Guess the City

hey hey hey!

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.6558293,66.9642106,3a,75y,94.6h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipPaUtHBSFUv0G4gg7eRDWAjryx5wjwuDWdyb8oO!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipPaUtHBSFUv0G4gg7eRDWAjryx5wjwuDWdyb8oO%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi0-ya194.80452-ro-0-fo100!7i8704!8i4352

An impressive showing.

crazy

I've been to Samarkand but I don't recognize that area. Didn't venture far beyond the Registan.

I was going to guess Ashgabat, figuring it would be somewhere between the Caspian and the stans/Chinese border

I'm impressed by how well travelled people are too tbh.

lol yeah I think i'm just jealous of everyones insane travel knowledge.

I've been to Samarkand but I don't recognize that area. Didn't venture far beyond the Registan.

― joni mitchell jarre (anagram), Tuesday, 26 January 2021 16:47 (six hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

posts that need a beat

Here's an easy one

Just screen-grabbed a photo bc it was so lovely to look at

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50878668013_36474bc7c3_h.jpg

Monaco?

Yep, that's got to be Monte Carlo. Stock photos are too easy. :)

Lemme try another:

https://i.imgur.com/srdvqTS.png

Pretty distinctive pink building that looks like a church, well maintained while everything else looks a bit decrepit. I'll take a wild guess at somewhere in Africa, maybe former French or Portuguese colony

Intrigued by the anchor crosses on the building behind the church (if it is a church). Sadly I can't nail down any organisation that uses an anchor cross as their symbol. But it is used by Methodist missionaries - which might go with the fact that the "church" doesn't look Catholic (no stained glass windows, too austere). Which might rule out my initial thought of Francophone or Lusophone Africa.

why am I googling pink churches - what's Google going to think of me now?

i could easily be wrong but the two entrances suggests its a mosque to me...

no visible crosses either

looks more like a church than a mosque to me but yes, no crosses

anyway a lot of cities feature both lol

Looks like French Switzerland to me... is it Basel? Lausanne?

if that's true I have been wildly misled by the mural and the anchors

I was noting the brands of cars, the particular quality of the trim, and the fact that Basel and Switzerland are the 'grotty' Swiss cities (rich kids who are into Emma Goldman)

*Basel and Lausanne, that is

Something about it says southern hemisphere to me, maybe the roof of the building on the right but thats very tentative

window AC = not europe. but the grafitti makes me think not asia. i think it's south america somewhere. santiago?

graffiti on wall ends "her" which certainly suggests someplace where Roman script is used.

hey hey hey!

https://www.google.com/maps/@-17.5434455,-149.573821,3a,75y,258.17h,99.47t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sAF1QipO2FTstMNMar_NldxyiZU4t4uAxGmKp9YTtHmCU!2e10!3e11!7i7680!8i3840

Papeete

bien fait damn

Correct!

Colour me impressed x infinity.

xp

tell us your secret, cherry blossom!

I thought it was south Pacific straightaway from the church/roof but nothing more than that. Initial thought it was Noumea and couldn't see beyond there. I couldn't think of anywhere else french and polynesian other than Tahiti and there's only about 12 churches in Papeete on google maps

whence the French connection tho?

seriously. I did idly think "looks like Hawaii" but never got much further than ruling out Hawaii

It kind of felt French too / I subconsciously think of most of Polynesia as French / Zelda Zonk with the assist

WOW I'm so impressed cb

That big tree-- not an arborist, don't know the species-- but it doesn't look European in retrospect, at all

idk why it "looks French", something about that red car and les camions, can't identify the makes but it just said "Franch" at me

merci et chapeau, cb!

how about this one then?

https://i.imgur.com/Tx42CO5.jpeg

it's Thames Town in Shanghai

ha, really thought I was being sneaky with that one

You were. I did suspect an ersatz but my google-fu was foiled nonetheless.

ha, I immediately thought it had to be some faux-European project in China (with Japan as a second option, but there it's more in the form of amusement parks, I think). (well, the first thing I googled was of course the Elephant House/Euro (or Buro?) Fashion combo, turns out EH is a Harry Potter thing, I had no idea)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thames_Town

this paper has a photo that's very similar to the one CaAL posted: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3544032
(see Figure 9)

it was an odd place and surprisingly hard to find (nobody in Shanghai had heard of it) - here is my alternate view photo.

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

I’m reasonably familiar with Shanghai, but I haven’t heard of it either. Not that that means anything, it’s... quite a big place.

Wait... does "Thames Town" really qualify as a city?

Shanghai certainly does

lol, i've been to thames town and would never have made the connection from either posted photo, nice job.

what gives it away for me are the air conditioners.

now that you mention it, they may have subconsciously tipped me off

Is the "Elephant House" supposed to an olde time English pub?