Tag Archives: Daegu

A stadium and some buses

Daegu,

I’ve been listening to South African radio a lot in the last week and it’s full of the count-down to kick-off. So, in honour of the 100 days to kick-off which is just around the corner, I decided on Sunday to visit another World Cup Stadium.

I woke with the sun peaking through my windows and making me smile. It’s been raining for a few days and the weather forecast predicted this would be the only day of sunshine this week, so I climbed out of my nice warm bed to take on the day. Of course, the sun faded behind misty clouds within half an hour but I held out hope that it would return.

Before I left, I did some laundry and tidied my flat a little, but by 11am I was leaving my little home with camera and bus-card and an umbrella just in case. I got on the 403 bus and headed off. This is a part of town I’ve never been to before, so I was watching the road with interest. The bus headed off onto a highway and through a toll-booth. We had driven away from the skyscrapers and were passing wooded hills on either side. I was a little concerned that we had in fact left Daegu. I got more nervous when we turned off the highway and onto – I kid you not –  a semi-dirt track. After a couple of twists and turns, we were back on a road that looked like a road and the bus announcements said we were approaching ‘World Cup junction’.

I got off at the next stop and looked up at the huge form of the Daegu World Cup Stadium. The  stadium was built for the 2002 Soccer World Cup which was jointly hosted by Japan and Korea. Korea isn’t really a sports-mad country, barring perhaps a national obsession with figure skater Kim Yu-Na who recently won gold with a record score at the Vancouver Olympics. For the most part, however, they’re about as far from the sports-craziness of  South Africa as it’s possible to be. Some people play sport, but mostly for exercise, except for the kids who try desperately to fit in a little baseball or basketball between the homework and the long hours of school and academies. Many of these kids have dreams of being sports stars but in their world it’s a futile dream. They’ll go off to university and be doctors and lawyers, just as like their parents. Not for them the dream of playing rugby or soccer for a living, even if it’s for a second-string club team in a European country. Their national team can play soccer and has made it to the Soccer World Cup this year. I’m sure they’ll have support – the country is very loyal to the people who make them look good. 2002 was like that. Their team came from nowhere to make it to the semi-finals, where they lost to Germany, eventually placing fourth after losing to Turkey in the third-place play-off.

The hosting of the tournament also saw the country pouring millions of won into infrastructure development, not unlike South Africa, including building stadia in host cities, although I imagine after we’re done South Africans will simply use the stadia for sports events rather than advertising them as tourist attractions. The Daegu Stadium seats 68000 and claims, amongst other things, to be able to get people out in just 7 minutes. It was the largest of the World Cup 2002 stadia in Korea. It towered over me as I walked around. The design uses simple shapes like circles and triangles and hexagons. There is a row of very tall cylindrical towers at the front, which are the ticket-booths. On one side, there is an open area where kids were roller-blading and playing tag. A tarred path curves around the stadium where old men were walking and doing stretching exercises. I couldn’t get into the actual stadium, which was a pity but not hugely surprising. At one point, up a hill, there is a set of steps leading to a (non-functioning) fountain, so I was able to see the multi-coloured stands and the logo for the next big event that will use this stadium – the 2011 IAAF World Athletics Championships.

Continuing around the stadium I reached another metal-and-glass modern designer building. This had two large signs, one saying it was the Daegu Sports Museum – of which I had never heard in all my searches for tourist attractions in the city (the Stadium, by the way, is listed as a tourist attraction). The other sign designated the place as what I assume, from the number of suited men standing around outside, it is generally used for: World Cup Convention Wedding. Weddings in Korea seem all to take place at dedicated wedding venues and this appears to be one of them. The wedding guests, in their suit-and-tie finery, mingled outside with more kids on skateboards, rushing between the few trees and occasional, odd (and often soccer themed) statues.

There is also a park area, with walkways and grass and pillars, as well as more odd statues. It’s a fairly pleasant place to walk, although the wedding rush on a Sunday morning makes it a less peaceful. Also the music. I don’t think I will ever be able to get my head around the fact that all Korean outdoor living areas have speakers set along ever path playing panpipes or canned elevator music. It’s as if no-one is sufficiently able to handle silence to enjoy it while walking in a quiet park. It’s particularly annoying in a place like this which, set as it is against mountains and in between little fields of grapevines and vegetable patches (which are themselves, as is typical of Korea, right in the middle of the urban area), doesn’t even need the music to block out traffic noise. Apart from the ‘music’, it was a pleasant walk and the mist that had been hiding the sun burnt off, so I was able to get some much needed sunshine-time. As I was leaving, I even saw some people in hanbok, rushing to a wedding, I assumed.

