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Published: February 6th 2012
New York in monochrome
opposite the MetropolitanI left accompanied by Eri, my Japanese co-worker, on a late Friday evening after work taking a Greyhound bus leaving the brandnew bus terminal at Berri-Uqam in Montreal. With snow lying around everywhere and the forecast of (much) more snow over the Christmas days, it felt like I was cheating out of a white Christmas by going to New York, as the forecasted temperature there was way above freezing. Oh well, another day perhaps. It didn't take long to get to the 24 hr
Blackpool border crossing, a time we spent playing Monopoly on my Ipad2. The lady driving the bus felt it was needed to give us a VERY detailed explanation of the border crossing procedure and everything that might come along with it. I wish I had recorded it coz it was funny like &*%!^(MISSING)!
Apparently, at all times, we were to look at the ground (NEVER EVER look the officers straight in the eye..) and remain quiet at ALL times... From the moment the door opened, she would have no 'control' over us and we would be to the 'mercy' of the border and custom officers. etc. etc. All in that long, slow stretched American accent...
After more than
one and a half hours at the border, where we were the last ones back in the bus (as we were sitting in the far back, plus the officers were giving Eri some extra scrutiny since her Canadian visa was to expire in late January) we were back on our way, heading south along the I-87 (a.k.a. Adirondack Northway) towards Albany. Eri tried to sleep some, but I couldn't so stayed up playing games and what not. It was around 4 a.m. when the bus pulled into New York states' capital, Albany. Once called Fort Nassau, the first settlement of the Dutch in North America, it features an old building perched on a hill (capitol building?) that welcomes you as one enters the city proper. After a brief 15 minute stop after which we nearly missed the bus (we were given a re-boarding ticket with a number on it that was going to be announced, however, our number never came up, plus the people in the back of the bus didn't care to mention to the driver that the two back seats were empty......) we continued along the Hudson river towards New York City.
We drove into the city
just as the sun was getting up from its trip around the world (or our trip around the sun...) I tried taking a picture but that proved kinda hard from the moving bus. We dove down into the Lincoln tunnel and ended in downtown NYC at the other end. The station on 42nd street seemed a bit rundown and with no ticket booth (!) we had a little hard time buying a metro ticket. We had to resort to using Eri's bankcard to buy two $2.5 single tickets to 103rd street station where our hotel was located. I noticed straight away the dilapitated subway system in NY. Very old, dirty and rustic indeed and much in need of a heavy make-over! After a little confusion as to which way to walk coming out of the station at 103rd street, we soon found our Moroccan-themed hotel. Our room, small but comfortable, had a lovely view into a dark and damp alleyway full of horny pigeons. The room was nailed shut so fresh air wasn't going to be had when in the room. We dumped our bag, had a quick shower to wash mr. sandman out of our eyes (although I had
had no sleep whatsoever) so we could get out and explore the Big Apple.
We made our way three block east, crossing Amsterdam Avenue (Dutch history everywhere) into Central Park. Opened in 1857 and currently managed with an annual budget of $37.4 million dollar, it runs all the way from 110th street in the north to 59th street in the south. We walked the lenght of it... and a bit more... In fact we walked ALL day! During our walk through the park me and Eri had some funny conversations that ended up in me learning the word 'shinkasu' which translates to something like 'dickdust'.... LOL.... Our first stop as we entered downtown on 5t Avenue was the Rockfeller centers' huge Christmas tree and its adjoining skating rink. As we were feeling hungry, we then had a pitstop in a great deli with fantastic but cheap food. Our energy levels back up, we continued south and found another skating rink at Bryant park. Surrounded by skyscrapers but with little kiosks selling hot chocolate and the likes, it's a funny sensation of being in the city with one foot, but in a rustic little town with the other, as old
From the top of the rock
The red and green building is the Empire State building style American music was being played over the speakers.
We then headed slightly west to Times Square and marveled at the flashing neon lights and billboards. What was really funny, the top, most prominent billboard opposite where the ball is, displayed Chinese advertisement for as long as we were there. Most prominent were Xinhua news agency and the CNC, with lots of ads for Chinese companies and agencies in between. Of course there were throngs of people like I assume there are every day coersing their way among the many yellow (hybrid nowadays) cabs. We stood watching one billboard in particular, as it showed adds for a computer game company that we indirectly both work for, unfortunately 'our' game did not show 😞
It had been a balmy 8 degrees that day, in the sun it really felt like spring, but as the end of the afternoon approached we were getting much colder. That combined with regularly needed toilet breaks during that long day we walked made us visit quite a few coffee shops that day... We walked further south still from Times square, making our way to the LGBT neighbourhood of NYC; Greenwich village. Here, a statue
New York..
..as seen from across The Lake in Central Park of two men and two women congregated together in a small park mark the center of the NYC gay village. We even went into the trouble of finding 'gay street', just to have the picture of the streetsign he he.
