A City with Style...

We are visiting a new city, en route to Thailand to have our baby, because we had to get Thai visas for our extended stay there and our "home" city doesn't have a Thai consulate. Though in the same country, this city is vastly different from the city we have been living in for the past 2 months. The picture above is evidence that the umbrella industry here has successfully infiltrated this sunny city. Instead of using the umbrellas for rain (it only rains lightly & sporatically about 2 months out of the year here, in late summer), people everywhere have very stylish umbrellas (more like parasols) to cover up in the sun. We've seen lace, embroidery, silk, and more in all colors imaginable, along with children's umbrellas with animals and characters on them (one was a frog umbrella with eyes that stuck up over the umbrella). Rather than a necessity, it's a "fashion statement"! There is a lot of construction going on in this up-and-coming city, and this place, though completely torn apart, had beautiful coal drawings on the walls, amidst the rubble. One is of the "Madonna and Child", a copy of a famous Renaissance painting. If you can't tell, the painting in the background is a rendering of the creation of Adam from the Sistine Chapel

We passed not one, but two, KFCs with staff-led children's dance parties out front. With this week being a May holiday, we're fairly confident this isn't a normal occurence.

There are so many US brand name stores here, something that is rare in our "home" city. Converse is one of dozens we saw in our short walk: Nike, Adidas, Hushpuppies, Avon, McDonald's, and on and on... This city is a completely different world than where we've been living. There is a significant middle class here, with a large amount of purchase power, that just doesn't exist in our city. It is interesting to see a different part of this country we now call "home".