Introduction

Let’s pick up where the previous post left off: A Christmas Morning Surprise from Delta Air Lines — Chestnut’s Christmas Trip Marathon, Part 1 (Late 2021).

After all the running around the day before, I slept incredibly well. Slept like a baby!

Day two once again begins with the view outside the window. In the distance, I could already see a church—one of today’s sightseeing targets.

St. Louis Cathedral

First, a photo at the entrance of this iconic New Orleans landmark.

I really have to recommend this place as a graduation trip destination for the girls from Japan’s Shirayuri Girls’ High School—because you can spot what looks like the Shirayuri school crest all over the place here!

Source:https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DzwLKMJUUAEFo4r.jpg

A New Orleans bus!

After not too much walking, I arrived at St. Louis Cathedral, one of New Orleans’ landmark buildings.

Honestly, New Orleans’ Downtown is tiny—there’s really no need to drive at all.

I do have to complain a bit about New Orleans’ infrastructure. During my few days here, I noticed missing streetlights and pedestrian lights that didn’t work all over the place. Later on, I even saw intersections where the traffic lights were out completely, so everyone had to treat it like a Stop sign...

Here’s one example—what exactly is going on with this traffic light? Isn’t this the textbook definition of “three short of a set”? You can’t even play mahjong with that!

And what happened to this one...? Did somebody bend it over?

Views along the Mississippi River.

Honestly, for people from China, the Mississippi may seem kind of bizarre—a river 3700km long with less than 500m of elevation drop!

A steel bridge over the Mississippi River. There are also two cruise ships in the distance.

A streetcar line—this route has been under maintenance for years, and it feels like service restoration is nowhere in sight.

The worst part is that Google Map was still showing arrival times here based on a schedule from who knows how many years ago... OMG. If you were a first-time visitor, you could easily end up standing here for half an hour, totally confused.

An old smoothbore cannon from the Civil War era.

St. Louis Cathedral—first, a shot of the plaque.

Interior decorations and the dome murals.

Candlestands!

Bourbon Street

Bourbon Street—so where are Sherry Street and Gin Street?—is a historic street in New Orleans’ French Quarter, just a short walk from the river.

By the way, how did this Raising Cane’s end up going out of business? These days, anything can happen...

Streetcars—there really aren’t many cities left where you can still see these. Most New Orleans streetcar lines were still under maintenance and construction, and had been that way for years. No idea when full service will return.

At the time, it seemed like only two routes were still operating: the Canal St north branch here, and a south branch heading toward Tulane University, which I’ll mention later.

During the Spanish colonial period, this street was called Calle de Borbón.

Uh... as a chemistry person, I can only say my sense of decency has shattered into pieces!

The whole street has this kind of vibe, and every now and then you can spot a vintage sightseeing carriage.

What’s going on here? A yellow flag with three red stripes suddenly appears—the flag of South Vietnam.

Walking back toward the river, I saw this statue. The Maid of Orleans—that has to be Joan of Arc.

In fact, Joan of Arc’s real name was Jeanne d'Arc.

The U.S. flag, the Louisiana state flag, the New Orleans city flag... and then the fourth flagpole was left empty and became a dummy.

There’s that Shirayuri-style emblem again, so once more I recommend that the girls from Shirayuri come here for their graduation trip and bring back a New Orleans city flag.

Mississippi River Ferry

After making a full loop, it was already afternoon, and the weather had finally turned nice again. So frustrating!

I saw on Google Map that there was a Mississippi River ferry nearby, so I decided to cross the river and take a look at the other side.

First, a look at the shipping traffic on the Mississippi—this cargo ship was actually registered in Singapore.

The ferry runs every half hour, operated by NOLA RTA. The inside looked pretty decent—far better than the old Nanjing Pukou-Xiaguan ferry back in the day.

In just one minute, we were already on the other side. The first thing that came into view after disembarking was this old courthouse!

The two sides of the river have completely different vibes: on the west side is noisy downtown NOLA, while the east side feels like a quiet small town... It immediately reminded me of my time in Kent, Ohio.

And of course, there had to be a church over here too!

Tomb of the Unborn, opposing abortion.

After less than an hour of wandering around, I headed back to catch the return ferry. On the way, I ran into a paddlewheel boat in classic Mark Twain style.

The ferry came to pick us up!

Then suddenly a mountain appeared in front of me—one of Carnival’s cruise ships was sailing out. This was also the first time I had ever seen a cruise ship from such close range.

A shot of downtown New Orleans from mid-river.

Heading Back

This is where I had dinner: Cochon—French for “pig.”

On the way back to the hotel, I passed this famous spot—South Diamond Street and North Diamond Street. If you think about it the right way, maybe digging straight down in the middle would uncover a diamond mine!

Along the way I also spotted a Kangaroo Coffee. I had wanted to go in and get a drink, only to find it closed... After staying two more days, I realized that lots of restaurants in New Orleans have minds of their own—many are closed one or two fixed days each week. And unfortunately, the odds of running into that were especially high during my stay from 25-28. My luck was really something else.

Summary

It was getting late, so that wraps up my first day in NOLA. Stay tuned for the next installment, hehe!