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Chris Arnade 🐢🐱🚌 Profile picture
Chris Arnade 🐢🐱🚌
@Chris_arnade
Walking the world, one city at a time. I like turtles, cats, & buses. Subscribe to my Substack: https://t.co/UYb4TBoTDL
11 subscribers
Jan 27 • 7 tweets • 7 min read
Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan) is one of the most unique cities I've walked. Almost zero tourist, because very few people even know it exists.

I wouldn't recommend it for someone looking for a relaxing vacation, but if you want to really feel your in a different place, a bit detached from the rest of the world, it's safe, inexpensive, and interestingImage
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Image About ten miles outside of Bishkek is a 3 square mile market, built, lego like, from shipping containers.

Almost entirely self-regulated, it started after fall of USSR as a place to swap goods -- where they came from, and how, nobody asked, or cared

Slapped down in the middle of an otherwise bland neighborhood of mud roads and single homes it's now Central Asia’s largest marketplace.

A complex of stores inside freight containers selling anything and everything you want: Toys, TVs, Jeans, Bras, Bikes, Spices, Trinkets, X-mas decorations, Tools, Gas Masks, Hijabs, Watches, Wall clocks, Slippers, Shampoo, Stuffed Animals, and on and on.

All of it imported from China, Russia, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, South Korea, India, Iran, etc. Carrying on, in a very modern way, Kyrgyzstan’s Silk Road tradition.

It’s a microcosm of our very material global supply chain world. A visceral picture of how our world of stuff works. How the clothes we wear, the food we eat, the things that fill our homes, come from all over, shipped across the globe in rectangular metal boxes.Image
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Dec 6, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Update on this: I went to eye-doctor, & no I don't have cataracts. The doctor did mention, almost all her customers now complain about same thing, to extent some have completely stopped driving at night.

The primary offender is newer cars with very bright headlights -- Tesla's are particularly bad, & with them, it's not about the height, but only strength of beam.

There's also less awareness on when to use high beams, especially with younger drivers.

The combo of it all is, driving at night, especially in rural areas, has gotten dangerous. It's not some silly annoyance thing, but a real problem.
Limiting beam intensity, is an example of what competent Government regulation is supposed to be about -- curtailing selfish individual behavior, with limited benefit, that's directly dangerous and harmful, in a clear physical way, to the larger community.

Even hard core libertarians can get behind this one.
Nov 5, 2023 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Living his best life #Mongolia
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Image Living his best life #Amman Image
Apr 1, 2023 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
'These deaths are caused by external causes — overdoses, gun violence, dangerous driving & such'

All of these are "reckless behaviors", simply forms of slow suicide

Thing you more likely to do if you feel your life is without hope & is meaningless

ft.com/content/653bbb… Why is this happening? Spend more than one week, not visiting, but residing, in any big city poor neighborhood, or in a depopulating mid sized city anywhere in US, and you will get it.

Unless you have the strongest ideological blinders on
Mar 17, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
This was the best Odd Lots & if you want to know what happened with SVB, you have to listen.

Two points
1) Lev was too polite to say it, but SVB specific regulators failed. As he said, an older generation of Regulators would have been shocked by SVBs balance sheet 2) Everyone kinda thinks of high tech as sophisticated investors. Well, in finance, they are anything but sophisticated

One customer (Roku) had 500mm sitting in a bank account earning almost nothing. Lol.

3) that lack of sophistication is partly why SVB thrived, until it didn’t
Mar 5, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
My fortune (?) from the temple of Mazu Which google translate says is this

(Ps. Google translate app is pretty amazing. Although this is a tough ask)
Feb 21, 2023 • 24 tweets • 7 min read
Which metro pass to get? (Ps: hello Taipei) Now I know I’m really in Taipei
Feb 18, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
I'll be in Taipei from next Wednesday till the 10th of March. If anyone there wants to walk a lot and eat things and drink things. If you can locate me, when not walking, I'll either be in a Mr Brown coffee or a 7-11...
Feb 10, 2023 • 28 tweets • 7 min read
Ready for ten days walking LA (mostly south LA) Testing if you really need a car to explore LA
Jan 6, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Humorous reading this in a very well stocked Amman market after being in similar very well stocked markets in Hanoi, Bishkek, Lima, etc.

Also, peer-review is a metric of how well you fit into your particular subfield & by that measure, his subfield sucks One of the more shocking things about Amman is how much food everyone wastes. I’ve got that very 70s thing of never throwing food away, but people here order tons of stuff, then eat only about 1/2 to 2/3s, and toss away the rest. And not just in the fancy hoods.
Jan 3, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Lol. You got to be one pretty lazy ass 5 star hotel guy not to not see the differences when traveling. Every town has that one western wealthy hood filled with NGOs, local elite, and the non profit complex. You have to work hard to stay in it.
Jan 3, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
1st impressions Amman
1) food outstanding (especially contrast to Bishkek)
2) walking is tough. Combo of geography, rarity of sidewalks, & crazy drivers
3) cold
4) calm city, despite 4.5 mm people
5) everyone exceedingly polite. Like they really want me to like Amman For the Amman knowledgeable. Todays planned walk. South, to Royal Tank Museum & then Alwhedt market
Dec 31, 2022 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
Was a good year. Got to see a lot of places, walk a lot, and meet some great people. A few highlights (in no order) from my travels/walks

1) Hanoi

walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-the-… 2) Lima

walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-the-…
Dec 26, 2022 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
This year I turned 56, and I kicked my kids butts on a bunch of video games Also. How in the hell hasn't anyone in that family bought that kid some new games. Halo 3 is like 16 years ago. Child abuse.
Dec 23, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Walking industrial complex gaining power. Walking is good. Not sure it improves every area of your life. My feet & toes certainly wouldn’t agree. But its good. Especially if you want to lose weight.
Dec 6, 2022 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Good morning from a very cold Bishkek & a very warm latte I wish the American Empire didn’t come with cloying Xmas music.
Dec 5, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Which American chains are in which countries always feels so random. Here in Kyrgyzstan the only two are KFC and, oddly, Nathans hotdogs.

No McDonald's, Dunking Donuts, Starbucks, Burger Kings, etc etc. KFC was one of the first to go international in a big way. Especially in poorer countries. That one isn't a surprise. The lack of others is.

Then Nathans. I didn't expect that at all
Dec 4, 2022 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
If there is ever a cinema to see a 3D movie in. 😂
Dec 3, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Always makes me happy when a county really does eat their national dishes, and not just at weddings.

So I’m doing tea, Lagman, and Manty tonight. Again.

At small place near me. Manty comes first
Dec 3, 2022 • 21 tweets • 5 min read
That’s a little too neon pink for even cake loving me. Oh! My Brutalist heart be still.
Dec 2, 2022 • 23 tweets • 6 min read
Airport Marshrutka! Cabs wanted 13$. Marshrutka $1. And more comfy.