Atlanta, New York & Philadelphia
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November 3-14, 2005, the United States
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| I had never heard of this monument before visiting Stone Mountain Park. It has a very interesting and long history that I will not mention here, but the Ku Klux Klan was very influential in getting the project started. Regardless of its history, it is an impressive monument, and the people building it apparently incurred at least a few deaths. | In Atlanta, I met up with Lisan, Mike, and Stephen, for dinner at Two Urban Licks, which at least at the time was one of the hottest restaurants in Atlanta. After some steak and live blues, we went out to hit the town. While Atlanta is a very laid back city when relatively friendly city, Two Urban Licks is a rather intense and load establishment. |
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| After being refused entry to one club as one of our participant's attire was not accepted, we went to "Compound". Since Atlanta is dominated by African Americans, I guess it should not have come as a big surprise, but we were close to being the only non-African Americans in the club. After having a very good time at the Compound listening to some pretty intense rap music, we went on to a almost exclusively white/Asian club in Buckhead. At least from a clubbing point of view, Atlanta is a highly segregated city. | The following day, we got up bright and early for a tour of the CNN studios. It was relatively interesting to see the studios from which I have seen so many broadcasts, though I do not understand why anyone would think of founding a global news channel in a city like Atlanta, which objectively speaking is located in the middle of nowhere. I hate how CNN has ruined its news channel in Japan, where CNN International has been replaced by a lousy Japanese version of CNN USA. |
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| After visiting the CNN studios, Lisan and I went to the Coca-Cola museum. While the museum is extremely tacky, it was interesting to see old commercials and advertising products. For anyone with an interest in marketing, Coca-Cola must be an amazing product to study. I really miss the "Can't beat the feeling" commercials, they were upbeat and a memorable part of the late 1980s. | On my last night in Atlanta, Lisan and I went to the Virginia-Highland neighborhood. It is a very prosperous area with lots of historical buildings (at least by American standards). We randomly came across a charity concert happening the same night, and we had a great time listening to good rock tunes while drinking good local beer. Atlanta provides for more than enough stuff to see in a short weekend, though you have to get out of the city center to really experience the city. |