Newport News Survival Guide, Part 1

I recently moved to the Virginia Peninsula in search of opportunity, and, specifically, a job. A clear change in scenery. This the telling of my story. Town’s about six times larger than the one I lived in before.
Some spots are in good walking distance from one another. Some are not. Some areas are adequately supplied with pedestrian signals. Many are not. The town is full of sidewalks and I consider that to be good news. I have lived here long enough to pass judgement on my new home town of Newport News, and I say there are good things and bad things.

Pros
-A mall that actually is a mall (e.g. not a collection of stores sharing a same parking lot)
-Movie theaters (more than one)
-Easy access to the Interstate
-EVERY GOOD restaurant chain

For all of my SoMD friends, Newport News is basically La Plata, only larger area, and even more restaurants.

Cons
-Too many pawn shops
-Huge intersections that have lots of foot traffic but no pedestrian signals

There are pedestrian signals in this town, but their presence is not distributed proportional to the places they are needed the most, IMO. No signal here.

Big intersection, no signal.

Waited a long time to cross. When I made it to the other side, a driver told me, “good job”

Note that a lot of the photos are taken with blackberry because they are just personal photos. But the quality is crappy even for that. Now I know to use a real camera always, even for photos for personal use. Darn you, RIM!

This here is one of the better ones.


A big food store devoted completely to international food. There was a ramen row. Not a ramen section– a ramen row. A ROW. I made sure to secure photographic evidence. And keep in mind that these are not the only noodles in the store. Just ramen.

A motel is being destroyed. It looked like such mess, I couldn’t resist a photograph.

A pretty storm drain. Look at them ridges.

LOOK AT THEM.

My observation that such a life-breaking concept was a sellable consumer good.

They have these poles on the entry/exits of the Interstates on the VA Peninsula, that I have never seen in other Interstates before. I have never seen them go down.

Another perceived oddity is that this town is full of these “you can go three directions from here” tree signs. And with that, I think I will end it here, stay tuned for part 2 on January 27th!

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