The time now was just after noon and I was enjoying being out and about, so I decided to trek across town to Homeplus. This is probably one of my favourite shops in Daegu for the simple reason that it feels like a supermarket instead of a department store, so it’s a little more familiar. Also, it’s a Tesco store so they occasionally stock things that look like home. Getting there was a-whole-nother story. Many foreigners in Korea take taxi-cabs everywhere. This is expensive but, provided you know how to say your destination in Korea or have it written down, you are guaranteed to get there fairly quickly and with little risk of being lost. I don’t. I was exposed to the bus system right from the start because I had to take a bus to work. The guide books warm foreigners that the bus systems in Korean cities can be very confusing. There are some attempts to make them foreigner-friendly, so the names of the bus stops are written in English as well as Korean. But only on the actual stops, meaning that you don’t know where you are until you drive past it.

Standing at an unfamiliar bus stop, reading the route maps in Korean, I realised I’ve pretty much cracked the system. This is not to say that I find it simple – it is definitely not – but am able to read enough, and know the names of enough places, that I could figure out which bus to take so that I would be able to change buses a few times and get clear across town to where I was going. I suppose it shouldn’t be weird that 8 months in I’ve figured out a public transport system, but it is reassuring to know that I can do it and it feels a little bit good to know that I have cracked a transport system that baffles many people and is almost entirely in a foreign language that uses a different alphabet.

The route of the 849 bus, between the Daegu Stadium and the Nambu Bus Terminal, is really pretty and peaceful, it turns out. I spent a pleasant while watching the world go by from the window of my bus. At that time of day on a Sunday, it’s also a reasonably quiet world, which is always welcome. Three buses later (intentionally – it’s the quickest way), I reached my destination and did a little bit of shopping. I managed to pick up some microwavable lasagne, about which I am rather excited, as well as some beef and seaweed soup (Miyeok Guk). Another two buses and I was home by 3pm with the sun still shining. A good day with some sunshine and some shopping and a good way to get a little excited about the major happening of the year back home, kicking off in just over 100 days.

A sense of place

Daegu

William Kittredge quoted in Dana Snyman: “A sense of place is bound up to some degree with the way people are in that place and with the history of the people, and it’s bound up even more with physical and natural details, with trees and grass and soil; weather, water, sky, the way some weeds smell when you walk on them. These are the details of place, and an awareness of them is what I call a sense of place” Dana Snyman, On the Back Roads

On the way back from the Ski Trip, we were chatting in the bus about the things we are looking forward to when we go home. Simple things, most of them. Like carpets. And cheese. And tumble dryers. But there are things from here that I will miss, too. Again, not necessarily huge, monumental things. But every place has a sense, a feeling, an identity. And when you’ve lived in a place for a while, it starts to get under your skin.

I have a strong sense of every place I’ve ever lived in. Some of them I didn’t even like that much. But there are moments and things about each place that stay with me. Climbing Bowkers Kop in Queenstown. Sunsets in Grahamstown and sitting on the couch outside 46D. The forest in Stutt. Walking to work on a crisp, frosty morning along Katherine Street in Sandton. Emmerentia Dam and ice-creams on random Sunday afternoons. Fat Cactus in Little Mowbray. Baby Egyptian geese falling out of the huge monkey puzzle tree outside my window in Rondebosch.

Even a short visit to a place can be enough to form a sense of the place in your mind. The sense is never objective and out there. It is always your own, unique experience, a subjective impression of where you’ve been. Flamingos from a hotel room in Kimberly. Cuppacino under winter grapevines while looking out at the mountains in Colesburg. Often, for me at least, the sense of a place is stronger if you leave and return to it often. Stepping out of Cape Town airport and breathing the Cape Town air and seeing the table-cloth on the mountain always feels like coming home. But once you start to be aware of ‘sense of place’ you start to form those opinions and impressions even without the regular contrast of other places.

My sense of Daegu is of a place that is temporary for me. It doesn’t feel like home the way Grahamstown always will. But there are definitely things that will always remind me of this place. Of course, this impression of place will continue to develop and become richer and deeper over the next few months, but sometimes it’s good to try capture it as it is now.

