Hi again everyone.
This will be a part deux of the Sonny & Sue move to Kansas update. And if you are reading this then you have found my brand spanking new blog, oooh yeah. The Blogosphere is kind of neat I guess. The waters are way overpriced and the queue for the bathroom is ridiculous but I'll stay for a while.
Since our arrival in Wichita, Sue has had little time to breath,
attending meetings at Newman all last week and starting classes this week. Things have been going pretty well for her though; she seems to like her students and no one has called her a latte-drinking Northeast liberal elite yet, so everything's going swimmingly! Speaking of swimming, Sue has managed to make almost daily use of the pool in our complex, which I'm sure has gone a long way to helping her adjust to her new gig. Since she has started school, I have officially become a good-for-nothing freeloading bastard. But that will change soon, hopefully. More on that later.
Before I get too far along, if you haven't seen it yet, please check out the newly completed video travel log music video thingy I've posted on YouTube, containing footage and photos from our adventure set to a catchy little ditty by Mew called Snow Brigade. You will note that there is no snow in the video as it is currently summer. It is actually extremely hot out, just go with it, it's a good song.
Downtown Wichita seems, in all honesty, kind of a lonely place most of the time, at least to someone growing up in the shadow of Metropolis. The main drag is just silly with these adorable little
animal and people sculptures depicting children playing, street performers and various animals. Now, I've seen similar statues in other cities, they are whimsical and fun. The thing with downtown Wichita is that there are so many of them everywhere you look, that you get the impression that someone is compensating for something, say, the lack of actual living things. But they're still fun.
And I don't want to be too hard on Wichita. They are trying and many people here believe the city is up-and-coming. There is the trendy little Old Town district which features a number of nice restaurants, shops, galleries and loft apartments. There is the Riverside district where the Arkansas & Little Arkansas Rivers (if your in Wichita, you pronounce them "Our-Kansas". They're just correcting a silly pronunciation anyway) meet and there you will find the regal Keeper of the Plains, and nearby are a number of museums and parks.
Downtown is about ten miles away from where we live in the northeastern corner of the city. It's a short drive and a vigorous bike ride. A budding cyclist in Wichita has it both better and worse than in New York. It's less congested, but there is almost no allowance made for bikes on the roads. It's almost completely flat, so on a good day you can book, however, most days are quite windy 'round these parts and with a stiff Kansas wind in your face, peddling becomes a tad difficult.
A couple notes on driving here: there is no discernible rush hour. This is largely due to all the jobs being on the outskirts of town at the aircraft manufacturing plants and the industrial parks. Of course the job market could stand to be a bit more robust also. And secondly, I believe I may be among the fastest drivers in Wichita. I didn't consider myself a led foot in New York, but here it's only a matter of time before I get a ticket.
Finally, I'll close out this update with a word on the Wichita Kung Fu community. If you guessed that there are two schools in the entire city, you were probably being very optimistic. But you'd also be correct as far as I know. As luck would have it, one of those schools is taught by a fairly well known Chinese master named Grace Wu. She comes from a reputable
Kung Fu family in China and her school is an unexpected gem, located in a nice size upstairs loft on the edge of Old Town.
The style is close to what I studied at Shaolin Temple , so I've been able to hit the ground running.Anyway, folks. That's it for now. I'll post more updates soon. We miss and love you all and hope to hear from you soon.
