Category City
Are you in a hurry? Then don’t take a taxi
It’s counterintuitive. You are running late. You need to get to your meeting asap. You originally planned to be frugal and get a bus. It’s a very short distance so the bus wasn’t gonna slow you down. But then you’d have to walk 7 minutes to the bus stop, and unlike Germany, there’s no way […]
Grounded
Do you know what it means to be in Bogota when you need to go somewhere and it’s raining, especially between 4-8 pm on a weekday, worse still on a Friday? It means you’re grounded. If you need to go from one place to another out of reach by any form of public transport (well, not an awful lot of […]
A foreigner’s impression of Medellín
Indeed, the world cup has been the culprit for my absence. Colombia has been overwhelmed by football in recent months. My first post upon returning is actually going to be my first guest writer’s! Gloria is a landscape architect who currently works in New York. She is one of the few foreigners who spells ‘Colombia’ correctly. […]
Bogotá’s human side
I might have written a lot about how terrible the busetas are in Bogotá, but it’s also on these vehicles that you get to experience the warm and fuzzy feeling among human beings. Passengers help each other on these busetas. It’s quite a strange sight, especially given the stigma of asking a passerby on the streets for directions or […]
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
Halloween turns out to be the biggest event in Bogotá! Absolutely amazing! The whole city turns itself into a mega fun fair. It’s the ultimate spectacle of the year before the ‘festival of lights‘ begins in November. It was like a carnival! Everyone seems to have left work early and hits the streets in their […]
I got my share eventually..
Perhaps it was bad luck; or perhaps it’s just the standard experience that everyone has to have in Bogotá. Yes, I got mugged, after 8 months of immunity. It’s a testimony to all those who have criticised me for being ‘uptight, exaggerating, scaremongering’ whatever name you want to brand it. Well, you can never be […]
The neck-breaking ride
I’ve previously written about the busetas of Bogotá, the bad boy minibuses. Their aggressive tendency is like the killer high speed minibuses that have been coined flying coffins for sprinting through Hong Kong at 60 miles/hour. In Bogotá, fortunately, they can’t go at super speed (even though the drivers would certainly love to), because of […]
Now, that’s innovation
It’s time to showcase the Colombian urinals. I tell you, no where else in the world I’ve seen a urinal plastic cover like this one. It’s ingenious! NB please don’t freak out I didn’t get into such an extreme as to venture into the men’s room to show you the deeply-held truth. It just so […]
How to move around Bogotá
Counting four months since I first arrived and having had repetitive safety training advice that’s so constantly reeled that it’s become part of my subconscious, I have by now gathered enough intelligence to be able to take on the streets with confidence! So I thought I should at least make some contribution to the world and […]
Colombian minibuses
They are devils on four wheels. The minibuses of Bogotá are reckless; they do whatever they wish, drive however they want, because they think they are the only vehicles on the roads. Their signature annoyance practice is to take over you, get in front of you and then stop, so that they can pick up […]
onechineseincolombia.com 