Nairobi - second impression

Yesterday after work, Ziad and I went to the expats shopping mall in Nairobi - the Village Market. It is located near the UN headquarter complex (Nairobi has a huge population of UN staff as their base for Africa) and US Embassy.

The area is on a small hill and quite nice. There are many big fancy houses and villas. Passing by here reminded me of a Beverly Hill drive, except that palm trees get replaced by acacia trees. This, combined with the MCK meeting I joined Tuesday night, gives me a better sense of how expats' life here could be.

The mall itself is an open-air, three-story complex. Country-side style building, exotic. There's no Gucci, LV, or Nike stores here - except Rado, Mango, and a couple of others, I didn't see any other world-class branded retail stores. But there are some interesting boutique stores selling souvenirs and there is a food court. There is a supermarket in the mall as well, Nakumatt, that belongs to a local supermarket chain. Stuffs they are selling are nice - either global brand or home-grown ones that are well-packaged in English. I bought one Colgate toothpaste and one bottle of Dettol shower gel (it comes with a free bath loofah) and they cost 335 shillings (about 5 US dollars). Not cheap by local standard I guess.

We had dinner at a Chinese restaurant called Ro Ro in the mall. The owner is actually a Chinese couple from Inner Mongolia and they have been here for eight years. The food was not bad - in fact, a beef dish I ordered was even close to authentic Chinese food. I was quite content.

Tonight, Ziad, Abby, and I are taking an overnight train to Mombasa, a Kenya coast city overlooking the Indian Ocean. I am looking forward to seeing some of the culture clash described in the book I am reading, The Shadow of the Sun - cultures ranging from local African to British colonial, to Indian.