i'm alive yay

Hey guys. I haven't ditched this blog. Just been occupied. And jet lagged. In Vancouver right now, which means that I survived dirty old Irene. What a bitch she was, causing all that trouble. In all honesty, Irene didn't really affect us, thank Bob, but all the news coverage definitely got us worried about whether we would be able to fly on Saturday morning. Airlines were cancelling several of their scheduled flights on the east coast. In some cases, all were canned. Although New York is quite far up north, Irene was expected to pay us a visit in a big way. Even public transport was ordered to stop by the afternoon to prevent any damage. We were very fortunate because our 11.30am flight to Minnesota scraped in before all the flights were grounded. Sad, though, to hear about the damage and loss of life it has caused in other states,as well as neighboring countries. The cost of this event will be ranked in the top 10 costliest disasters in US history according to reports. Because most of the damage was caused by flooding and the wind itself, much of it may not be covered by insurance as flood damage is not listed in many policies. It seems so surreal (if that's an appropriate word for this situation) that we were only there a few days ago, when everything seemed fine and all of a sudden, things became chaotic. Although NY ended up avoiding the full brunt of Irene, extensive damage was done, nevertheless.  Oh well, lucky us.

Unassuming little place on a quiet little
street in Chinatown.......

....but the dumplings were pretty fucking tasty.

Some catching up to do....where do I start.....did I mention that food is awesome in New York? As I've said before, food in NY is not all about hotdogs and pizza. Not to say that I haven't eaten copious amounts of the aforementioned food items during my time here, but I most definitely had enough space in my GI tract for other yummies.

When looking at places where good food is available, you can't go wrong with Chinatown. The place has a more distinct scent separate from the other parts of Manhattan. It's like HK, with its occasional whiff of sewerage (still much better than China...that place smells like you're riding Splash Mountain, except the log you're riding is a different type of log, and the water is yellow). Ah...those Chinese and their funny smelling ways,... We first went to this place called Prosperity Dumpling, where they made, er, dumplings.We could have ordered other stuff other than dumplings, but that would be likened to the idiot who orders steak at a seafood restaurant.It was something stupid like 5 dumplings for a dollar. My grandma makes some pretty phat gaozhis (and she doesn't charge me) but these were pretty awesome too. The place is a hole in a wall, seats four people max, but the atmosphere is not the reason it's famous.           

Essentials

I wonder what the Chinese
translate to. I don't think
it's Golden Unicorn.

Afterwards, we got some dim sum at Golden Unicorn. LMAO. Didn't know unicorns figured into Chinese mythology. If I'm not mistaken, that thing on the left is not even a unicorn. That thing has wings, fool! Mythological animal identity crisis aside, the dim sum was choice. Was pretty full by the end of it, evident by the fact that I walked into the kitchen, thinking it was the exit.    


Scroll down for other yummies.
 

Lost your appetite? Was pleasantly surprised that the NY subway wasn't as bad as its reputation made it out to be...until we nearly stepped on this(I'm sure one of us stepped on that trail of questionable liquid though...please be Gatorade). Prior beliefs dashed in an instant. OK truth be told, I knew the subway is pretty filthy at times. That's to be expected in a big city with a old system like this one, but couldn't the guy have just stepped into Mcdonalds or some other public toilet? Did he REALLY need to lay a cable right there and then that badly? Actually, that pile doesn't look like a cable at all....it's just a saying I learned during my tenure in good old, classy Invercargill. 

After our brief visit to Chinatown, we made our way to the Financial Center. We've already been to this area, as detailed by a previous post, but we didn't have the opportunity to explore it more thoroughly. To be honest, there wasn't too much. Architecture is impressive, but most of the action is inside, where we can't go in, especially on Wall Street.   

I don't even remember what this building
was. Could someone enlighten me?

The statue of the bull is a representation of a market where a trend of
high.......OK yeah it's a picture of me licking its, er, udders.

 
To be continued tomorrow.

D

So this is where David Letterman is taped!

Flying domestic in the US is a pretty grim process. Firstly, the 'standard fee' they slapped on for checking in luggage wasn't very pleasant. I know that not everyone checks in luggage, but it seems downright greedy considering the substantial price of the ticket alone. Then, we have customs. Admittedly, all the extra security and eyes make me nervous about small things. "Shit, where are those coins!! I can still hear clinking!!" Being frisked isn't on my list of things to do while on this trip. Also, the whole thing about allocating seats at the boarding gate because a flight is overbooked just doesn't make much sense to me. Why should I be allocated a seat last and grouped with the standby lot when I booked my ticket months prior? In the end I finally got my seat, but the same can't be said about the intoxicated cracker lady who got lead off the plane for a "talk". Lucky day for someone who purchased a standby ticket.

