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Published: August 16th 2012
Toys R Us Chaos
A strong coffee, a lot of colour and light and noise and toys. Perfect mix.Travelling West over the Atlantic meant that due to the change in time zones, our day was stretched substantially longer. We got in to New York around 8:30pm which was somewhere around 2am in Swiss time. The we had to navigate the usual shoestring budget methods of getting to our destination (one air-train, one train, three subways, and a long walk through Harlem at 10pm or so). It was very hot and sticky and it had been a really long day so we were drop down exhausted by the time we arrived (around 4am Swiss time!). We hadn't been able to sort a couch surf out, so ended up paying to rent an apartment for the five nights we were there. We were kinda paying to house-sit (and look after two cats) which is odd, but not really in New York where accommodation is at a premium.
The next morning we both woke quite early as our bodies were completely confused about the time zones. We walked down to a nearby juice bar and had some incredibly tasty smoothies. One was a weird mix of seaweed, cashews, celery, spinach, honey and some other things. It sounds odd, but tasted really
nice. We walked down to Central Park and wondered where to go next. We were both so tired, decision making was difficult. We caught the subway downtown, had a cheap enormous American iced coffee and wandered into Toys'R'Us in Times Square. As the coffee kicked in, our moods picked up and a completely OTT (Over The Top) toy shop was the best place for us! Giant animated dinosaurs, life size Lego models of The Hulk, a ferris wheel, and hordes of screaming kiddies were all pretty stimulating. We went back to a Vego place we had noticed earlier and picked up a delicious felafel roll with chips for lunch and then went to the tourist office to get a NY City Pass which for $89 gave us access to The Metropolitan Museum, The Museum of Modern Art, The Guggenheim, The Museum of Natural History, entry to The Empire State Building, and a cruise around the island. Each of the musems are over $20 to get into (bit of a shock after all the free ones in London), so it works out to be very worthwhile.
We then just went wandering around New York, saw the Lego shop, a Lindt
Rockefella
The crazy Lego store is under here. shop, and generally got overwhelmed by the city. We were thinking of doing the cruise tour in the afternoon but it was getting a bit late, so we just went home via the supermarket to cook some dinner.
Sunday, and it seemed the Metropolitan Museum was the place to go. We shared another giant iced coffee between us and then went in. The Metropolitan Museum (The Met) is very big. Chris read somewhere that it's the largest museum in the world - not sure how it compares to The Louvre. We decided to narrow down our viewing in the hope of not being overwhelmed.
Highlights included Dali's painting of a large ear, which also contains the Madonna and child, the obligatory breast-feeding sculpture, a giant sound and light reflecting concave mirror, a and a variety of great stuff from 20th century artists. When we felt like we'd had enough, we went and sat in Central Park for some lunch (and listened to a funky four piece band who were playing).
In the afternoon we jumped on our around the island cruise to see NY from the water. It was a nice relaxing way to see the sights
from a different angle, and hear lots of interesting stories and facts along the way (most of which are of course forgotten within a couple of days). The two new World Trade Centre buildings are growing rapidly. The largest one is around 2/3 of the way up (and already pretty huge). The other one won't be as big (they aren't twins this time). It's amazing seeing just how much has been crammed onto this one island, but there's still quite a lot of greenery up around the Northern end. As we got closer back to our dock, the dark clouds were gathering and it was clear a pretty decent storm was rolling in. Once we were ashore we started walking back towards the subway but then got distracted by a 99c slice of pizza (and who wouldn't be?). Just after eating our way through the pretty decent pizza the rain came belting down and we took refuge in a supermarket (and bought some food at the same time). When it had calmed down enough we went back home, cooked up some dinner and retired early.
Monday morning the plan was to get into Museum of Modern Art around opening
time. We got distracted slightly by pancakes and coffee (we are blaming Erika in Lugano for stretching our stomachs!) We already had tickets, so didn't have to queue for them, but there was a very large and confusing queue for the bag check/drop. Eventually we got inside and started looking around - skimming the dull stuff and enjoying the good stuff.
We had agreed to meet up with an old friend of Chris's (Jaycee) at 2pm thinking this gave us plenty of time, but with the late start, the weird baggage queues, and there being more interesting gear than we expected, we realised we'd be late. Chris went to call Jaycee but found the phone wasn't getting reception. This seemed odd for New York! Even wandering around outside and resetting the phone didn't help. We caught the subway to where we were meant to meet and started wandering around while trying different tricks to get the phone to work. Eventually we bumped into Jaycee and after introductions and explanations went for a walk to a vego Chinese restaurant he liked. It was a long walk, but the food was tasty. After this Jaycee directed us over the Brooklyn Bridge
Freaky Mirror Thing
Concave shape - reflected light and sound. Cool to play around with. and then we randomly ended up a book-reading by Patti Smith and then into a bar for a local beer and more chatting. We then caught the subway back into Times Square to witness the chaos that is Times Square at night - a truly awe-inspiring sight! We then said our goodbyes and went home completely exhausted after a long day's walking!
