Galle Face Green by Ko-Knia
When I was in the Phillippines I’d ask people what to do in their city, like the default thing, and they couldn’t think of much. Sometimes the most simple questions are the hardest to answer, and I was wondering how I’d answer the same about Colombo. I guess the first thing I’d say was to get out of Colombo. Physically, Colombo is flat and concrete and far eclipsed by Kandy or Galle or Hikkaduwa. Colombo’s main appeal is that everyone is here, hence try to find someone you know. That is the best way to see a city, but barring that there are plenty of places to drop money. If I had one day in Colombo I’d have breakfast in the hotel, go see the two-headed goat, lunch at Barefoot, drinks at Galle Face, dinner at Gallery or Penninsula, and out at Tantra and R&B. Or something like that.
Places to Stay
With friends is always best, but I personally like the Hilton. It has the least character building wise, but the food is really good and I’m guessing the amenities are. I suppose the Cinnamon Grand is nice, but I don’t like their redecoration, especially the condoms they hung in the second lobby. Galle Face is a great location, but the upkeep is poor to middling. Anyways, let’s assume you’re on business and you’re based at the Hilton. The Hilton is unfortunately near nothing lived in, so you’ll have to take a trishaw or taxi out. Never take hotel taxis by the way, they’re very expensive.
I don’t like waking up, but if I did I’d probably go downstairs and have eggs or something and then go back to sleep. Barring that I suppose there must be stuff to do during the day. I just don’t know what.
Stuff To Do During Day
I’m thinking and all I can come up with is seeing the two-headed goat in the natural history museum. The natural history museum looks like it was put together by third graders and the goat is at the end, but it is an awesome goat. It has two heads and it’s folded upon itself in a big jar of formeldehyde. There is also a historical museum which sucks a little less. If you’re lucky enough to be here on the first Sunday of the month there is Jazz at the Ceylon Rugby and Football Club. Barring that, there is always shopping.
Shopping
There is a traditional tourist circuit (Odel, Gallery, Barefoot) to which you might as well stick. Odel costs basically the same as Singapore or the West so is not really that great. Gallery, specifically the attached Paradise Road has had the same stuff since I was a child. There is porcelain with Sinhala and Tamil writing (mugs being good office gifts), spoons with gara yakas, entire rooms full of useless glass items, nice pillowcases and stuff, and fun flower shaped candles. They also have the most random and irrelevant collection of books I’ve ever seen. Barefoot I’m somewhat partial to, but shopping wise the stuff is at least different. Paradise goods are classy, but in a generic Pier 1 Imports kinda way. Barefoot’s palette is entirely different and the book selection is excellent.
Some other shopping is Crescat Mall, which is OK. Kinda overpriced and pointless if you’re going back to a consumer country. There are little shops on Duplication Road (past Liberty Plaza, but don’t go there) – Cotton Collection, and the new Arena (which looks like it’s going under). The place local people actually shop – House of Fashion – is further down Duplication.
Lunch
If I had one day I wouldn’t go anywhere besides Barefoot. You can sit outside and nurse a beer for hours while watching people go by. Plus Sri Lankans actually ‘live’ there so it’s not like visiting a sterile restaurant. On weekends it is packed with tourists though. I honestly can’t think of another good place for lunch, plus at Barefoot you can easily spend the rest of the afternoon.
Drinks Before Dinner
As the sun’s going down Galle Face Hotel is a great place to have a drink. Or a soda, or whatever. You can sit out by the ocean and get kinda misted. The service is haphazard and the food isn’t very good so it’s best to go somewhere else for dinner. You can also walk around Galle Face Green (when it reopens) to eat some fried shrimp and see all the people walking around furtive couples in the dark.
Dinner
One of my favorite spaces is Bawa’s old studio, now the Gallery Cafe. The food is excellent, though expensive, and the lighting is very romantic. I’ve also heard they make an excellent home-brewed Ginger Beer, though I don’t like spicy drinks and have never tried it. The food is all good and the deserts are very chocolatey.
Another great location is Havelock Bungalow, which is nice in that it’s secluded too. All the evil expats and NGO types (and presumably Jews, Gypsies and other unwanted types) dine at Gallery, but not so much at Havelock. I don’t like the food there much at all though. Kinda rich and blunt. Dunno.
Finally, my favorite restaurant in Sri Lanka is in Nawala and serves Jaffna food, which is pretty much Sri Lankan. Pennisula is a bit out there, but you can get everything from rice to pittu to prawn curry to purippu. Basically a lot of very good Sri Lankan food and interesting cocktails.
