A sudden realization occurred to me: life in the city is toxic. For the past few weeks, I've been ransacking nooks and niches of the metro to draw information from different people and agencies for my thesis. It was never easy-though with the aid of a railway system, the pollution is just too much. All I've been seeing are dirty roadways, improper drainage systems, lack of regulations or implementations, congestion brought by vehicles, etc. Those clearly depict what a city is (perhaps for developing countries). However, beyond such unsightly facade lies the goodness of its inhabitants. For all of the public facilities that I've visited, the people greeted me with polite and unassuming words. They helped me with directions-- a task very too daunting for a literally lost child like me who doesn't easily understand wayfinding scenarios-- get information, and with simple things like alleviating my fear (of elevators). These people are also very cheerful and very accommodating which definitely brightens up any misfortunate event. Such lovable bunch of happy people.

Though hesitant, I think I'll live in this kind of set-up for a relatively longer period of time. As much as I would want to acquire a suburban--based residence, with my background in urban and regional planning (well, as a student, of course) the disadvantages are just repulsive. Maybe I'll just add a green roof/ edible garden in my urban crib-- that would be a hipster kind of green architecture. Nevertheless, I'll make it nice.