{"id":241,"date":"2010-05-01T09:30:00","date_gmt":"2010-05-01T14:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/keithcchan.com\/?p=241"},"modified":"2013-10-29T16:36:53","modified_gmt":"2013-10-29T21:36:53","slug":"saa-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.keithcchan.com\/wordpress\/2010\/05\/saa-part-2.html","title":{"rendered":"SAA, Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Except for the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gatewayarch.com\/Arch\/index.aspx\">Arch<\/a> and the free <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gatewayarch.com\/Arch\/info\/act.museum.aspx\">museum<\/a> in its basement, I&#8217;ve never been to downtown St. Louis in the nearly ten years I&#8217;ve been in Missouri. The week of the SAA meeting, I made up for lost time by spending most of my days there.<\/p>\n<p>Getting downtown from my hotel in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ci.clayton.mo.us\/\">Clayton<\/a> was confusing the first evening. My GPS had an old map of the area, so &#8220;on right&#8221; meant &#8220;on left.&#8221; I got the hang of that exit by the third (!) day though. As I approached downtown from I-64, it turns out the exit I needed was closed for construction. I passed it, and the highway took me into Illinois. I exited and took the opposite way back. My detour was rewarded as I saw a wonder view of downtown with a great sunset behind it. From there the GPS led me straight to the America&#8217;s Center. That night, leaving downtown was its own ordeal. Apparently the <a href=\"http:\/\/stlouis.cardinals.mlb.com\/index.jsp?c_id=stl\">local sports team<\/a> was playing mere blocks away and I drove right into everyone leaving the event. Some manic pushing of the Detour button on my GPS and some creative driving through a church&#8217;s parking lot finally got me back on the highway.<\/p>\n<p>Towards the weekend I had a handle on being a commuter in St. Louis. I realized that the exits before the one my GPS suggested all eventually led me to Market Street, which then led to 6th, where the America&#8217;s Center was. The view down Market was pretty cool:<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_242\" style=\"width: 460px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/keithcchan\/4538602661\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-242\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-242\" title=\"IMG_2637\" src=\"https:\/\/keithcchan.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_2637-450x337.jpg\" alt=\"Market Street, St. Louis\" width=\"450\" height=\"337\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.keithcchan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_2637-450x337.jpg 450w, https:\/\/www.keithcchan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_2637-150x112.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.keithcchan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_2637-1024x768.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 450px) 100vw, 450px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-242\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">{Click for Flickr goodness}<\/p><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/keithcchan\/4538603471\/in\/photostream\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/keithcchan.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_2644-150x112.jpg\" alt=\"Orpheum Theater\" title=\"IMG_2644\" width=\"150\" height=\"112\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-243\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.keithcchan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_2644-150x112.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.keithcchan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_2644-450x337.jpg 450w, https:\/\/www.keithcchan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_2644-1024x768.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nStrolling around downtown between sessions was strangely rewarding. I couldn&#8217;t help but take some photos of the different buildings that towered over me. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/keithcchan\/4538603601\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/keithcchan.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_2645-112x150.jpg\" alt=\"Downtown Buildings\" title=\"IMG_2645\" width=\"112\" height=\"150\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-244\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.keithcchan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_2645-112x150.jpg 112w, https:\/\/www.keithcchan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_2645-450x600.jpg 450w, https:\/\/www.keithcchan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_2645-768x1024.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 112px) 100vw, 112px\" \/><\/a>I heard from various sources that <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Downtown_St._Louis\">downtown<\/a> St. Louis wasn&#8217;t always so pretty and safe. It&#8217;s good to see that things are looking up. Now if only East St. Louis was cleaned up, so visiting <a href=\"http:\/\/cahokiamounds.org\/\">Cahokia<\/a> wasn&#8217;t accompanied by a <a href=\"http:\/\/winnipeg.urbex.ca\/Lightsout\/Stlouis\/index.htm\">slight<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/East_St._Louis,_Illinois#Crime\">feeling<\/a> of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/22058765@N02\/4128809161\/in\/pool-80105504@N00\">unease<\/a>. Come on, Illinois, shape up!<\/p>\n<p>Stay tuned for next time, which will most surely be about the delicious food I ate!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Except for the Arch and the free museum in its basement, I&#8217;ve never been to downtown St. Louis in the nearly ten years I&#8217;ve been in Missouri. The week of the SAA meeting, I made up for lost time by spending most of my days there. Getting downtown from my&#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.keithcchan.com\/wordpress\/2010\/05\/saa-part-2.html\" class=\"readmore\">Read more<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">&#8220;SAA, Part 2&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[20],"tags":[72],"class_list":["post-241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anthropology","tag-saa"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.keithcchan.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.keithcchan.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.keithcchan.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.keithcchan.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.keithcchan.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.keithcchan.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.keithcchan.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.keithcchan.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.keithcchan.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}