The strangest and most foreign part of this place for me is the smells. The food is different and the plants are different and the way of living is different. I can’t describe all the scents that make up the way that Daegu smells. I just know that it is a unique and completely alien smell that will always remind me of here.

Daegu is also the neon signs. A jungle of huge signs and billboards on every building, mostly in Korean and completely unintelligible, until you learn to read Hangeul just a little and discover that at least some of them are dotted with Korean-izations of English words like ‘school’. The sounds of Korea are different. The blaring of the loudspeakers on a roaming vegetable trucks, driving up and down suburban streets selling fresh fruit and vegetables at all hours of the day and night. The squeaky birds. The strange, whining, complaining noise that Korean girls make. The incessant thump, thump, thump of basketballs on the court across the road from my flat. The military planes flying over. The noise of the traffic. The Korean radio on the bus and in the taxis. K-pop blaring in every shop and restaurant. Horrible Korean versions of already annoying English songs, like the Titanic Theme, spilling from speakers in every park.

Daegu has an opera house. It is the place I first got to start watching operas regularly. And foreign-style restaurants with beautiful food and atmosphere. Korean food, each dish a side-dish to something else. And the sticky, white rice which is eaten all by itself or soaked in one or other of the many, many spicy soups. The scent of sweet-bean-and-dough treats that follows you down the winter streets. Galbi sizzling on a little grill, strangely nothing like the smell of meat on the braai but pleasant nonetheless. Fish on ice looking dead and a little gruesome right there on the pavement outside shops and at street stalls. Fruit and vegetable sellers crouching behind their wares on every busy streetcorner. Steam billowing from the outside cookers at the mandoo shop down the road from work.

Downtown on a Saturday night, standing in the street with cocktails over ice in plastic bags. Or Communes full of foreigners, rock music blaring and sport playing on the big screen. Bubbles floating down as you walk along the street and sometimes people handing out sparklers. The taste of Hite and Cass and Soju and strange bar-snacks.

Groups of ajummas sitting on a blanket in a park or at the lake. Groups of old men gathered under whisteria-roofed platforms playing boardgames on a Saturday afternoon. Little children calling to their parents – ‘ouma’, ‘oupa’ – and me turning around, taken a little by surprise every time. Shop workers who follow you around everywhere. Pre-cooked rice and instant (just add milk) pancake mix. Making sure you buy bottled water because the tap-water isn’t good for drinking. Fruit juices entirely unrelated to the flavour of the fruit. Syrupy-sweet tomato juice.

Children still walking the streets or playing or on the buses at 10 o’clock at night. On a school-night. Every school-night. The city moves and rushes and crowds all day, from about 8 in the morning until 11pm. Except downtown, which seems to be crowded and busy 24 hours a day. There is no peace and quiet. There is no space. No-one seems to notice. People walking down the road past my flat from the hills above in full mountain climbing gear (all correct and branded and expensive) at all hours of the day.

And so many other things. The three clearest, most typical moments of Daegu life? Watching the day-light fade, over the heads of small children bent to their books, from the window of my classroom; walking in parks in summer, autumn, winter, filled with other people walking and children playing and couples or groups of friends sitting together and nights at the hut with dongdongju, fellow foreigners and salty, fried eggs.

Madama Butterfly

Adventures, Arts, Daegu, , ,

Life lesson number # (many): Do not wear mascara when going to watch a great tragic opera. Yes, I cried. Even though I knew what was going to happen. It was beautiful.

Someone asked me last night how I understand the opera if it’s in Italian. I definitely don’t speak Italian and the sub-titles at the Daegu Opera House are in Korean, so not particularly helpful to me. What I do is to make sure that I know the story beforehand, so that I can follow what is happening. This works well. In fact, it’s great because I am able to lose myself totally in the music and singing without struggling to follow the story in two foreign languages. As an added benefit, I am slowly becoming properly familiar with the stories of all sorts of operas and ballets (because the ballet synopses are also in Korean), which is never a bad thing.

Last night’s opera was a special performance for the 25th anniversary of the Yeongnam Opera Company. This meant that it was a fairly elaborate production, which is always a bonus. The opera itself is fairly complicated anyway. Sufficiently complicated that Puccini rewrote it 4 times (there are 5 versions) before he got it right. It can’t have been easy to turn the story of an American Naval officer and a Japanese geisha into an Italian opera. Apparently he succeeded because Madama Butterfly is now one of the most-performed operas in the US.

