Promenading

Before dawn on the 6th of March of 2022, I walked in the dark to the corner convenience store to buy two cans of Thai tea drinks, two packets of instant noodles, and a bag of fried pork rinds. I drank the orange-brown Thai tea drinks outside the store. As I was homebound, in the dark, a car stopped as a passenger came out to urinate, and then he hopped back into the car, and then the car fled. In the sunny morning, I walked to the cafe to have iced black tea and a banana loaf. Waiting for his coffee order was a tall bearded man, not thin, with red-brown hair, with a black tuque, black sleeved shirt, black pants, and brown sandals. Taking advantage of the spring-like weather here on Lulu Island, I ventured a third time promenading before noon, to the pizzeria for a pizza slice and a cold diet cola. On the way to the pizzeria, I waved to Gurpreet the Sikh at the gasoline station. A Eurasian girl in a dark-blue-grey jacket, grey-black pants, and white light sweater entered the pizzeria to order a pizza. On the big screen was a basketball game in progress. As I was homebound, a bicycling Eastern man in a green jacket and grey sports pants halted in the middle of the alley.

In the morning of the 12th of March of 2022, I took a long route going to the cafe. I saw Eurasian children with brownish hair in the Lulu Island neighbourhood. I saw that the cherry blossoms had not yet bloomed in the school yard. I sat in the gazebo to gaze at the grey-sky landscape. I saw my big neighbour in a grey jacket and black pants, as he looked like promenading fat Maitreya Buddha. At the cafe, drinking my iced black tea, I chatted with the brunette barista Sarah from Montreal about how the cherry blossoms seemed late this year. I went to the quiet pizzeria, and Rose the Filipina was unusually there on a Saturday. Eating pizza, her son John-Paul was there, who did not want to go to martial-arts class today, because of feeling too lazy. I ate a slice and drank cold diet cola.

It was after midnight in Torremolinos in Spain, as I walked out of my hotel and walked down the steep incline towards the beach. On the way, I saw an intriguing green metal gate in front of a home, above which on marble, it said "Jardín de las Mercedes" or "Garden of the Mercies" of residence number 28. At the beach, it was dark and calm. There were "palapas" or palm-leaf shelters along the beach. The only other person that I saw that night looked like a Mexican, promenading.

North Pier is 1,450 feet long, 28 feet wide, and was designed by Eugenius Birch. It was built with promenading in mind and developed a reputation as a hub for top-notch entertainment.