Tuesday was our last full day in New York, and we had to get through two museums and a trip up the Empire State Buidling today, so it was gonig to be a long one! First stop was the Guggenheim. The main exhibition had some great stuff, and a lot of boring art - "It's a canvase painted black with holes ripped in it to symbolise the interaction between the viewer and the world and what lies behind and... blah blah". Sorry - just had a philistine moment. There was a great special exhibit by Rineke Dijkstra which was photography and video footage of mainly young teenagers. One of the videos was of a group of younger children discussing what they saw in Picasso's "Weeping Woman" (which we as the viewer were not shown). It was really
Got Milk?
Yet more another breastfeeding photo. funny to see their imagination and how they interpreted it. From sad about being lonely, to crying with joy over getting a new sports car, to her possibly being a scary zombie, to maybe Picasso just wanted to paint a person that looks different with bright colours. The artist uses a large format film camera (the negatives are about the size of a postcard!), so the clarity of the portraits is amazing with beautiful colours. Some of the other portraits included photos of Israeli girls in their military uniforms and then in casual clothes, images of women just after birth (they were standing up, which is not what you usually see for photos of women). One even had blood running down one leg.
We then went outside, ate some leftovers and walked across the park to the Natural History Museum. After a quick look around we went into the Planetarium show (which Chris mostly slept through - it was very good, but reclining chairs in a dark room and not much sleep all adds up!). We were hoping to see a special exhibition on bioluminesscent creatures, but unfortunately that would cost an extra $19 so we decided not too.
Lunchtime Entertainment
Noice. Nena was of course attracted to the double bass. The section on biodiversity and the environmental impact of humans was pretty intense with some terrible images of slaughter and waste in the fishing industry. The fact that over half of the fish caught are usually thrown back (dead or drying) was pretty bad, but seeing video footage of huge numbers of dead fish just floating behind a fishing trawler really brought it home. There were also some amazing figures about the amount of protein consumed by different countries, and how most grain grown in developed nations is used to feed stock (whereas in India the grain feeds the population directly). Another great video showed the population of Earth increasing over time by placing a yellow dot on the planet when a given area had a population of 1 million people. Watching the yellow dots multiply faster and faster (especially in the last century) was amazing - it's been said before but it really looked like bacteria multiplying in a petri dish.
When we left we started to walk downtown towards a recommended pie shop. Along the way we stopped to check out a kinda natural/health store which had huge amounts of different supplements (and plenty of brands we
Heheh
Not sure why Nena took this photo... recognised). We also grabbed some salad from Wholefoods and got annoyed by Chris's phone as it kept changing between working and not.
Eventually we got to the pie shop (The Little Pie Company) and picked up some end of day specials. We tried the peach tart (yum), a cherry tart, and an apple pie (not all eaten at the same time of course!). We then walked over to Empire State Building, stood in line for a while and eventually made our way to the top in time to still catch a bit of the sunset - beautiful. A highlight was a little girl behind us who upon being hoisted on to her Dad's shoulders so she could see the view proclaimed loudly "Oh Daddy it's sooo beautiful!". Unfortunately Daddy was then told off by security as kids aren't allowed up that high (not sure why - they can't get over the fence!). We had the audio guide so it was good to hear about the history of the building and the surrounding areas of New York. The building went up incredibly quickly, sometimes they were finishing one floor per day. Only five people died when it was being made.
The New World Trade Centre buildings
The shorter one is nearly done. The taller one is meant to be 50% higher. This may sound a lot, but at that time, the usual expectation was around one person lost per floor of the final building (over 100 floors in this case), so it was actually pretty low. The building is extremely strong and stiff - even in a 100mph wind it only moves one or two inches at the top. Early on, it was envisaged that blimps would tie to the top of it so passengers could embark and disembark. Sounds terrifying to us. This didn't happen, partially because it was often too windy at the top, but also because around that time the Hindenberg disaster occurred and people lost their taste for blimp travel.
We caught a bus home and then spent an hour to two looking at travel options for the next day. Eventually we decided to go with one of the "Chinatown Buses" which are well known in New York as they offer very cheap travel up the East coast. They don't really do much advertising, but rely on word of mouth. They were under half the price of Greyhound!
We hadn't had a lot of sleep, and the usual cat alarm woke us up nice and
Lib
Put your hands in da air! early. Nena prepared the last of our veggies so we had some lunch and we packed up and tidied up before grabbing the subway down to Chinatown for our bus. While waiting for the bus, Chris went in search of an Iced Coffee and came back with an Iced Bubble Coffee (contains balls of sago). Oh well - we are in Chinatown! The bus arrived on time, we jumped on and begun our journey up North.
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