I nearly didn’t get to there last night. There had been plans afoot to take in a musical instead and then I dawdled while getting ready so I was running late. Of course, this point – when I was already running late – would be when I landed a bus-driver who was careful and steady and slow, rather than the insane speed-freaks who could be Joburg taxi drivers and normally drive my buses. I got to the Opera house with 10 minutes to spare, in the end. I have also now established that it takes 1 hour to get from myfront door to the Opera House in Saturday evening traffic. Ticket in hand (30 000 won), I headed up to my seat on the 3rd floor balcony. The balcony seat was a mistake. Not that balcony seats are generally a bad thing but I was in a side-balcony seat, so it was a little difficult to see the whole stage. I still enjoyed myself, though.

I was impressed, the last time I went to an Opera by the set. This one was also impressive. The best description is that it was relatively simple and completely functional but managed to evoke a Japanese scene with ease and elegance. It wasn’t unnecesarily cluttered, which always annoys me in a set, but it wasn’t small either – using the entire stage. The lighting was also, again, excellent. Both the design and execution were spot-on to evoke emotions and create atmosphere in support of the music.

The most important contribution to verisimilitude, however, was from the performers. There were lots of super performances. Cio-Cio San (Madama Butterfly) was excellent and Sharpless’s rich, velvety, chocolatey baritone was gorgeous.

The star of the show for me, though, was Kim Jeong Hwa (I think) singing the part of Suzuki. Her voice was stunning and she paired with excellent characterisation. She was entirely believable in her gestures and mannerisms as Madama Butterfly’s maid and she also paid particular attention to little things. Like shoes. She meticulously took off and straightened her shoes every time she moved from the ‘outdoor’ area of the set into the house. She never once missed it and it did so much to create the separation between the spaces, which were not divided by any sort of physical wall. Her emotions were also believable. The role of Suzuki involves a lot of anguished moments and a fair bit of cowering and crying and she pulled it off.

A particularly entertaining role was that of Goro, the matchmaker. The performer singing this part had a wonderfully light touch and really pulled off the greasy, sleazy pimp-persona and added touches of humour and entertainment at exactly the right moments.

The other small part that was an absolute crowd-pleaser was the monk/priest. In the story, Cio-Cio San’s uncle, a Buddhist priest, storms into the wedding party of Butterfly and Pinkerton (the US Navy officer) and curses her for abandoning her ancestral gods to covert to her new husband’s religion. This issue is particularly relevant in Korea so it’s not surprising that the small part was given quite a lot of prominence and the priest was fierce and very good.

I was less impressed with Pinkerton, not because of his singing; his voice was gorgeous but someone needs to teach him a little acting to go with it. Also, I struggled to get past the awful orange-blond hair on a Korean. It wasn’t sufficiently problematic to detract from the experience though and, as I said, his voice was gorgeous.

Another thing about this show I particularly enjoyed was the chorus. This included a large number of people, including children. In the first Act, a group of women entered dressed as geishas but each with an outfit that was white or cream at the top and fading into colour at the bottom, in pinks and sea-greens and oranges, each also carrying a parasols in the same colour. Such beautiful little tableaux with their parasols and fans as part of the wedding scene!

One of the advantages of sitting on the 3rd floor balcony is that you have a perfect view of the orchestra. I love watching orchestras. The intricate dance of movement and timing is fascinating. I particularly enjoyed both watching and listening to this one, the Daegu Opera Festival Orchestra conducted by Andrea Cappelleri. It made me happy. I also had a delightful view of the percussion section. There were three people playing percussion with a wide range of sizes and types of instruments, from triangles and all sizes and shapes of drums to a bird-whistle for the early morning scene in the final act.

Of course, many moments from the show are worth remembering. The Opera started at 7:30pm and only ended at 10pm, so it was quite a long performance. My two favourite moments were towards the end. Act II ends with Cio-Cio San, Suzuki and Dolore (Cio-Cio San’s child) keeping vigil in the house, now strewn with flowers, as they wait for Pinkerton to arrive. As the orchestra kept the vigil musically through the long night, the stage filled with members of the chorus, each with a single light, like a candle, dressed in white and creating such a stunning impression of a long, candle-light vigil. The second moment that sticks with me, partly because it was the moment of tragedy and partly because it was so sumptuously visual, was the final scene: Cio-Cio San’s body on the floor, surrounded by red and purple flower petals and with more petals falling from the sky and the stage awash in red light fading from the spot-light on her body, with Pinkerton calling for Butterfly in the distance.

