The City NEVER sleeps.

So in this post I want to talk about the level of noise here; it’s like being in a theme park 24 hours a day, with a steady stream of sounds and disturbances. Starting with the most annoying sound; this irritating and seemingly constant noise usually starts about 6.30am, and continues on till about 3am. With a lack of proper road structure, cars are incessantly honking their horns; it is their way of weaving in and out of lanes successfully, and appears to be the normal way to drive a car. But there is nothing normal about sleep deprivation from the continual honking at all hours of the night! 

The second most annoying noise… in fact I take that back, this is definitely the most annoying noise, and it is that of the street food carts. Instead of shouting like they do on markets in England, e.g. “Grapes, £2 a punnet!”, here they have pre-recorded messages, indicating the price of their food. And so the street vendors can play their message over, and over, and over, and over again, from first thing in the morning, right into the middle of the night. The same 10 second message is played on repeat, and although I do not know what they are saying, I can recite the majority of the food carts that I pass daily.

The streets are livelier at night than during the day.  As soon as the sun sets, restaurants bring tables and chairs outside, and the street vendors turn on their neon lights. The streets are then filled with people, all eating, dancing and laughing. There are HUGE parks for children, not consisting simply of a slide or two and a swing set, they have the biggest bouncy slides and castles you have ever seen, sand pits, balls pools and paddling pools, all free to use at your own pleasure. These parks are busier at night, from 7pm right up until around 12am children as young as 4 years old are considered as being safe enough to be allowed to explore the park alone, while their parents shop at the clothing and food markets also located at the parks.  The noise of children laughing, and loud music can be heard for many blocks, and mixed in with the chatter and music from the outdoor restaurants, being on the streets is like being in a nightclub. 

Everything here is bigger and better, even a simple thunderstorm is more mean and mighty than ones back home. There are firework displays all around the town every night of the week, but these are not just any ordinary fireworks, these ones are bigger and more powerful than any you have seen before (presumably the kinds of fireworks that would not pass health and safety tests in England). These fireworks light up the whole sky with beautiful shapes and colours, but sound like you are in the middle of a warzone.  

This video is a reflection of fireworks a few streets away.