Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Lunch in Charlotte

I went out to today and took a quick walk and some pictures, like a good blogger should. It was a very interesting walk around the Charlotte uptown area for a brief review of what is here in our erstwhile hometown.

I always noticed it before, but I was struck anew by how many models there are of the Charlotte uptown area to be found in the Charlotte uptown area. I took a snap of a few.




The Mint Museum's uptown building. Very nice place.



This is the entrance into Hearst Tower, an art deco building.



Before 9/11, all of these elevator shafts in every building were just open and anyone could walk anywhere. Now they all have these plexiglass walls, with passcard enablement.



I dropped by St. Peter's Church, a place I used to come a couple of times a week to pray and get some mental down time. Sometimes it was just me, sometimes there were other business people in there, sometimes homeless people sleeping. A special place to me.






The I went to Latta Arcade, a small section of uptown that is left from the 1920's. You can see that the back of the shops are a little shoddy and rough-looking, which is incongruous with all of the planned polish of Charlotte. I love the place, part of it is inside, part outside. Then I went to Fujiyama in Latta Arcade and ordered the vegetable teriyaki. I used to enjoy this, but now I realize that this, consistent with the theme of eating in America, was just way too much food. It violated my rule that one should never have a meal that is larger than one's head.

Yeah, I finished it.









Vistas of uptown.






On the way back to the office, I saw the one thing that was out of place and not spit-polished perfect - an old record and tape player with speakers. Just sitting there on the sidewalk. Unexplained.