Our visit to Columbia, South Carolina lasted a week and a half. We have come to really like this city. The downtown is larger than our hometown’s downtown without being overwhelming. There are dozens of restaurant options and when staying downtown (like we did) most of them are within walking distance. Since we are still in the middle of a certain little global health situation (ahem), we did not brave public dining very often. Likewise, we did not investigate the street fair/food truck rally on Main Street this time. It happens every Saturday from 9:00am-1:00pm (rain or shine). When the world is normal again, we will be testing out those food trucks with empty stomachs and unbridled glee.
When we first arrived in town, we decided to check out Decker Boulevard. This two-mile stretch is known as Columbia’s International Corridor. There are restaurants (and other businesses) here from China, Korea, Libya, Mexico and more.
We had skipped breakfast and saw a particularly high concentration of Korean restaurants. Korean Garden was highly rated online so, that became our experiment of choice for lunch. For most of the meal we were the only non-Asian diners. That’s always a good sign. Our server, sweet as she was, spoke very limited English so, we couldn’t get a lot of guidance on the menu. We kind of “wussed” out and got fried rice. We were pleasantly surprised though, when they delivered 10 small dishes of goodies for us to add to our fried rice. We Googled each item as best we could. There were lots of pickled items and versions of radishes.
The fried rice was already awesome since it had liberal amounts of shrimp, beef, pork, chicken and veggies. Adding some of the mystery ingredients definitely kicked things up a notch. Yes, there were a few ingredients that we disliked. “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll finish that stuff if you finish this stuff.” Overall, though, we enjoyed adding new flavors to a familiar entrée. We did get one recommendation from our server: homemade, fried dumplings. She was right. Amazing! The experience turned out to be a bit of a wallet-buster, but we had leftovers!
We checked into our junior suite at the Columbia Marriott and investigated the indoor pool. It seemed a bit strange to me, but I am from Florida. We are used to our pools being outside under the unrelenting sun. I guess if you live somewhere that has a mini-winter (like South Carolina) you have to build your pool inside if you want to use it year-round.
The next day, while Mr. HomeFree worked, I re-explored one of my favorite places in Columbia. This is going to sound strange, but I love their State House grounds. There are four different paved walking paths of varying lengths. Several mornings I exercised with the locals out there. The other cool thing is that the paths weave through a sculpture garden that I love. I get easily distracted by the statues, so I try to make my first loop the educational one where I stop to read the plaques. That way, I am not getting completely distracted on subsequent loops and some actual exercising can occur.
I realize that not everyone will agree with me here but, to me, this is a place that is handling their history well. Yes, there are monuments to Confederates (including a stunning one to Confederate women) and to Strom Thurmond. These subjects are being looked at with renewed scrutiny these days. However, they also have an Armed Forces monument, a law enforcement monument and (my personal favorite) a well done African American history monument. Rather than just stick one statue of a black guy in the middle of a bunch of statues of white guys, the city thought this monument through. It is a dignified, broad-based approach (in my humble opinion).
In 2001, the city dedicated the African American History monument. This puts them nearly two decades ahead of the current nationwide movement for a more equitable representation of our collective past. Visitors will find an entire area dedicated to this portion of South Carolina history. There is a three-dimensional wrought iron rendering of a packed slave ship, reminiscent of the diagram so many of us have seen in our high school history texts. There is map showing the most common African countries that supplied enslaved people for the South Carolina economy and the routes those ships typically sailed. Most importantly, there is powerful acknowledgement that the history of black people is more than slavery. To accomplish this, the sculptor created two long walls filled with bas-relief bronze figures depicting African American contributions from the 1600s until space exploration. A person, such as myself, could visit this area every time they come to Columbia and always see something different and learn something new.
A few days later we took a walk around “The Horseshoe.” This is the historic portion of the University of South Carolina campus. As a historic preservationist at heart, I was wooed pretty easily by the red brick sidewalks and the former houses (now classroom buildings) that dated back to the 1700s. The area has a look of old Philadelphia about it. You are reminded though, that this place could only be in the South by the majestic oak trees. Those are quintessentially Southern and familiar.
From books, freedom
Columbia is a pretty cool place and I always look forward to rotating through here on our travels. There is quite a bit more we haven’t seen yet. Hopefully next time we won’t have to deal with social distancing and surgical masks.
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