My second day in New Orleans began with a phone call informing me that my complimentary breakfast was ready in the courtyard. After breakfast I explored the French Quarter and located 722 Toulouse Street where Tennessee Williams once lived. Then I found the LaLaurie Mansion which is famous in local folklore. I also walked further downriver on Royal Street and found the Old Ursuline Convent and the Beauregard-Keyes House.
At 10:00 a.m. it was time for the Saint Louis Cemetery No. 1 Tour which I signed up for the previous day. I might have been able to visit this cemetery on my own but it is north of North Rampart Street which is supposed to be a bad neighborhood. The tour was conducted by Haunted History Tours and left from Rev. Zombie’s Voodoo Shop, at 723 St. Peter Street. The sun was very fierce this day and I got sunburnt. On the other days when it was a little cloudy the weather was not that bad. It would be very warm but not really hot. Saint Louis Cemetery No. 1 is the closest cemetery to the French Quarter and probably the most famous of the cemeteries.
The tour ended around Noon and I walked to Crescent City Books where I bought a copy of Tennessee Williams play “Fugitive Kind“. It was just a New Directions paperback and not a collectible book. I continued my book shopping at Arcadian Books & Prints which was a very cramped book store. However I managed to find the Japanese novels and took a chance on “And Then (Sorekara)” by Natsume Soseki. I took my purchases back to my hotel room. It was very convenient to have my hotel near to where I did most of my shopping because it meant I did not have to carry things around all day. I had an iced coffee at the nearby Community Coffee House. This became my favorite way to slake my thirst without spending a lot of money or ruining my dinner plans.
At around 2:30 p.m. it was time for a cruise on the Steamboat Natchez. I bought a ticket earlier in the day. The Steamboat Natchez departed from the Toulouse Street Wharf. I sat at the back of the ship overlooking the paddlewheel. I was sitting next to some French tourists. I could tell they were French because they had French travel guides for Louisiana. I’ve bought a few of the Routard travel guides myself to familiarize myself with French travel guide vocabulary. One of the French tourists had a huge video camera, the kind you lift to your shoulder with a large microphone wind screen. I thought he was a TV cameraman since his gear was too professional for a tourist. The steamboat cruise lasted two hours and I took lots of photos. We passed a Navy ship, cargo ships, ferries, tugboats and an oil refinery which looked very surreal, like an industrial forest of steel smoke stacks. When the Steamboat Natchez returned to its dock a Carnival cruise ship pulled out so I got many photos of that ship.
I did not have dinner on the steamboat because I was warned that the food would be mediocre. Instead I walked to Canal Street and then took the St. Charles Avenue streetcar to Julia Street. From there I walked several blocks towards the river to find Mulate’s Restaurant, a Cajun restaurant. I ordered two Louisiana Lemonades and the Cajun Grilled Seafood Platter. The two cocktails were enough to make me a little drunk. The seafood platter was a lot of food but I was hungry enough to eat most of it including a delicious baked potato. Unfortunately there wasn’t any live music or dancing. Mulate’s Restaurant is famous as a Cajun dance hall in New Orleans but it was quite dead while I was there with only a few customers.
Instead of taking the streetcar, I walked back to Canal Street and crossed Lafayette Square where I took a few photos. On my way back to my hotel I stopped at Walgreen’s again and bought Pepto-Bismo, shoe insoles, and a small notebook. Later that evening I walked downriver to Frenchmen Street and found Yuki Izakaya, a Japanese bar that really celebrates Japanese culture. I ordered the crab dumplings but I didn’t like them. I don’t think I care for Asian dumplings. They taste like something wrapped in wet cardboard. I was given chopsticks but I found them easy to use as long as I didn’t separate the sticks.
