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I have achieved novelty. I am not enjoying it.
I may have complained about being in a rut in the old location, or experienced time flashing by rather than feeling full. I certainly complained about the latter to a friend. 6 weeks east of Chinatown, caught between two rain lines so not a ton of new exploration space.
Well, now I'm in Richmond. Near here, in fact. Chosen because it was the only reasonably priced thing at the time. And I figured Richmond has a lot of Chinese immigrants, there'll be stuff to check out, right?
Well, if you click through to the map, you'll see that I'm in a minor maze of crescents and culs-de-sac, within a larger grid of roads half a mile apart. It could be worse: there are pedestrian cuts across the long sausages, and from at least one of the dead ends out to the road, so it's kind of like a very boring version of Dutch unraveling or Barcelona superblocks -- I have connectivity, cars don't. But the superblock seems to be entirely residential, and even the border roads are in fact more like roads than stroads -- few businesses, mostly more industrial, with few driveways. Good for safety, but dull. There is a Chinese diner ('Golden Coin') nearby that's well reviewed, though basically Canadian diner food + some Chinese options. Plus the quickest way to it involves crossing a four lane highway! ...there's a wide grassy median, and the 'highway' has traffic lights half a mile apart, so it's not insane: cross to median on one break in traffic (guaranteed by a red light at some point), etc.
But all this is soooooooooo different from West End Vancouver...
Nearest supermarket is a T&T 16 minutes walk away; next ones are in the 22-30 minute range. I assume I'll be using the former a lot. Even the nearest other restaurants are 15+ minutes. These distances would be great with a bicycle, though I'd be biking on sidewalks... not that wide, but hey, almost no pedestrians.
Bus? The 401 runs every 15 minutes at the moment, which I guess is *really good* for a suburb like this by US standards -- hell, buses inside Montreal itself don't run that frequently -- but would have to be timed to save much time going nearby.
Unit kitchen is decent but could be better equipped: normal sized saucepans, sieve/colander, rice cooker (no cooker! Asian hosts!)
Let's try to find positives. I have lots of new walks to take; even if they're not too exciting, they'll be new sights and routes for my neurons to be stimulated by. Neighborhood seems quiet (thanks to being deep enough in the superblock; those dead ends get a fair bit of traffic noise, I can tell you.) Not too much distraction, so I can focus on more job stuff. I have my own 'place', that's a unit in a house so I have a direct exit outside.
And hey, only two weeks! Then it's back to 2 km east of where I just came from, again optimized for cost... at least it'll be 11 minutes from an okay supermarket, and 17 minutes from the spiffy Japanese food store.
I may have complained about being in a rut in the old location, or experienced time flashing by rather than feeling full. I certainly complained about the latter to a friend. 6 weeks east of Chinatown, caught between two rain lines so not a ton of new exploration space.
Well, now I'm in Richmond. Near here, in fact. Chosen because it was the only reasonably priced thing at the time. And I figured Richmond has a lot of Chinese immigrants, there'll be stuff to check out, right?
Well, if you click through to the map, you'll see that I'm in a minor maze of crescents and culs-de-sac, within a larger grid of roads half a mile apart. It could be worse: there are pedestrian cuts across the long sausages, and from at least one of the dead ends out to the road, so it's kind of like a very boring version of Dutch unraveling or Barcelona superblocks -- I have connectivity, cars don't. But the superblock seems to be entirely residential, and even the border roads are in fact more like roads than stroads -- few businesses, mostly more industrial, with few driveways. Good for safety, but dull. There is a Chinese diner ('Golden Coin') nearby that's well reviewed, though basically Canadian diner food + some Chinese options. Plus the quickest way to it involves crossing a four lane highway! ...there's a wide grassy median, and the 'highway' has traffic lights half a mile apart, so it's not insane: cross to median on one break in traffic (guaranteed by a red light at some point), etc.
But all this is soooooooooo different from West End Vancouver...
Nearest supermarket is a T&T 16 minutes walk away; next ones are in the 22-30 minute range. I assume I'll be using the former a lot. Even the nearest other restaurants are 15+ minutes. These distances would be great with a bicycle, though I'd be biking on sidewalks... not that wide, but hey, almost no pedestrians.
Bus? The 401 runs every 15 minutes at the moment, which I guess is *really good* for a suburb like this by US standards -- hell, buses inside Montreal itself don't run that frequently -- but would have to be timed to save much time going nearby.
Unit kitchen is decent but could be better equipped: normal sized saucepans, sieve/colander, rice cooker (no cooker! Asian hosts!)
Let's try to find positives. I have lots of new walks to take; even if they're not too exciting, they'll be new sights and routes for my neurons to be stimulated by. Neighborhood seems quiet (thanks to being deep enough in the superblock; those dead ends get a fair bit of traffic noise, I can tell you.) Not too much distraction, so I can focus on more job stuff. I have my own 'place', that's a unit in a house so I have a direct exit outside.
And hey, only two weeks! Then it's back to 2 km east of where I just came from, again optimized for cost... at least it'll be 11 minutes from an okay supermarket, and 17 minutes from the spiffy Japanese food store.