Denver: State of America's Future Leaders

this is gonna be long. read at your own risk.
 
argh. pretty pissed that my last blog at the common grounds cafe didn't get posted. dunno what the hell went wrong. anyway i'm in denver now. its a nice place, alot like singapore, and then again alot different as well. the hostel i'm staying at which is the inn@the rockies, its the sleaziest place i know. the road outside leading to town(okie so its walking distance to town, but still, probably the last sleazy place before town this place is!) which is colfax is a really shady place. i've been warned by countless people not to wander out at night cause it becomes druggie central. and the hispanic and black population here is tremendous(only here, not in downtown denver where they don't belong). not to mention the number of homeless bums sleeping on the streets. at night i can hear gun shots too...erm, weather's nice though.
 
okie enough of the scary bits. the nice things are that its really near downtown. did i say that already? yes its quite near. i mean after you walked by all the porn stores and liquor stores that is...still the walk is about 20min. did i say near? but there're sights to see(not just the porn stores) and alot of old monuments, churches and buildings.
 
in my last 3 days i've visited the 16th street mall, the coors field, larimer square, sakura square(most disappointing of all), lodo, cherry creek and the denver botanic gardens. thats pretty much the whole of downtown denver perhaps. and all by foot. the place is pretty clean, sky scrapers abound, and the public transport system is pretty good(dun ask me why i went around by foot though). also have taken alot of pictures of the city and i mean alot, will post it online once more when i can get jeff to burn my pix into cd back at camp.
 
okie so in the dumb sleazy hostel i'm in, the people are actually quite nice. there's nothing much to expect from us$16 per night. the innkeeper - lets just call him bob. bob is the exact kinda person whom with one look you know never really led a very good life. he probably studied too hard in school(geek), got bullied too much(wimp) and finally now works too hard for nothing(idiot). at least bob is ultra nice. so if you do the math, bob is essentially the poor guy everyone pushes around like an unwanted heroin packet. well i don't exploit him but i see alot of people who do, so i'm wondering why he hasn't snapped yet. maybe he's just too nice. eeks. still i don't really like him cuz he's slow and inefficient.
 
enough about nice bob. 
 
the hostel room comes as a 4bed-bunked-dorm, with tv, attached bathroom and even a nice little (albeit dirty) kitchen. pillows, blankets and two sets of bedsheets(just so the blood stains on the mattress don't soak through - kidding!) are provided too. i found out this hostel isn't very popular with international visitors(one look out the window and you'll see why) and is instead more popular with americans from out of state. not that this implies the hostel is very popular though. this is my third day here and i see alot of the same people around.
 
the good thing about staying in the hostel though, is that you get to meet tons of people. i've already met a really friendly dutch woman, 4 young brits, 2 koreans, an uzbek and countless out-of-town americans...
 
i travelled around with the dutch woman whose name is merijcke, the first day i was here. she owns a theatrical technical company back in the netherlands, speaks with an english accent and walks damn bloody fast. nonetheless she's really interesting and a ball to talk to. the other significant person is the uzbek, whose name i cannot pronounce nor spell(i think its  acombination of 7 different consonents), but he's a really nice guy and he's an engineer trying to get a job here(fat chance if you don't own a j-1 visa) so he's bunking in for quite awhile. just last night we watched the movie 'phone booth' together. good movie, although it turned into a bonding period for me and mr uzbek. nice. then there's this american fucker named dan who's running away from his family, has done time for alcohol-induced misdemeanors and hitch-hikes everywhere he goes. he's got alot of stories of his travels, some good some bad(mostly bad) but its still pretty interesting and he's been to almost half of the 50 states in america(he can't go outside of the country cuz of his police records). still i just listen when he tells his stories, and boy does he have quite a few. last but not least is the first guy i met who shared my room for awhile, tom. he's an old bird in his 50s who's attempting to start a business in denver, claims he's filthy rich but the whole world owes him money(which is why he's staying in a YOUTH hostel?). looks kinda shady but somehow he and i stuck it off pretty well. he knows abit about singapore and was the first one who gave me all sorts of good advice(which i doubted till they were confirmed). so now i appreciate him for it. at least he was the only one who straight up told me that because i'm an asian i gotta 'watch my behind' if i ever do walk down east colfax, and i respect him for that.    
 
breakfast is served every morning. its terrible. forever pancakes and eggs with orange juice. i still eat it anyway since its free. i don't sleep in too late either cuz there's alot to explore. and i've been out of the hostel by 9am each morning so far. no time to lose.
 
there's quite alot to see downtown. but there isn't much to buy. things are more often than not either the same price as back home or more expensive(food in particular). i haven't bought much so its quite a mystery to me how fast i'm spending my money the last 3 days, though i've been buying a coupla books and mags(among them tim burton's the melancholy death of oyster boy!). so gotta ration my $$ whenever i can.  

one of the highlights of this short trip was yesterday on my way to town. i was taking a photo of one of the old churches when this hobo(homeless bum) stopped me and asked me for the time. i almost freaked out - cos dan's mentioned before that when they wanna rob you they ask you what's your time. i got quite terrified and wanted to dash away asap but somehow i couldn't(must've been petrified). but then he turned out to be pretty okie and REALLY wanted to know the time. so i told him and he asked me where i was from. i told him singapore and he said he wanted to show me a place where i could take some 'good pictures'. that got me quite apprehensive(you never know he might bring me some place to mug me) so i said i wanted to check the place, where i was, out a little more(there was a huge porn store behind me and a small one opposite the road). he said okie and then gave me the directions and walked his way. so anyway curiousity got the better of me so i kinda followed his directions and went to take a look and to my surprise it was the immaculate church(nice place)'s back side where the pastors were serving out free food for the homeless. my, the homeless line was super long man. anyway i just took a picture and then quickly walked back out to the main road. phew. 
 
hmm. aside from that i've been having a blast walking all around town and taking lotsa pix.
 
erm. can't think of much else to talk about regarding my take on denver and that dumb hostel, and time's running out. continue another time. 

oh look! my common grounds cafe post is back! wtf?