Sat, 02 Aug 2008 15:01:01 +0000
Johannesburg Day 1 Index Johannesburg Day 3
Yesterday was a relatively good day. I got some actual touristing done yesterday. Didn't today.
I mean, it's Johannesburg, on a Sunday. What am I going to do? There was a lady at the front desk this morning discussing her day's plans with the guy at reception. She wanted to go for a walk downtown, which is something I'd like to do. But no, she was bluntly informed that it's too dangerous. During the day. What kind of city can't even keep its CBD in a fit state for tourists to walk around in during daylight hours?
Instead, the most interesting thing I managed today was going to the shopping centre - the other one, that I'd tried to find last night and failed. This time I was armed with proper directions. It's actually the tourist destination du jour today, because they have a flea market there. A flea market isn't normally something I'd go out of my way for, but hey, walking distance? Relatively low probability of being murdered and raped on the way? Sign me up!
The flea market turned out to be the most middle-class flea market it's ever been my privilege to attend. If an actual flea turned up, the authorities would probably napalm the entire building. The tables were full of exactly the sort of kinda cool but extremely useless crap I would never be tempted to buy even if I had space in my backpack: African textiles, incense burners, carved wooden hippos. A girl had come into the backpackers last night armed with one of these last. It was about two feet long, and she had a thoroughly entertaining discussion with her friends about the logistics of getting it back to the UK. No, no wooden hippos for me, thanks.
I had a felafel from the felafel stand, and some carrot cake from the cafe. I had a look in the toy shop (I love toy shops). I spent a day in a mall, what can I say.
Apart from that, I spent the remainder of my day catching up with my news feeds. I remember once upon a time, all my Sundays used to be like this...