Morning ride finished with a ferry up the Saigon river to Ho Chi Minh City. Suddenly I feel like I’m back in Toronto. It’s 30 and humid, the city is tall and lit, people are strolling public boulevards enjoying the evening breeze. LRT construction is causing semi-permanent traffic headaches.

It makes me think we’re all living in a time of cities. One almost interchangeable for the next, save for the few traces of traditions past that add up to “local flavour.” Here, for example, rather than the usual photo of Ho Chi Minh standing 30 feet high in bronze athwart City Hall, his back is turned to us. Instead Uncle Ho gazes with us into the future, his gesture almost bidding this 21st century metropolis into existence. Much like Adam Beck on University Avenue…

Which is to say, I suppose, that I came here looking for The Revolution, and found instead The Future. It’s bright. And I don’t understand it at all. But I’m so glad I came all this way to see it.