/cyber/ - Cyberpunk & Science Fiction

I'm a big fan of night walks. I often go out, light a cig and stroll by the roads. I live in a shit hole small city. Too dangerous to go into some areas because thugs and every building is just a grey concrete square and grimy flat blocks that look like they've been through the dust storm of a nuclear bomb. If you are lucky you might see a hobo bleeding out but still has the lucidity to ask you for your pennies. The only building made after the 70's being an architecturally "artsy" looking shopping mall. It's often windy. So I walk, smoke a cigarette. Find a bench, just take it all in listening to my cypunk playlist, wishing a nuke would actually flatten my city then walk around some more or mosey back home. It could be worse I guess but it is drab here. I feel compelled to continue my night walks though, an urge I don't feel as much when in the countryside. Ah well.

>>24644

that sounds serene ~ my neighbourhood is mostly asleep after 6pm… It resumes every sunrise except the only place that isn't a bar has been closed for at least a year!

I Live in small town. I would have to take a ferry and a decent length walk to get to a city center.

The night ferry is a piece of shit fishing boat covered in drunks and their puke.

This place is dead during the day as well. I can't even think where the nearest neon sign is, it's all paper open/closed signs.

I've lived here so long I'm worried it might be weird if I ever lived somewhere interesting.

Where I live I'd have to take public transport to get to a decent sized modern city and walk about at night.

>tfw no public transports at night

As you've no doubt heard, Birmingham is a ding dong dickhole and I wouldn't go out at night here if you paid me. People here seem to exist for the sole purpose of decorating the sidewalks with smashed beer bottles and puke. Hobos will follow you for several blocks harassing you for change, only stopping to vomit or sneeze.

In fact, the UK as a whole is slightly unnerving to me. It's like a grinning smiley face stapled to a heartless machine. When you apply to live here, you'll find the dox you need to read in a beguillingly informal, contraction-ridden language, something that stands out harshly against the computerized impersonality of the process.

My hometown's incredible, though. Kuala Lumpur's a canvas of bold contrasts. At least twice a week I'd wind up in the Jalan Pasar electronics town, a greasy third 3rd World Akihabara where young EEfags haggle on parts against pruny Chinese shopkeeps– from explodey MeanWell PSUs to low-tolerance discretes and SOP chips, although weird drokk like prebuilt CCTVs and LED matrix signage also sold like hotcakes. Looking from there to the CBD, you can see the futuristic Petronas Towers looming over rotting colonial era shophouses and HK-esque 60s/70s office low rises. After crossing out every item on the bill of materials, my empty stomach would drag me towards the neon-soaked shopping district for a cheap bowl of noodles and a beer.

Maybe you like dreary suburban expanse? We've got that too. Drive just a little way out and the orange-roofed terrace house nothingness seems to stretch on forever, broken here and there by utilitarian landmarks like the spaghetti junctions of concrete Subang.

It's never legitimately quiet in the heart of the city. Every moment there is a humid, overstimulating mess. The traffic is like a caricature of metropolis living, with complex at-grade intersections that lock up for hours in the rain. Its road system might be of the most elaborate satnav-killers left on the planet; a dying breed as the botnet spiders across the globe.

It's also bizarrely safe: despite living there for over a decade, every encounter I've had with badwrongpeople has been overseas. Maybe it's the fact that the majority of people there teetotal for religious reasons, which moves drunken fuckwits out of the picture.

night walks through the city is one of my favorite things to do. its oddly peaceful, despite the hustle and bustle. Nothing beats seeing the city lights and life while listening to your /cyber/ playlist. Some highlights for me have been Shanghai and Hong Kong. Those are two incredibly /cybercities/ in my opinion. There are a lot of space age buildings next to slums, and the income inequality is staggering. The night is always alive as well. One time in Shenzhen I brought some fruit and sat down with a homeless man and his monkey, just watching the people go by with him. We didn't speak the same language but we seemed to have a connection. It was surreal. Another time I was exploring Aberdeen in Hong Kong, which was surprisingly quiet (relatively– the population density is huge) and I walked through the docks and saw all the tanks filled with the day's catch. Continuing on I found the run down apartment highrises, and then the shantytowns on the side of the mountain. I looped around the island to get to HK central and the cityscape suddenly changed to an ultramodern utopia.

Shanghai was something totally different. It was a mix of space age and victorian architecture, populated by either the super rich or super poor. The night life was incredible (although I generally stay away from that, I did go to a few clubs to observe what it was like) and then of course I had to dodge the triads because I'm a gweilo.

TL;DR China made my Deus Ex fantasies come true.

I haven't quite had the same feeling of tranquility and awe when walking through cities in the USA. I'm in Pittsburgh currently so I think I'll go for a walk tonight.

>>19915

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>ITT: share your experiences when alone in the city at night, preferably during quieter evenings.

I have not had many quiet evenings in cities.

Some of the most "cyberpunk" feelings I have had took place in the USA. Driving around abandoned Rust Belt factories and canals under orange sodium lights was like something from a cyberpunk story.

I have had some quiet, moody scooter rides at night in Taiwan. Riding through dim alleys, and then coming out to a high-rise complex bedecked with garish neon, with not a soul around - that was breath-taking.

But most of my city nights have been rather loud. The night markets are "ren nao" - i.e. a hurly-burly hub-bub of raucous humanity - buying, eating, flirting, smoking.

It sucks that the trains usually don't run after midnight or so, but there are compensations. Sometimes, coming out of a nightclub, exhiliarated by techno electronica music, one hops into a cab and marvels at the luxury of riding in a fast car along an empty street. The train is usually crowded and it takes a rather long time; a taxi at 3 a.m. doesn't need to fight traffic, and it has prettier scenery.