7. Birds: There are a lot of seagulls here (they're very rare in Kansas City). I presume that's because of all the lakes? I also have seen only 1 House sparrow and just 2 Starlings so far. I did see 2 magpies in a shopping center parking lot across the street from me. I've never seen magpies in a parking lot before. Also, some of the "crows" I've seen look pretty big, I think they might even be Ravens.
8. A short while ago I went to this outlet mall
here. There were only 2 empty storefronts, one was a Sak's "Off 5th" store that was quite big, and the other was a very small storefront (might have been a jewelry store or something). Been a while since I've seen a mall with so few vacancies. Also, there was a fair amount of people in there for a Thursday night.
9. It seems like half the population here consists of immigrants. Gotta be close, at least.
10. These two buildings
here looked kinda cool. It would be neat to have a whole bunch of towers like that lining that road in the same area, would make a cool-looking "gateway" to the city from the south.
11. The Red River looks like it's kinda shallow.
12. There are two good bookstore chains: Chapters and Indigo. In the US we've long ago been reduced to just one: Barnes & Noble.
13. The traffic at rush hour is horrendous. Could be some of the worst I've experienced. Some of these major roads are just screaming to have streetcars or some sort of light rail along them. Though I suppose at least that shows that a lot of people are still working in offices downtown, as opposed to telecommuting.