Out
I’ve found that going out depends entirely on who you’re with and not the place, but here are some places. Tantra is a nice lounge where you can start the night. It is open and overlooks the city and they make some interesting Arrack drinks. From there you can walk to Onyx, which I don’t like. It’s full of teenage girls and it’s underground and it just makes me uncomfortable. You can also walk to Zanzibar, which has low ceilings and also makes me uncomfortable. In fact, the only club that doesn’t make me twitchy is R&B on Duplication Road, which is kinda laid back. You can dance if you want, but there’s also pool and tables outside to chill. There are also clubs and bars in most of the hotels but they mostly suck. Barefoot is now opening nights (starting Thursday) and that should be cool when the bar is running.
And yadda yadda, that is what I would recommend if you had a day in Colombo.
*sorry about all the typos. Dead rush, and in need of glasses. Just got the prescription, in fact.
Ru, the entire sentence (of which you quoted only a part) really reads as follows:
I read Indi’s original statement as pertinent to a restricted sample of Sri Lankans. I did not read it as being generally indicative (indica, indicative.. heh, heh, heh. Sorry, I am both easily amused and easily distracted) or representative of Sri Lankans as a statistical whole. That’s as far as I took it.
But, in the interests of … I dunno … arguing statistics with a professional :) …
The statistics.gov.lk site does not (unfortunately) provide a per capita income figure. If such a number is available, clearly I need to work on my reading comprehension. So, I looked elsewhere for these numbers.
For a service establishment – let’s look at one pertinent statistical measure which is readily available – the ability of the patrons to pay.
GDP per capita (PPP): $4300
I’ve heard $50-$60 (upto $170) quoted for a meal for four. Regardless of value (I happen to think that’s a fairly reasonable deal myself and I look forward to visiting Barefoot when I have the opportunity), is it unreasonable to contend a figure of $4300 per annum does not lend itself to meals of ~$12.50 per person? Even given that a lot of economic activity will probably not be covered by official estimates, I’d propose that those with the ability to pay for the products and services on offer at Barefoot will be less than the median of Sri Lanka’s populace. Therefore, not your “average” Sri Lankan.
QED.
Examining education, health, mother’s age at birth, weight at birth, birth year, age are all interesting (I’d love to see those numbers, if only because I’m a stats geek) but they’re about as relevant (IMHO) here as a lost hot air ballooner asking a bystander where he is and being told that he is in … a hot air balloon :)
“Therefore, not your “average†Sri Lankan.”
Only in terms of income, my ghostwriter friend.
And Sri Lankanness is not defined by income.
Therefore, Indi was not incorrect to say, “Sri Lankans actually ‘live’ there”.
QED.
Thanks for making my point for me. I was wondering how long it would take somebody to take the logical steps. As a graduate in economics, I’ve had two years of studying quantitative techniques. I am not going to say “There is no such thing as an average Sri Lankan” unless I actually had something I wanted to prove in mind.
:-)
Which is why I asked for the specific variables, I leant towards socio-economic ones in this case because they were the ones at stake. If my hypothesis is: The sort of person who averagely frequents Barefoot is representative of the average Sri Lankan, and reading all the crap above I deduce that people are all hot and bothered about Indi saying (or not saying, or apologising for saying, or apologising for living) that the sort of person whom you can find at Barefoot is a typical or average Sri Lankan, in specific reference to that persons socio-economic status.
In answer to your measure of frequency or intermediate value, I would take a simple average initially, and possibly weight the variables if I wanted to refine my profile (e.g. Place of birth given a higher weighting for Western Province, because that’s where Barefoot is, and it’s possible that a large number of frequenters were born there). The only trackback I have, is that we could grade the data by age. For example: The average 14 -18 year old found at Barefoot has x, y, z characteristics (Compare with average individuals in that age group for that set of variables [income, mother’s age at birth, birth year —-> hence life expectancy at birth]. And if you have 1 of these variable, yes you could compare with against that one variable for the whole province or country, but you can make the model more sophisticated by adding in more variables, it does NOT decrease accuracy, in fact it makes the picture richer and more complete.
Pottaya. (smoooooch)
Those variables are interesting because they add a more complete statistical profile , e.g. birth weight is positively correlated to household income etc.., For purely statistical masturbation, that little exercise above is a very good example of a 1 variable comparison. And between 38 -50% of economic activity does not get into official estimates, you can thus loosen up your GDP/capita figure by adding that on. My apologies for quoting out of context, I was looking for quick ammo, it was fun though.
