Manhattan: Redux
Road Trippin': Day 2
First of all, I still have a cough that sounds like I'm dying of Tuberculosis, or so I've been told.
Today we went into the city around lunchtime after a leisurely ten hour sleep (much needed after our 2 or 3 from the night before). Kina says I made funny noises but she was afraid to wake me because when I'm awake I start coughing again. I didn't have a chance to catch her snoring, though, because I apparently fell asleep rather quickly despite my hacking up of lung bits. (Mmm.)
We met up with Justin again, this time up at Columbia, and saw the campus a bit. 1) Wow. Like Central Park, I'd never guess that stuff existed in the midst of all of Manhattan's chaos. 2) Jealous. Why do they get tons of cute little sushi joints when Hanover's stuck with the soon-to-be-departed-and-hardly-worth-it-anyway-since-it's-not-even-its-own-restauraunt "Bamboo Garden"? I don't know, but it's not fair. I suppose they are NYC, though. So yeah, the campus is very nice, but there was a major lack of public computing (no campus-wide wireless? You've got to be kidding me) and all the girls' bathrooms were in hard-to-reach places since they went co-ed later than we did (in 1980) and didn't bother to convert any of the conveniently placed men's bathrooms. Still, very cool.
While checking out their little park I saw a pigeon get hit by a car. That was disturbing/amusing. Would have been more disturbing and less amusing had I not seen it fly away afterward (or maybe it just disintegrated). The only true bits of evidence were the feathers floating gracefully down into the intersection afterwards (and the thump I heard when it hit). Ah well. You can kick those things if you run at them, so I suppose they deserve it to a point for being so complacent.
We also hit up a corner of Soho ("it's HOW-stun, not HYOO-stun!") and walked through the sad and shrinking three blocks of what's left of Little Italy. Then we reached my favorite NYC destination--Chinatown! MmmmMMmMmM!!!11one! (forgive me.) It's all about the char siu bau/custard bun/boba combination. A Manhattan ritual for me, I tell you.
After that we forewent the Brooklyn Bridge and walked down to ground zero through TriBeCa. Interesting site, I just which I could have seen them when they were standing so I could know what I was looking at. Then we walked down to Battery Park to peek at the Statue of Liberty (or the Eiffel Tower, as Justin calls it) and saw some Michael Jackson-wannabees along the way (very cool). What the heck is up with Clinton Castle? Weird...
Finally, we walked over to Wall Street and witnessed the violation of the bull...since the head was occupied by a zillion small children cleverly posing for their mothers as cowboys, a group of small asian women decided to take their souvenir photographs of the other end of the bull: my companions and I watched in horror as one by one they squatted between its legs and cradled its...err...huevos with their little asian arm and stared back at the camera with glee. *shudder* Ah well, at least they knew how to have fun.
Despite my cough and the tendency for my baby toes (thanks to my narrow walking shoes) to try to assimilate themselves into the rest of my foot, it was an overall satisfying day. The lessons I can take from it are: 1) My cell phone is totally lame. Who cares about tri-band and GPS when it can't transmit my voice from a train or last more than an hour without dying or be compatible with any car chargers since apparently they don't make my version any more? Argh. Anyway, moving on to 2) I already knew this but sightseeing with a local is a bad idea because locals don't know how, nor do they necessarily have the desire to see any sights. When you live there, nothing seems exciting anymore, so most things seem missable and you can never come up with good ideas for places to go. Best leave it to the tourists who've already planned out their desired itinerary. Plus, when you've got a local with you, there's a tendency to feel guilty for boring them with things they've already seen (or things you think they won't enjoy, like wandering through Chinatown looking for bubble tea and steamed pork buns).
Also, good news: we bought a tape adapter for the iPod, so tomorrow on the long long drive to Cleveland I get to play DJ! Huzzah! We were dying with just the lame and frequently fuzzy radio stations we were forced to entertain ourselves with. It was torture--Hollaback Girl came on and there was no other good station to fall back on! Aieee!
So yeah, tomorrow is the long drive to Cleveland. 7.5 hours, giving ourselves 10, and we can't figure out if the time difference (there's an hour...right?) gives us an extra hour before the concert or takes it away. I think we gain one, but neither of us really cares enough to triple check, so rather than sleep an extra hour we'll just give ourselves more time with which to (potentially) futz around on side roads/rest/do jumping jacks/take pictures.
Oh, one last thing. We've been given a copy of On The Road by Kerouac since it seemed appropriate. I should read it while Kina drives, but really I should be working on the website, since I'm getting paid for it and it's barely started (as in it hasn't made it out of my head yet). Mm. I also have book 1 of Harry Potter and a certain Dan Brown book called Digital Fortress to read, so perhaps I'm getting a little too ambitious.
ONE MORE thing...I promise this will be the last...turns out our host is hilarious (and I thought I didn't like British humour...), our hostess used to race her Honda CRX/play Final Fantasy/Morrowind/Nintendo, and Kina is still crazy and does situps and pushups at night and watches what she eats and generally makes me feel like a lout. But we knew that one already. :)
Goodnight, and I'll be in touch next time I see a computer.
