I do my fair share of bitching about this city that I have called home for around 6 years but this isn't just some jaded opinion of someone that likes to complain about things. This city really isn't that magnificent at all. Sure there is a beach here but it really isn't that good. Combine this with the fact that you aren't allowed to swim outside of approved areas and it just annoys me. In other places if I want to go for a swim you just go for a swim.
Here they claim that it is in the name of safety that people can't just go in wherever they want but at the same time I have been out there and these tidal influences that they are referring to are almost non-existent. Someone with zero swimming skills might fall victim to it but for the most part these cordoned off swimming areas just seem an arbitrary decision. Do you really expect me to believe that a beach, with no rocky underwater presence at all, has certain special areas where these supposed dangerous tides just stop existing? They don't exist and the red flags they have up around the area about the sea being too dangerous to swim in in a load of bollox. If you didn't know how to swim at all I suppose it could be dangerous but then again, so would anything outside of the baby end of any swimming pool.
The ocean aside though, the rest of the city is downright ugly as well.
Don't let those pretty fluffy clouds confuse you, this is a dumpy area. In every direction we have cement rectangle after cement rectangle. The only difference is how tall they decide to make the rectangle.
As far as you can see in any direction that is what it looks like and one of the things that I find so upsetting about this is that there is plenty of land in every direction from this point yet all the builds seem to be dead set on simply going vertical in this tiny area. There are over a million people living here and honestly, if it wasn't for the cheap overall price of life here, I would move. This city is noisy and dirty as hell. The beach doesn't really do much for me and there are so many rules there that it is difficult to enjoy myself.
Also if you look down from almost any building there is going to be a spot of land here and there that hasn't been developed yet and it is almost always filled with garbage. Don't worry! They will build something there soon enough, it is a certainty. You can be guaranteed that the architecture will be just as boring and lifeless as every other building as well.
I think I am reaching the point where I no longer want to live in a populated area like this anymore. All the condos are the same, all the restaurants have basically the same offerings and we constantly say things like "there is nothing to do here other than get drunk."
I know that I spend a lot of time watching films in my condo that is until the never ending spinning wheel pops up on the screen and the landlord makes excuses about sharks attacking trans-Pacific cables as the reason why the internet is too shitty to maintain a stable connection.
If this place wasn't so cheap, I would have left a long time ago