Reason:
George was going to have a conference in Detroit. So we decide I went along.
Reality:
We stayed in downtown marriott.
I took a river walk just outside the hotel, along the river that separates US and Canada. Predominantly african american people, with tourists that are mostly indian. Was nice and relaxing although not too much to see and part of the trail was under construction.
We went out for a walk to look for a restaurant, mostly for me to have a good meal, since George already had his dinner in the conference. There was actually a trolley high in the air serving in downtown area. We walked across Greek town, where there was a casino (there was also one across the river, on the Canadian side). There weren't many people in the street at all, except few streets. We found this restaurant called "fishbone" on a busy street and decided to give it a try. It was very good, we had fried lobsters, steamed crawfish, raw oysters together with hot bread and house margaritas.
Generally speaking, the downtown area is safe. With police car patrolling around, at least people should feel safe, and do they or will they? Anyway the police station is in this really old but very nice building right in downtown area. There are many old but nice building in downtown area, with many of them empty now, still reflecting the old time prosperity.
Next afternoon George got away from his conference, we decided to take a bus to Dearborn area, where most of middle-eastern people live. It seems the bus starts from somewhere around our hotel, but we didn't see any sign for the information of bus number etc. In all areas, it only says "bus stop". I ran to one bus that waited a block away and found out where we should wait for the bus and how much the bus fare is. That was bus 23 and it was already there waiting one block away in another direction. The bus customers are absolutely mostly African american people, with only one or two white women at all time when we took the bus these two days. Looking outside the bus, we saw a gradually lower and lower building, again with many of them broken and empty, and then a really broken area, where everywhere you saw is broken business, graffitis, poor people and trashes. Once it is close to Dearborn, everything is suddenly getting nicer.
We had our dinner at Al-ameer. It is a Lebanese restaurant, with hot fresh bread from their big stoves. The lamb liver and hummus are good, as expected. And we have enough leftover for my next day's lunch. Although it is good, its quality is far less than the Yemenis restaurant in Brooklyn, however, we couldn't find a Yemenis place in that area on a pre-trip research.
Next day we decided to go to the middletown area to visit detroit institutes of arts, mostly for Diego Rivera's works, part of which we saw and were amazed when we visited National palace of Mexico city in April 09.
The museum was closed on Tuesday, however. There are few other places around, including the history museum, which unfortunately was closed as well. It was 4:40 pm and we found one place that was NOT closed. That was Museum of African-American history. It will be closed at 5 pm however. The ladies at the entrance let us in for free. There was nobody there, an almost empty building with only reception people.
We didn't see anybody visiting the museum at the entrance. The museum is well designed with the origins in African and the long painful history of how african slaves were transfered to america. It was dark, with many fake people standing around. Sort of scary we quickly walked out the room that is full of fake african slaves laying on a boat with noise of coughing and ocean waves. Right then we saw a real person.
He was wearing ragged clothes, starting to speak to us right after he saw us, regarding the museum. After exchanging the opinion that the museum is good, etc, George quickly realized that he is not a normal person since he was just talking and talking without stopping and we won't get away from it unless we just left that room. So we did. We didn't see any other person until the clerk coming in to get ready for the close of the museum for the day. On the way out, we found that person still keeps talking and talking to the clerk there.
That night we went up to the 72th floor of marriot. The elevator is exposed and we enjoyed our view of Canada side, the river, city lights and tall building around. We had a beer there and it was crowded there. Then we moved to the bar at the hotel registration area, had more outside at the deck, it was windy and the Whiskey I had was just perfect.
To end this story, I would like to mention the downtown marriott building, it was connected to several others, with GM motor headquarters, and a lot of other places. There was a car exhibition at the first floor from GM. The design of these towers are very alternative, mysterious and it is easy to get lost. And that is how I feel about Detroit.
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