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Kingston
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Kingston Kingston's city life is among the best - and the worst - in the Caribbean. There are excellent restaurants, first class hotels and great shopping deals - try the Chelsea Galleries or the Sovereign Shopping Centre. Kingston is not cheap! The city has a few excellent museums, such as Devon House, the National Gallery, or the Arawak museum. Bob Marley fans are in luck. Kingston has the one and only Bob Marley Museum (Bob Marley was a Reggae legend who died at the tender age of 39.) Most of Jamaica seems to follow Bob's lifestyle. The recent rise of criminal (gangster) musicians is purely a Kingston invention. On the other hand, Jamaica has some outstanding Christian musicians (some people call them "Gospel" musicians), but most Jamaican music that makes it onto CDs is pretty moronic rap music, doper music, or stuff like Bob M. Kingston is also the home of the Jamaica Campus of the University of the West Indies. This is not the centre of western intellect, though! UWI will remind one of Baghdad U in the way it bends reality to fit local perceptions - especially of anything that might have "Black" content. Psychology majors at UWI, for example, like to explore the use of herb to enhance the Black Experience. Jamican intelligencia will tend to support the assinine Palestinians or Ethiopians in any discussions of history. Kingston has a magnificent, smelly harbour full of lethal jellyfish. In the harbour you can visit Fort Charles which has protected Jamaica against invaders since 1655. Port Royal is the former pirate hangout, now restored as yacht moorage and, naturally, a bar.
The backside of Kingston consists of vast shanty towns with open sewers called by such colorful local nicknames as Dungle, Somalia, and Zimbabwe. Some residents are severely sociopathic and hostile, and outsiders ought not go to these areas without additional security. These areas are not for sight-seeing!
Adventurous types will be able to venture into the "downtown" parts of Kingston during the day if they feel confident picking their way through a sea of aggressive street-side vendors (called "higglers"). One should take normal defensive moves against pick-pockets and street hustlers. Don't carry a purse or wallet. Jamaican women keep their cash clenched in their fist, and woe to anyone who tries to take it! Do likewise.
The "greens" might say that Castleton Botanical Gardens, Hope Botanical Gardens and the Caymanas Park are the lungs of the city. In truth, all of Jamaica is an explosion of botanical wonders. Castleton is a wonderland of flowers and shrubs, Caymanas has horse racing on Wednesday, Saturday and holidays. There are no decent beaches in Kingston; the nearest being Hellshire Beach (1/2-hr SW of Kingston). World class cricket matches occur in Kingston, and there's lots of good football (soccer), too. Jamaica has almost made it to the World Cup several times. Live outdoor theatre is especially entertaining. There's no reggae concerts anywhere; most reggae is by small house-bands, and it tends to be mixed with ska and Trinidad calypso in tourist areas. Jamaicans like to dumb things down so their pop music can be as moronic as their spoken English. But the rhythm is great. The dancing is excellent. The churches are filled with awesome voices on Sunday. Juicers will be thrilled to find that you can get juiced 24-hours a day in Kingston, and there's lots of really pretty, but humourless, dancing girls in most bars. Cocaine and hookers abound (watch out! there be dragons!). It's hard to think of a good reason to go to Kingston, but perhaps if you're a salt-cod salesman from Newfoundland, or a UN consultant, you might want to stop in here to locate some prospects.
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