Life in the Desert

Tweeted, "Baked humans, it's whats for dinner!" today, but really it is starting to cool down.  The weather is a pretty safe topic no matter where you are because your opinion is really unlikely to offend anyone.  So, I prefer the heat of AD to the humidity of HK.  I also find the people here to be pretty friendly.  I haven't had the chance to drive much and that can be a bit more aggro but that's mainly because the rules of the road are in the hand of the driver.  Most traffic guides, e.g. signs, painted arrows don't mean a lot, but the signals (lights or robots) get the attention they deserve.  The key means of traffic management here has been engineering because not everybody is on the same page in terms of driving knowledge and there doesn't appear to be a whole lot of enforcement of whatever the rules of the road are.  This engineering of safety means you make a lot of U-turns around traffic islands that run down the middle of every significant road and that you wait a very long time at signals.  Each direction gets their own light for straight, left turns and U turns.  There are a lot of cars but the factor that delays most travel is the length of time waiting for the signal to change.  Oh yeah, and it's my birthday.