whole bunch of rickshaws

i dunno what this building is, but it was in the middle of this great park in the middle of the city, very peaceful compared to the chaos outside of the gates.

reflecting pool in front of the building in the previous photo, in the park. there's a path that goes around the pool, very nice.

More walkin' around photos...

This is the lobby of the university we work at...

and the outside of the University...

this is on the way to the music shops, where I went with Micah, one of the professors at AUW.

Sorry this is so shaky, there are a lot of potholes everywhere. I took this from the back of a CNG today at rush hour.

Tabla!

Yup. Bought a Tabla today. Best shopping day here so far! I got a few other percussion toys too, but this was by far the best of the bunch! Can't wait to piss off my neighbors with my ragas...

some views from my rooftop

I got to Chittagong, Bangladesh last Saturday morning and started work at the university on Sunday (work week is Sunday - Thursday here). Work's been fine, and as there's a van that picks us up in the morning to take us from our flat to school, I haven't had much chance to do any exploring, until yesterday.

Yesterday, I finally got to walk around Chittagong and went with Ara, one of the teachers here, and we went on a mission to find an umbrella, a computer screen, and bread (bread's not easy to come by). We went to this mall which was 8 floors of the same shop repeated, and got to the top level where there were the two most upscale shops. We asked if they had umbrellas, and they didn't, but the manager of the store told us that one of his clerks would take us to another market to find an umbrella. So, Ara and I got into a CNG (little three-wheeled death-cage-cab) with this clerk, Joey, and went to this market about 10-15 min away in a neighborhood that we didn't know. Joey paid for the cab and we started wandering around to all of these little shops after seeing that the umbrella market was closed for the day.

The umbrella market is apparently a few floors of umbrella shops, conveniently all in one place for your umbrella shopping needs.

We wandered through all of these back alleys until we found a good umbrella, which Joey haggled for, most shops we went to only had one or two, and I paid 150 Taka ($2) for a decent umbrella. They had this really great umbrella there too, but it was 450 Taka ($6) and Joey wouldn't let me buy it because it was a "big price". Then, Joey took us back to the main street, put us in a CNG, PREPAID the driver for us to get back to the mall/shopping center that we started from, and sent us on our way. We tried to offer him some money for his time, but he wasn't having it. So, all in all, my first excursion into Chittagong was a success, as evidenced by my new umbrella.

These photos are all from the rooftop two floors up from our flat in Chittagong.

to the south...
to the east...
and to the west again.