Where's this?
 

Online photo, no context.

https://i.imgur.com/ucNyXyb.jpg

Not a test or a game. I'm genuinely curious. I often come across urban photos online that I can't place, so I thought I'd create this thread as a one-stop shop for mining the knowledge of the SSP hive mind.

My guess would be Calgary.

Yup Calgary.

Thanks. And wild, I just couldn't place it. I was thinking somewhere in one of those cities in the southern US with ornamental streetcar lines running through their downtowns, but I couldn't make out a store name to Google. Edit: I see the "Express Cafe," but I feared it might be too generic to pinpoint the location.

The elevated LRT platform is very Calgary to me, and multiple stations have a similar curved glass awning.

Okay, this one's just for fun. Where's this?

https://i.imgur.com/nMtVeMs.jpg

Taiwan somewhere. Probably near Taoyuan airport

For Calgary, the LRT line was a big clue for me, but also the architecture.

Right country, but wrong city and airport.

Architecture and the mountains/foliage in the background definitely say China. The writing on the taxi would suggest it's not a Chinatown in some Western country. Not enough distinguishing features for me to find an actual place in China though.

China? CHINA?!!!! No, no, not the country of China, but rather, the country of Taiwan. Being that Taiwan is a country.

Songshan Airport is a regional airport in Taipei situated right inside the city. It's not quite as dramatic as old Kai Tak in Hong Kong was (I flew there once!), but you do get stirring views from the ground like this.

https://www.google.ca/maps/@25.06823...7i16384!8i8192

Some of you may laugh, but I lived in Taiwan for six years, and the sight of the green corrugated steel of the shanty-like structure next to the temple that you see when you click on the Street View link just hit me in the emotional solar plexus. I miss that island a lot.

For me the Hyatt was immediately identifiable. Without that I'd just be guessing.

I specifically remember the Hyatt from seeing it shortly after it was built... I was in Calgary for the 2000 Grey Cup and I remember thinking it was interesting that Calgary had this nice, big new hotel tower at a time when there were hardly any big downtown hotels going up in Canada.

I don't think it's aged all that well, though... there are some buildings in that 20-25 year old range that still look very current, but the Hyatt is looking a bit dated.

Republic of China. He's not wrong ;)

Completely apropos of this, can anyone figure out the joke in this photo?

https://i.imgur.com/TZrfVMZ.jpg

Can anyone who doesn't know the Chinese language figure it out...? Just so we don't waste our time ;) (I'm almost sure it's about the fact that she's inadvertently blocking some of the characters in the writing, thus changing the meaning of the sentence to something else. But I can't go beyond that!)

BTW nice thread idea. I'd never have guessed Calgary, that pic is much grittier (it's probably partly the lighting) than I'd have expected.

Yeah, not fair, too niche. She's inadvertently blocking out the character for "people" with her hand and two characters that China uses for "republic" with her head.

The end result? This woman in Beijing was photographed against a backdrop proclaiming "Long Live the Republic of China" (aka Taiwan).

Heh heh.

By the way, this isn't supposed to be a vanity thread for my own amusement. I thought it would be a good place for anyone to throw up photos of places they can't pinpoint.

Actually a second after posting I realized I could in fact go beyond where I'd stopped: it was extremely easy to guess that she was blocking the "People's" part and thus changing "PRC" to "RoC" (Taiwan). What else could it have been?

(The "long live..." part wasn't guessable, though.)

In all fairness I think most Calgarian forumers were very disappointed with the Hyatt from day one ... albeit it does interact nicely with Stephan Ave as discussed in the facadism thread.