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June 09, 2004
My Weekend As A Tourist
Since coming to NYC, i haven't had alot of time (or made alot of time) to see the many sights of the Big Apple. Fortunately, this weekend changed that. The 3rd SI intern arrived at CCH this past week, and incidentally, had two of her friends from China visiting her this weekend. So i got to tag along with them, visiting all sorts of places.
First we went to the Statue of Liberty, which i haven't seen up close since i was like 7 or 10 years old. Security is so tight there -- they scan all your stuff and your person before you even get on the ferry (i had to remove my belt - it felt a bit naughty... ;) ) They also don't let anyone tour inside the Statue (darn terrorists!) so i just got to take pics of the outside. Then we stopped at Ellis Island, which isn't that amazing, except in they building they have a huge glass flag made of offset vertical blocks, which from one angle, you see black-and-white pictures of immigrants, but when you moved 90 degrees to another angle, the whole flag transitioned to red-white-and-blue. It was pretty amazing, and we were trying to figure out for a while how they did it...
Then we went to Chinatown, stopping at a Chinese restaurant for dinner. Nothing better than touring around Chinatown with 4 native Chinese people, tho we had some unusual 'delicacies' that i politely tried (like spicey cow tendons... eh heh, yeah...) The rest was good, and i practiced my chopsticking... Then, we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge at dusk, which was cool b/c the lights were coming on in the skyscrapers and it looked really photogenic. i took a few pics. Then we went for Bubble Tea (finally!), except that we *didn't* go back to Chinatown. Apparently there is a better one in Flushing, so we rode the above-ground subway for over 30 minutes to Flushing and got some great bubble tea. (I took a pic of this too). its a bit creamier than Bubble Island's, but very similar.
After that long day, i continued the next one with some of the same peepul, going to see Harry Potter 3. Of course we went and it was sold out for 3 shows, so we got tickets for the later show, and decided to walk around Times Square in the meantime. We went into Toys R Us, and inside they have a giant ferris wheel! Wow... we would have tried to go on it but there were like 30 kids waiting in line... :( So we played with the stuffed animals... Then we were just walking around, with me talking to Srah on the phone before her flight to France, until we got back to the movie theater -- a half hour early. Good thing too, b/c even at that time the theater was almost full! We managed to get semi-good seats, and i liked the movie, even tho it was very different than the first two. At least the kids can act now... :)
So, now i feel a bit more like i've gotten some of the New York experience -- time to explore The Village, and museums around Central Park next! Any other suggestions anyone?
Posted by MaTT at June 9, 2004 12:33 AM
Comments
"it felt a bit naughty... ;)" - hee hee hee
"spicey cow tendons" - ummmmm, errrk.
"chopsticking" - hee hee hee
No suggestions from me, because I never know what I'm doing! I think if I were living in NYC, I would hang out in Central Park 24/7.
Posted by: srah at June 9, 2004 04:29 AM
You went to Toys R Us, I'm proud, isn't it awesome? Maybe check out The Strand bookstore, because "its bigger than anything you'll find in Wesconsin" When my mom was in Hong Kong, she had a practically fully mature duck egg, it looked nasty by tasted ok. They ate it in the dark before seeing it. The village looks cool, go there. I have no other advice for you, you went pretty much everywhere I went
Posted by: Urs at June 9, 2004 09:13 AM