I’m not sure it’ll become my favourite opera, but I am so glad I saw it and particularly that I saw it in Asia, where some of the themes of the opera are relevant in everyday life and aspects of culture like not wearing shoes inside and bowing in greeting are easy and normal for the performers, making the show just that little bit more authentic and moving.

After the Opera, I headed downtown to have something to eat before meeting up with friends. I was wandering the streets, searching for somewhere that looked good, when I came across a place called Gom’s something or other – possibly Gom’s Workshop. I’ve never noticed it before, which may mean it only opened recently – places downtown are always opening and closing – or may mean that I just haven’t noticed it before. Now that I know about it, I’ll be going back. Picture an industrial-style space with unpainted walls and bare cement floor, but all the piping painted in bright primary colours. The tables and chairs are all different. Every single one. Some are office chairs, some wicker patio furniture, some director’s chairs. In one corner, there is a mural on the wall – a tottering tower of tea-cups, painted in a sketch-like style directly onto the unfinished surface. The wall behind where I was sitting had shelves with a collection of old things – an old type-writer, some radios, an old telephone, a sewing machine.

It felt like the kind of place where I could sit and drink coffee and read a book for ages. Or write. The tag-line of the place seems to be ‘Walk Slowly. Eat Slowly. Think Slowly.’ I had a basic pizza, which was good. They also seem to be quite excited about their draft beer, which they serve with either lemon or lime – properly differentiated and even differently priced. I tried it. It was actually pretty good. It’s the first time I’ve found a place downtown that I can see myself visiting regularly and on my own. A good find for randomly wandering down the street at 10:30 at night on the way home from the Opera.

Madama Butterfly

Life lesson number # (many): Do not wear mascara when going to watch a great tragic opera. Yes, I cried. Even though I knew what was going to happen. It was beautiful.

Someone asked me last night how I understand the opera if it’s in Italian. I definitely don’t speak Italian and the sub-titles at the Daegu Opera House are in Korean, so not particularly helpful to me. What I do is to make sure that I know the story beforehand, so that I can follow what is happening. This works well. In fact, it’s great because I am able to lose myself totally in the music and singing without struggling to follow the story in two foreign languages. As an added benefit, I am slowly becoming properly familiar with the stories of all sorts of Operas and ballets (because the ballet synopses are also in Korean), which is never a bad thing.

Last night’s opera was a special performance for the 25th anniversary of the Yeongnam Opera Company. This meant that it was a fairly elaborate production, which is always a bonus. The opera itself is fairly complicated anyway. Sufficiently complicated that Puccini rewrote it 4 times (there are 5 versions) before he got it right. It can’t have been easy to turn the story of an American Naval officer and a Japanese geisha into an Italian opera. Apparently he succeeded because this is now one of the most-performed operas.

I nearly didn’t get to there, actually. There had been plans afoot to take in a musical instead and then I dawdled while getting ready so I was running late. Of course, this point – when I was already running late – would be when I landed a bus-driver who was careful and steady and slow, rather than the insane speed-freaks (who could be Joburg taxi drivers) who normally drive my buses. I got to the Opera house with 10 minutes to spare, in the end, however. I have also now established that it takes approximately 1 hour to get from my flat to the Opera House in Saturday evening traffic. Ticket in hand (30 000 won), I headed up to my seat on the 3rd floor balcony. The balcony seat was a mistake. Not that balcony seats are generally a bad thing but I was in a side-balcony seat, so it was a little difficult to see the whole stage. I still enjoyed myself, though.

I was impressed, the last time I went to an Opera by the set. This one was also impressive. The best description is that it was relatively simple and completely functional but managed to evoke a Japanese scene with ease and elegance. It wasn’t finicky, which always annoys me in a set, but it wasn’t small either – using the entire stage. The lighting was also, again, excellent. Both the design and execution were spot-on to evoke emotions and create atmosphere in support of the music.

The most important contribution to verisimilitude, however, was from the performers. There were lots of super performances. Cio-Cio San (Madama Butterfly) was excellent and Sharpless’s rich, velvety, chocolatey baritone was gorgeous.

The star of the show for me, though Kim Jeong Hwa (I think) singing the part of Suzuki. Her voice was stunning and she paired with excellent characterisation. She was entirely believable in her gestures and mannerisms as Madama Butterfly’s maid but she also paid particular attention to little things. Like shoes. She meticulously took off and straightened her shoes every time she moved from the ‘outdoor’ area of the set into the house. She never once missed it and it did so much to create the separation between the spaces, which were not divided by any sort of physical wall. Her emotions were also believable. The role of Suzuki involves a lot of anguished moments and a fair bit of cowering and crying and she pulled it off.

