first impressions of anchorage

dear lard this town is flat. main arterials are five or six lanes wide, too. guess that'll be helpful when it's twenty below and there's eight feet of snow on the ground.

I drove around for awhile, including through "downtown"... what a joke. other than a few office buildings, a couple government buildings and a few shops, there didn't seem to be much. don't recall seeing any buildings taller than three stories either.

there's a hooters! not sure if that's good or bad.

there are about ten japanese restaurants I noticed, including a benihana's. I got dinner at a place called sushi ya. spendy as hell, $19 for two rolls. one of them was a $13 "hey ya roll" tho... deep fried spicy tuna roll with more spicy tuna and avocado on top. spiciest damn tuna roll I've ever tried, too. and I'm not worried about dropping $20 on sushi. I'm getting reimbursed for everything but the tip.

I saw most of the chain stores I'm used to seeing. went into best buy, couldn't find sophie b hawkins new album. no surprise there, so I bought weezer's new one instead. had to get something for the car, 'cos the radio here sucks. cd was $14 with no sales tax. seems about normal price. no tax is nice.

I've seen a lot of yellow people, so that should help miyuki if we come here. in addition to the aforementioned japanese places, I saw a ton of chinese and thai restaurants, and one polynesian place, but it looked like it was closed for good. one of the chinese places even had a big sign guaranteeing a one minute drive thru. one minute chinese food frightens me.

there are a LOT of liquor stores in this town. that doesn't bode well.

I've only seen three non-alaskan license plates. one california, one utah, one florida. who the fuck would drive here from florida? that would take like three weeks...

maybe it's just the places I've been so far, but there seems to be a disproportionate amount of ugly people. I'll fit right in.

saw a couple movie theatres that appeared to have all the same hollywood drivel you can find in any decent sized american city. I want to check out the beartooth theatre tho. it's the arthouse one that's also a microbrewery/pub.

hotel internet was down for at least an hour (I'm writing this offline).

I've somehow ended up with a migraine. sucks balls. ran across the street for excedrin migraine and mountain dew. it's only helping a little.

more later.