The Street

On Sunday we went to East Coast Park, a very popular weekend spot. On the way, we stopped by the area known as Arab Street, which features streets of cafes and shops with vague inspiration from the Middle East. Given the location near a large mosque, one can also find Muslim goods like caps for men (called taqiyah or songkok) and scarves for women, and other items needed for prayer.

I was impressed with some of the design work around the neighborhood, like this hummingbird drawn on a post and these sprayed figures on an alley wall.

After walking around for about 30 minutes, we continued on to East Coast Park. It features a beach, bicycle and rollerblade rental, and numerous restaurants. We also saw something quite unique: Ski360, a cable-based water skiing park. Having grown up water skiing on lakes behind a boat, I never imagined the possibility of cable skiing. But cable skiing takes out a lot of the risk of boat skiing. No risk of hitting another boat or something floating in the water, and no feeling of being abandoned while waiting for the boat to return to pick you up after going down. The cable also pulls at a uniform speed, so you can get out of the water easily and maintain a good speed. I don't know how clean the water is, but the agricultural run-off in Iowa's reservoirs was never clean either.

We ate lunch with some friends, while watching the wakeboarders do amazing jumps.