With Eri's arm neatly tucked into mine, we walked (looking like a couple) further south towards the place where the old twin towers stood. Now the site of a memorial and the new WTC nearing completion. I took some pictures of the skyscrapers being built as we speak (or type really) and received some brochures from the activists that occupy a part of the street where it all happened, now more than 10 years ago. Even up to this day, an activists group tries to inform people on the USA governments' wrongdoings, not only with the whole '9/11' affair but also concerning economy (or the lack of it) and tax affairs. Among the stuff given to me was a fake $1 banknote informing the public that the federal reserve is actually a private banking cartel led by the Rockefeller group. I also received a receipt for the US department of defense, showing the cost of the Iraq war by
month, totalling $251.000.000.000.00 from March '03 till April '06. All very interesting stuff, I find. We had planned to see the memorial but with advanced tickets needed and the treatment of visitors by security staff, we decided against it. Instead we walked a little further east along Wall street ending up at the Wall street pier looking towards Brooklyn just as the sun was giving the sky behind it an orange glow as to say goodbye to east coast USA. We had seen a Japanese restaurant a few blocks back on a side street and decided we had earned ourselves some warm Saki. (We were cold by then) We drank our Saki with some Sushi and Sashimi and it was soo good! Yummy! Eri taught me to say 'to to to to to' when the other person empties his/her glass, meaning 'raise your cup so I can pour you another one' (or something like it). It was a long and exhausting day, but worth it! We crashed at the hotel with some wine on that Christmas eve and had a good sleep into Christmas day...
On December 25th we had a bit of a sleep-in, as especially Eri felt
her muscles after the previous days' walk. We took a subway to Chinatown where we ate a fantastic lunch consisting of half a duck, rice, not-as-spicy-as-we-were-told chicken and a beer. We walked back north for a bit after that but still tired from the day previous we didn't make it too far. Opting for a subway back to the Rockefeller center seemed a good choice as we wanted to see the sunset from the top of the rock. Unfortunately it was tickets in advance again, so we bought one for later that afternoon at half past 5. Killing time in between, we walked back along 5th Av. to Central Park where we enjoyed a take away coffee and observed the horse-and-carriages riding tourists around the park. Back at 'the top of the rock' we entered the elevator after being directed by security staff to stand in neat lines (I though China was a police state..) and shot up to the 67th floor. A glass ceiling and elongated neon lights along the interior of the lift shaft are there to give the visitor the feeling of being shot into space. Pretty cool. The views at nighttime are amazing, obviously. We took
another elevator to the 69th floor from where we walked to the absolute top of the building; the 70th 'floor'. From there an unobstructed and awe inspiring view over Manhattan and its twinkling lights awaits anybody who dares to brave the freezing wind at this time of year. With the green and red lights of the Empire State building and the black Hudson river far below it really is a great city. We experimented a little taking pictures of each other as somehow Eri's pictures of me were all succesfull whereas mine of her somehow didn't come out quite as well. When I suggested it might be the clothes we were wearing, we decided to swap jackets. (actually I was standing 260 meters above street level in December wearing just a shirt while Eri was wearing my warm jacket he he) This worked! After a warning by a (very cold) security guard as Eri was too close to the edge to his liking and swapping our jackets back to its rightful owner, we made our way back down again. Back on streetlevel, we had just half an hour left before our dinner reservation at Russian Samovar, suggested to us by
a colleague. The restaurant was close however and we arrived on the dot. Starting with a small vodka, mine a peach blended one and hers a regular, we moused over the menu and each decided on our own dish. I went with a regular Beef Stroganoff while Eri chose a prawn stuffed piece of Salmon. Over pre-dinner bread we contemplated our day and the next while sipping on white wine. How Splendid! (that's between me and Eri lol) Our dishes were served and really, her salmon looked and tasted amazing. Slightly sweet, but crispy and just so full of flavour. My Stroganoff was good too, but it cooled down too quickly and it missed to 'ahw...mmm...' if you know what I mean. Stuffed and satisfied, we had planned to walk back to the hotel. After about 300 meters I followed Eri into a subway station... The remainder of the evening we spent drinking wine and continuing our unfinished Monopoly game back at the hotel.
On Boxing day we made our way to the
Guggenheim museum through Central Park again after getting up and buying a coffee. Although small, the building in itself is pretty cool with its rotating shape. We
duly paid our $22 and entered the main exhibition, this time by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan. All of his previous work had been collected and hung on the ceiling portreying all his work at once. Dangling on ropes in the main gallery, it was viewable from each level as you walk the rotating building up to each floor. Some funny, some slightly macaber, some endearing, it really was very interesting to see all this random stuff hanging on ropes. To give you an idea of the stuff there: taxidermied horses, dogs and what not, an old women all red cheeked from the cold peering out from within a fridge, a statue of the pope with a large rock on him... Interesting chap, this Maurizio fella... The other exhibitions included some well known painters including Van Gogh, Picasso and Gauguin.