First of all, I still have a cough that sounds like I'm dying of Tuberculosis, or so I've been told.
Today we went into the city around lunchtime after a leisurely ten hour sleep (much needed after our 2 or 3 from the night before). Kina says I made funny noises but she was afraid to wake me because when I'm awake I start coughing again. I didn't have a chance to catch her snoring, though, because I apparently fell asleep rather quickly despite my hacking up of lung bits. (Mmm.)
We met up with Justin again, this time up at Columbia, and saw the campus a bit. 1) Wow. Like Central Park, I'd never guess that stuff existed in the midst of all of Manhattan's chaos. 2) Jealous. Why do they get tons of cute little sushi joints when Hanover's stuck with the soon-to-be-departed-and-hardly-worth-it-anyway-since-it's-not-even-its-own-restauraunt "Bamboo Garden"? I don't know, but it's not fair. I suppose they are NYC, though. So yeah, the campus is very nice, but there was a major lack of public computing (no campus-wide wireless? You've got to be kidding me) and all the girls' bathrooms were in hard-to-reach places since they went co-ed later than we did (in 1980) and didn't bother to convert any of the conveniently placed men's bathrooms. Still, very cool.
While checking out their little park I saw a pigeon get hit by a car. That was disturbing/amusing. Would have been more disturbing and less amusing had I not seen it fly away afterward (or maybe it just disintegrated). The only true bits of evidence were the feathers floating gracefully down into the intersection afterwards (and the thump I heard when it hit). Ah well. You can kick those things if you run at them, so I suppose they deserve it to a point for being so complacent.
We also hit up a corner of Soho ("it's HOW-stun, not HYOO-stun!") and walked through the sad and shrinking three blocks of what's left of Little Italy. Then we reached my favorite NYC destination--Chinatown! MmmmMMmMmM!!!11one! (forgive me.) It's all about the char siu bau/custard bun/boba combination. A Manhattan ritual for me, I tell you.
After that we forewent the Brooklyn Bridge and walked down to ground zero through TriBeCa. Interesting site, I just which I could have seen them when they were standing so I could know what I was looking at. Then we walked down to Battery Park to peek at the Statue of Liberty (or the Eiffel Tower, as Justin calls it) and saw some Michael Jackson-wannabees along the way (very cool). What the heck is up with Clinton Castle? Weird...
Finally, we walked over to Wall Street and witnessed the violation of the bull...since the head was occupied by a zillion small children cleverly posing for their mothers as cowboys, a group of small asian women decided to take their souvenir photographs of the other end of the bull: my companions and I watched in horror as one by one they squatted between its legs and cradled its...err...huevos with their little asian arm and stared back at the camera with glee. *shudder* Ah well, at least they knew how to have fun.
Despite my cough and the tendency for my baby toes (thanks to my narrow walking shoes) to try to assimilate themselves into the rest of my foot, it was an overall satisfying day. The lessons I can take from it are: 1) My cell phone is totally lame. Who cares about tri-band and GPS when it can't transmit my voice from a train or last more than an hour without dying or be compatible with any car chargers since apparently they don't make my version any more? Argh. Anyway, moving on to 2) I already knew this but sightseeing with a local is a bad idea because locals don't know how, nor do they necessarily have the desire to see any sights. When you live there, nothing seems exciting anymore, so most things seem missable and you can never come up with good ideas for places to go. Best leave it to the tourists who've already planned out their desired itinerary. Plus, when you've got a local with you, there's a tendency to feel guilty for boring them with things they've already seen (or things you think they won't enjoy, like wandering through Chinatown looking for bubble tea and steamed pork buns).
Also, good news: we bought a tape adapter for the iPod, so tomorrow on the long long drive to Cleveland I get to play DJ! Huzzah! We were dying with just the lame and frequently fuzzy radio stations we were forced to entertain ourselves with. It was torture--Hollaback Girl came on and there was no other good station to fall back on! Aieee!
So yeah, tomorrow is the long drive to Cleveland. 7.5 hours, giving ourselves 10, and we can't figure out if the time difference (there's an hour...right?) gives us an extra hour before the concert or takes it away. I think we gain one, but neither of us really cares enough to triple check, so rather than sleep an extra hour we'll just give ourselves more time with which to (potentially) futz around on side roads/rest/do jumping jacks/take pictures.
Oh, one last thing. We've been given a copy of On The Road by Kerouac since it seemed appropriate. I should read it while Kina drives, but really I should be working on the website, since I'm getting paid for it and it's barely started (as in it hasn't made it out of my head yet). Mm. I also have book 1 of Harry Potter and a certain Dan Brown book called Digital Fortress to read, so perhaps I'm getting a little too ambitious.
ONE MORE thing...I promise this will be the last...turns out our host is hilarious (and I thought I didn't like British humour...), our hostess used to race her Honda CRX/play Final Fantasy/Morrowind/Nintendo, and Kina is still crazy and does situps and pushups at night and watches what she eats and generally makes me feel like a lout. But we knew that one already. :)
Goodnight, and I'll be in touch next time I see a computer.
posted by Sassafrassy at 11:33 PM
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