Ravana – do you even BEGIN to see how ridiculously pedantic this has become?
I agree it’s pedantic, but it started getting ridiculous way before I joined this thread. If you analyse the disagreements on this thread, and you deconstruct the arguments, it comes down to who the average Sri Lankan is, whther there is even such a thing in reality, and if there is such a thing in reality, whether it is correct to measure degree of Sri Lankanness by approximation to the average.
Personally, I find that this is worth talking about because some of the biggest problems in Sri Lanka now are because of the illogical assumptions of people about what Sri Lankanness is. If you are unhappy with the minute detail that the level of deconstruction has got to at this point, I suggest you read another thread for the time being, and come back later.
Ru, I am not sure what you’re saying – not because I don’t understand your methodology – and that’s irrelevant to the argument anyway – but because your second sentence is incomplete. I’ve read it over and I don’t think you finish the “if” clause in that sentence, do you? It’s kind of hard to follow after that, so if you don’t mind humouring this “Pottaya”, write it shorter, and try to make it clearer what you mean this time, okay?
It might also be helpful to clarify what we are actually arguing about, because I think you are missing the larger point.
1. Do you think Sri Lankanness can be defined in terms of income?
2. Do you think the average Sri Lankan exists and do you think he/she/it is identifiable? (Logically, this would mean that the average Sri Lankan is either a man or a woman if you’re using a mode definition, and neither a complete man nor a woman if you’re using the mean definition, so think before you answer. :-)
3. Assuming an average Sri Lankan exists, do you think it is correct to define Sri Lankanness by approximation to the average?
Funny how some people want to live the upper class life but be thought of as middle class..
I would have limited my sentences to simpler constructs had I known you were having difficulty.
The ‘If’ clause is a statement as to what my hypothesis is, no I didn’t complete it grammatically but it is a complete thought. I believe that I am asserting that there exists such a being as the average Sri Lankan, and this average Sri Lankan possesses a number of characteristics. Average Income being one of them. You studied quantitative methods and I don’t believe I need to press the point further. There are nearly 20.0 million people in this country, we have a national GDP and we can arrive at a GDP per capita figure by not straining too many brain cells. You applaud the logic in ghostwriters post, but then go on to bring in unquantifiable variables such as ‘Sri Lankanness’ into it.
1. I believe that average income is certainly one representative measure of a group of people. Have you heard of the Lorenz Curve and subsequently the Gini coefficient? Of course you have, it is a widely used measure of wealth dispersion across households, and when statisticians describe demographics (as opposed to economists describing macroeconomic indicators) they weight the variables according to importance: 60% of individuals have an income between $400 – $600 / month, 1% will have income between $4,000 – $5000 / month; to eliminate distortion from the very high income levels, we weight the variables so that the proportions of individuals who fall into the former category are more important, and average income won’t be $4,200 or some such figure. Weighting the variables means that we count the people who need to be counted as people the most. (Funnily enough 2 women from the Department of Census and Statistics just showed up in my office for a random survey)
2. Yes, he / she is identifiable – not out of a freaking line-up, but yes, given the right variables you can profile an average individual, and i’m not typing that sentence again. It’s statistics, it’s not personal. And strangely enough demographic information is segregated by gender, smartass, however, if I wanted to get ‘individuals’ data, regardless of data, I could.
3. Yes, it is correct to define any goddamn thing that has more than 2 data points by an average. 2 Sri Lankan’s characteristics / 2 Sri Lankans = Average Sri Lankan, for the moment.
*** At least 2 data points and in the name of pedance : Sum of Characteristics / 2 Sri Lankans = Average Sri Lankan
I met the average Sri Lankan the other day in front of Barista. HeIt was checking out the girls inside. Pervert.
Don’t be silly Prabath. That wasn’t him…he doesn’t exist.
Dave, when I said “why are you hating on Indi”, I meant “hatin’ “, sorry for the typo, it was meant to be “gangsta”.
Seems like it’s goin’ crazy up in here, I aint seen so many definitions of “average” since I saw that dictionary get shot in a drive by at my homey Rondell’s crib.
Okay, so by that logic:
Two Sri Lankans – lets take you and me. Then lets take the sum of characteristics. That gives us, among other things, the chracteristics of gender: one male and one female. Divide by two. So then the Average Sri Lankan is a hermaphrodite. Excellent. I get it now.
If you’re going to be infantile about it I refuse to push the point any further, yes perhaps you are right on the hermaphrodite call.
Thank you. That’s all i was saying.