As we walked out we passed the Metropolian museum that we planned to visit as well. It was open especially for the occasion of Christmas day. We decided to return the next day however. Instead we saundered south again, onto the busy streets of downtown New York. We spent some time looking for the same deli we ate at on
our first day. There Eri and me enjoyed a Pastrami sandwich and a burger and fries respectively.
As we were near Times square and it was getting dark, we realised it was a perfect time to take some nightshots of the luxury car, sexy lingerie, broadway shows and other products and services- selling billboards, illuminating the yellow hues of throngs of hybrid taxies. Combinated with the buzzing sounds of hundreds of people, a setting sun just about visible between the skyscrapers and the general experience of being in a metropole, we had climbed to the top of the stage on the (not so big) square where if anywhere in the city, Times Square is THE place where you can get that 'I'm in New York City' kinda feeling.
Part of the evening we spent at the hotel where Eri had set up a picnic of the stuff we had bought earlier. We had a baguette, a lovely prosciutto and cheese roll, a salad and of course a bottleof wine.
On our last day , the same day we had to board a bus back to Canada, we left our bags safely at the hotel. We then made
our way through Central park with a coffee again, this time to the huge and grand
Metropolitan museum of Art. The $25 entrance fee is actually a suggested fee, as we learned from the friendly elderly couple from New Jersey that were visiting with their Vietnamese-adopted grandchilderen. So like most other people we paid $10 each for a badge to wrap around our clothes that served as an entrance ticket. (You can pay $0.10 yes) We entered the Egyptian hall first with its huge statues and marble coffins. As my appreciation speed was probably a little faster than Eri's, we split up now and then to meet up again at random corners. I strolled the Egyptian and Roman hall where among the statues and art were (mostly Asian) art students dotted around drawing up what they saw in their portfolios.
There weren't as many paintings as we had expected (or as Eri had hoped for) but the lack of paintings was made up by the amount of authentic artwork from around the world. The Africa hall, next to the Oceania hall, competed with each other in woodcarved masks and penis sheats displayed, surrounding the large boats and longhouses. The Asian hall on
the second or third floor was by all accounts huge, showing artwork from the Indonesian archipelago to Emperial China and everything in between and beyond. Tons of wood-work and carvings, buddha and other religious statues and lots of ancient weaponry and the likes. Other halls included the European- contemporary and modern art halls where I saw these striking portrets of two men. We had anticipated that our planned 4 hours would be an adequate time for our museum visit, but as our leaving time appeared on the horizon, wee realized it wasn't even close to that. This museum, if you include a lunch, could easily take up a whole day! It is huge and impressive and definitwely worth the price. (which is whatever you think it is...)
As we walked out, we could hear the rain outside from within the hallway. It was pising down! We were aware of the forecast but that had been for the end of the evening, not the end of the afternoon! Now our hotel was on the other side of Central Park so to take a bus would mean you'd have to take one right around.. plus we didn't know which routes etc.
So we decided to run for it, dash through the park and pick up our bags from the hotel... Wow... we got soaked so quickly! We followed a road that sliced through the park with a tunnel where we had hoped to shelter from the rain a little. As we ran towards it we saw the huge pools of water at the bottom of the tunnel. Just then a car passed through a smaller puddle splashing rainwater all over the sidewalk where we were, soaking mostly Eri's jeans. Although feeling cold, wet and miserable, it was still hilarious. We managed to get to the other side of the tunnel without getting showered completely by looking out for cars and then quickly running past these puddles. In the end we clambered inside a subway station to take us 1 station up the road to our hotel, thinking since the ticket has a validaty of 2 hours, we could use it to get back to 42nd street on the same ticket after picking up or bag. (think again) The hotel clerk handed our bags over as we were wiping the rain out of our faces and hair. We really were very wet!
Back down inside the metro station we found out the ticket's validaty meant you have to use it within 2 hours, however it only valid for one journey, on different lines! So we had to buy another ticket to get back into downtown...
Eri still had some gift shopping to do after which we spent our last hour eating dinner at a deli near the busstation. I ate a huge Buffalo burger (that's made of bizon meat, yeah) and Eri had a ... which we swallowed down with a beer. Slightly dried up and feeling better, we made our way to the station where a line had already assembled. We were in good time however, in much better time than the next two hundred or so people that joined the queue. Luckily a couple of buses were on standbye for the trip to Montreal, of which we occupied the first one. Leaving in time, we stopped back at Albany again, this time without any bus-missing affairs. At the border we first stopped at the duty-free before going through the much easier and quicker Canadian customs office. Back in the clean and great busstation in Montreal at 5:30 in the
morning we said goodbye and I went home to sleep, since it was back to work again that day...
A great little trip, thank you Eri for your company!
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