What she saw from the corner of her almond eyes

When she travels, she always reminds herself to get close to local lives where she feels true cultures.  Since she is always a traveller, it is hard to do everything that local people usually do.  But, she believes that is one of great ways to feel the local life.

33 days in the Peach State was also another great chance to understand how local people’s life would be because she had a new family there.  Needless to say, people live differently in different areas even in a same country.  It is quite impossible to know how people live there in a short time.  As a traveller or visitor, she generalised everything she saw, heard and experienced even though she might only see, hear and experience a tiny bit of the world.  Although she unconsciously generalised whatever she encountered during her stay, she certainly felt a part of its culture and peeked into local people’s lives during that time.

On her first day, she noticed a symbol of peach on streets, and even found some on menus, such as Georgia peach pancakes at the Pancake House which was very yummy.  From seeing many peach related things, she felt local people must be proud of where they live. When she drove around the city, she noticed there were many buildings and facilities were named after Martin Luther King Jr. who is one of the people whose biography always fascinated her.  Although she was bit disappointed about the website of the King’s Centre, the centre was actually better than its website.  Yet, considering how important Martin Luther King Jr.’s role in history, it should have been organised and built better.  The video exhibitions at the centre were brilliant.  She found herself close to tears.  There were also small exhibition rooms for Coretta Scott King, Gandhi and Rosa Parks, which she wished to be bigger with more information.  Yet, there weren’t many things to see in glass cases in exhibition rooms.  She was glad to learn about Cretta Scott King whom she did not know anything about.  Somehow, those exhibitions were held in two different buildings separated by a street so it was not a convenient way to see all the exhibitions, especially in bad weather.  The centre would be a great place to hang out during summer or fall.  She wished to come back during those times in future.

One of the things she always does when she is in an unfamiliar place is to understand its history.  Learning its past is knowing its present, she thinks.  Since she was interested in the Civil War, Atlanta History Centre became one of her favourite places where she learned a lot about the Civil War, slavery and the life people had in 1860’s.  Although Swan House was built in 1928, it still has attractive features that she wished to have in her future house.  If a ticket were not as expensive as it is (US$16.50) and if she lived there, she would love to spent as much time there as she could.  Moreover, they have an Atlanta/Georgia souvenir shop inside the centre where she found such lovely tea towels.  She also enjoyed another educational activity; Georgia Aquarium is also a good place to buy Georgia souvenir because most products have its cute logo. It is such a great place to spend a whole day finding and learning about fish and other sea creatures as well as the High Museum of Art where she saw one of her favourite artists’ works, Dali.  “Dialog in the Dark”; “for about an hour, visitors navigated different environments in complete darkness, relying on all senses except sight, and ask questions of their visually impaired guide, whose faces they don’t see until leaving.  Stumbling in darkness makes the Dialog visitor appreciate how visually oriented the the world is – how would you go grocery shopping? How would you cross the street?  As well as the reliance on other senses such as sound and touch to navigate the world” and “BODIES (Chinese version)”  were another two educational exhibitions which were in town.  Although she has been to BODIES (German version) a long time ago, it was great to see the exhibition again : http://www.forthoodsentinel.com/story.php?id=3399 /http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastination /  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xui7q21y0bU

While she was learning the history of the Peach State and having interesting experiences, she also explored some local areas for shopping.  Rag-O-Rama – Little Five Points (Inman Park/Reynoldstown Station), Cheery Bomb – Little Five Points (Inman Park/Reynoldstown Station), Stefen’s Vintage Clothing – Little Five Points (Inman Park/Reynoldstown Station) , and Psycho Sisters – Little Five Points (Inman Park/Reynoldstown Station)  were great places to for her to explore different tastes of fashion and try to find the best price. Goodwill impressed her the most.  Goodwill sells second hand clothes, products, books, etc. cheaply.  Things at the store are donated by people.  If she spent enough time, surely she could find some good deals there.  Although she did not know how popular the store is all around the world, she thought that kind of store should be introduced to all over the world.  Things that she was interested in were: fitting rooms in shops where she was given a card with a number of clothes she would try on by people who were in charge of only fitting rooms.  It was more like fashion show rooms than fitting rooms because there were so much girl-talks going on.   She also felt it interesting that customers did not put clothes they tried on back on a rack but left them in fitting rooms.

Moreover, so many available cuisines never bored her; Star Provisions where she found great selections of cheese, yummy yummy ice cream (honey and almonds/salt and olive oil US$3-), interesting dog treats which actually did not surprise her because she saw so many dogs but not many cats even on streets (it seemed that there were no street cats).  She also found a great loaf of cranberry and walnuts bread US$5- there.  Quattro (Italian)  serves good pizza and hummus but their tables and chairs are somehow very high. Vintage Pizzeria serves a huge and great pizza.  Atlata Fish Market serves great fish dishes.  Although she enjoyed every meal she had, her favourites were:  La Petite Maison (French) and Alfredo’s (Italian).  La Petite Maison serves such lovely dishes that she guarantees everybody finds their favourites and leaves with full tummies.  Alfredo’s makes your favourite Italian dishes with some twists.  These two excellent restaurants are the places you will be spoiled with great tastes.  Needless to say, she misses dining at those places as well as home dishes made by her family; burgers with goat cheese, meatloaf and galliano cake.  There were two things she noticed about food in the Peach State: to her food tended to be salty and people seemed to eat a lot of eggs in a day.

Obviously, there was much more than she expected; so many TV programmes which are always major subjects in conversations and a variety and “jumbo” size products with reasonable prices; The Body Shop’s double size cream; Olive Oil  Moisturizing Hair Lotion; Moroccan Oil and Keihls saved her skin and hair from dry air.  She truly felt that she was in “a material world.” It seemed to her that there was nothing she could not get, and she actually missed being in “a not fulfilled world.”

There is a feeling that she always feels at the end of any trip and she felt it at the end of this trip too; there are always pros and cons in any culture and custom.  It is just a different way to look at a life and how to live it.

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