A particularly entertaining role was that of Goro the matchmaker. The performer singing this part had a wonderfully light touch and really pulled off the greasy, sleazy pimp-persona and added touches of humour and entertainment at exactly the right moments.

The other small part that was an absolute crowd-pleaser was the monk/priest. In the story, Cio-Cio San’s uncle, a Buddhist priest, storms into the wedding party of Butterfly and Pinkerton (the US Navy officer) and curses her for abandoning her ancestral gods to covert to her new husband’s religion. This issue is particularly relevant in Korea so it’s not surprising that the small part was given quite a lot of prominence and the priest was fierce and very good.

I was less impressed with Pinkerton, not because of his singing; his voice was gorgeous, but someone needs to teach him a little acting to go with it. Also, I struggled to get past the awful orange-blond hair on a Korean. It wasn’t sufficiently problematic to detract from the experience, though and, as I said, his voice was gorgeous.

Another thing about this show I particularly enjoyed was the chorus. This included a large number of people, including children. In the first Act, a group of women entered dressed as geishas but each with an outfit that was white or cream at the top and fading into colour at the bottom, in pinks and sea-greens and oranges, each also carrying a parasols in the same colour. Such beautiful little tableaux with their parasols and fans as part of the wedding scene!

One of the advantages of sitting on the 3rd floor balcony is that you have a perfect view of the orchestra. I love watching orchestras. The intricate dance of movement and timing is fascinating. I particularly enjoyed both watching and listening to this one, the Daegu Opera Festival Orchestra, conducted by Andrea Cappelleri. It made me happy. I also had a delightful view of the percussion section. There were three people playing percussion with a wide range of sizes and types of instruments, from triangles and all sizes and shapes of drums to a bird-whistle for the early morning scene in the final act.

Of course, many moments from the show are worth remembering. The Opera started at 7:30pm and only ended at 10pm, so it was quite a long performance. My two favourite moments were towards the end. Act II ends with Cio-Cio San, Suzuki and Dolore (Cio-Cio San’s child) are keeping vigil in the house, now strewn with flowers, as they wait for Pinkerton to arrive. As the orchestra kept the vigil musically through the long night, the stage filled with members of the chorus, each with a single light, like a candle, dressed in white and creating such a stunning impression of a long, candle-light vigil. The second moment that sticks with me, partly because it was the moment of tragedy and partly because it was so sumptuously visual, was the final scene, with Cio-Cio San’s body on the floor, surrounded by red and purple flower petals and with more petals falling from the sky and the stage awash in red light fading from the spot on her body, with Pinkerton calling for Butterfly in the distance.

I’m not sure it’ll become my favourite opera, but I am so glad I saw it and particularly that I saw it in Asia, where some of the themes of the opera are relevant in every day life and aspects of culture like not wearing shoes inside and bowing in greeting are easy and normal for the performers, making the show just that little bit more authentic and moving.

After the Opera, I headed downtown to have something to eat before meeting up with friends. I was wandering the streets, searching for somewhere that looked good, when I came across a place called Gom’s something or other – possibly Gom’s Workshop. I’ve never noticed it before, which may mean it only opened recently – places downtown are always opening and closing – or may just mean that I haven’t noticed it. Now that I know about it, I’ll be going back. Picture an industrial-style space with unpainted walls and bare cement floor, but all the piping painted in bright primary colours. The tables and chairs are all different. Every single one. Some are office chairs, some wicker patio furniture, some director’s chairs. In one corner, there is a mural on the wall – a tottering tower of tea-cups, painted in a sketch-like style directly onto the unpainted surface. The wall behind where I was sitting had shelves with a collection of old things, like an old type-writer, some radios, an old telephone, a sewing machine.

It felt like the kind of place where I could sit and drink coffee and read a book for ages. Or write. The tag-line of the place seems to be ‘Walk Slowly. Eat Slowly. Think Slowly.’ I had a basic pizza, which was good. They also seem to be quite excited about their draft beer, which they serve with either lemon or lime – properly differentiated and even differently priced. I tried it. It was actually pretty good. It’s the first time I’ve found a place downtown that I can see myself visiting regularly and on my own. A good find for randomly wandering down the street at 10:30 at night on the way home from the Opera.