New York

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Sardines

My girlfriend (Mon) and I arrived in Newark, New Jersey. I was there for a wedding, but she and I wanted to see New York. So we took a train to Manhattan, and stayed in a sardine can... err hotel. We stayed at the Washington Jefferson on 51 St. in Manhattan. The hotel was so tiny, it's not even funny. The room we stayed in (and this includes the bathroom) is like the size of a regular walk-in closet.

Air train

Newark International Airport. That's the first US airport I've seen besides LAX. In EWR, they have an "air train". I thought it's a maglev, but it's just a regular monorail.

Manhattan

We took the train to Manhattan and we arrived in Penn Station. She's been to New York before, so it's not new. We took a taxi to our hotel. The driver was a young Indian boy, but he drove like a mad man. It was almost surreal, like it was from the movies.

After we settled into our hotel, we went to Times Square to meet one of Mon's friends. We ate at Applebee's, and we went to see the play "I Am My Own Wife". It was so cold inside the theatre that my head was starting to hurt. Needless to say, I got a headache later. The play wasn't even exciting. I suppose it's interesting to see a one man play, but I easily get confused when one man plays many parts :-(

New York, New York...

The next day, we went to Chinatown, but we ate at a Vietnamese restaurant. We walked around Little Italy. We went to see the Statue of Liberty. We couldn't go inside as all tickets had been sold for that day. We also had a nice walk in Central Park, and we didn't get mugged. Then we went to the financial district. I finally saw Wall Street. Later in the evening, we walked around the Rockefeller building and saw Radio City Music Hall. Then we went to the Empire State building but we didn't go in. I took a picture of Mon and she had this "Mon-a-Lisa" smile. We also went to the 9/11 site. The memorial was still under construction. Then we went to Times Square, and the highlight of the evening was the Romeo comedy hour (I should have sold tickets!). We went into the Toy R Us store and the hilarity began when for whatever reason, I started to do a Zigfried and Roy impersonation. We laughed so hard that night. Then we stopped by the Ed Sullivan Theatre. A quick picture, and we were done for the night. That's one busy day.

The next day, we went to Union Station. We couldn't find any lockers. "Gee, I wonder why..." I also wanted to see inside the United Nations building, but security was tight. The closest we could get was across the street from it. Afterwards we went back to our hotel to get ready to leave. She was going home, and I was going to Newark for a wedding.

Checkout is 11:00 AM, and so we still had some free time. Her flight was in the afternoon, and Newark is less than an hour away. She wanted to see the sex museum. Damn, that was a waste of time. First of all, it took us forever to find the place, all the while dragging our bags. Second, the museum is expensive (I can't remember the price), and it's only a short walk through two floors worth of erotic art and Chinese cultural erotica. Now it made sense why the advertising outside the building had the "xing" character. The only thing wortwhile about the sex museum is that it's not too far from the iron building. So I finally got to see that.

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