee, and breakfast.

Levent 1

Originally uploaded by dansteeves68.

It is nice to know that in the middle of this — the view south of my hotel to the district Levent 1 — traffic, construction, new malls, office towers;

Two cool cats

Originally uploaded by dansteeves68.

you can still find this — two cool cats playing backgammon at a traditional little neighborhood cafe — just a couple blocks away.