The air hostesses (stewardess?) were friendly, though.  

A few hours consisting of broken sleep and getting my eyes gouged out by a monstrosity of a movie called Arthur later, we arrive in Atlanta for a stopover. Nothing exciting. It was 6am eastern time, after all. The drinks vending machine made purchasing a Powerade entertaining with its robotic suction/ejecting mechanism, though. Two and a half hours later, we hop on to another plane and before I knew it, we landed in New York. 

"Wow, look at that!" Seeing the Manhattan skyline of the city was pretty impressive ("Yeah that's awesome"). That was until I realised that it wasn't Manhattan at all and I was looking in the wrong direction (probably New Jersey). I kept quiet to spare me the loss of dignity. 

To say this city is busy is an understatement. It's like saying Sanjay, my Aborigine friend, is brown (he's more of a 'burnt to a crisp' tone). Despite all the excitement, all I wanted to do was have a quick nap before doing anything. Turns out the place we are staying at is on the 4th floor and has no lift. I'm not a complete leaf, but carrying full, overweight suitcases up flights of stairs is a bitch no matter how you look at it.  

Ended up skipping the nap and decided to walk a few blocks to Times Square. Yes, blocks. We managed to find a really decent sublet right in the middle of the city on Craigslist for a very fair price. For people who are thinking of hitting New York, or any foreign place for that matter and want to stay at accommodation other than hotels/hostels etc., be careful about who you deal with on Craigslist. LOL the first listing i clicked and dealt with turned out to be a scam from Nigeria "PLEASE SEND THE MONEY ASAP" *lol*. Luckily no money was exchanged. As long as they only ask for a couple of nights deposit and do it through Paypal, it usually means it's genuine.

"Hey hombre, could you spare some change? It's really hot in here."

As for my visit to Times Square..it was what I expeted it to be; ridiculously commercialised, and BUSY. It was daytime when we first went but when we returned later that night, we couldn't tell the difference at times because the lights and billboards were so intensely bright. I really do wonder how much P.Diddy paid to have himself look so BOSS on that massive billboard on the side of the building. He can't rap to save his life and his producing is questionable, but he sure knows how to make coin and "mindfuck"*LOL*.
 
Half the day had already passed by the time we arrived, so we decided to settle for a Broadway show. Settle probably isn't the best word, because these shows are, from what I heard, pretty amazing. Since we were seeking tickets for a show for the same evening, we could get discounted tickets from Ticket(ing?) Kiosk Times Square (TKTS) which is essentially a ticket booth selling heavily discounted tickets for most shows showing that day. As you can guess, the line was pretty nuts. An hour and a half wait to get our tickets to Cirque du Soleil: Zarkana (it was tempting to give in to the scalpers, even though they probably would have ripped us off).

140 down to 70 each. Probably worth the hot, long wait....

Before the show started, we decided to get a slice of pizza for dinner. As we were making our way to sit down and wait for our food to get prepared, we were told we were only allowed to sit on the stools in the corner, away from the main dining area. I'm sure I had my "WTF, bitch" face on for a second and I had temptations of busting out the race card, but it turns out they have some rule about no pizza being consumed on the tables. They were reserved for pasta consumption. Note to self: people who eat pizza are considered savages in New York.             

If you read my last post, you'll probably remember me mention that I got "hustled" by some black dudes. Well, as I said, I bought a Cal. Golden Bears shirt from Berkeley and decided to wear it. One of the guys gets drawn to it (probably from Cali) and introduces himself as Timboking and proceeds to give me his mixtape. Before I get to say much, he has already signed it and asks for a donation. Ok, fine, no biggy, he seems like a cool enough guy. However, more guys come over and try to get a piece of the action. They all seemed OK and weren't asking for much, except this one particular guy who asked for 20 bux. I didn't have any small notes on me at that particular time and I wasn't really curious about what would happen if i declined, considering I was surrounded by several buff and black G's. The guy gave me change alright. A change in the amount I was meant to get back. Lets just say it wasn't what I was expecting back. Lesson learned. I did a quick search of Timboking and apparently he's an associate of the Wutang Clan. If that's legit, then that's pretty cool. I feel less fob.    

Probably infringing on copyrights so I better make it clear that
I DO NOT OWN THIS PHOTO

The first of a several Broadway shows that we plan to see turned out to be pretty awesome. It's a blend of singing, dancing, circus tricks, etc. reinvented with a fantasy theme and design. In a nutshell, it's a story about a wizard who loses his romantic interest, loses his magic as a result and then gets stuck in a pretty messed up realm full of f-ed up entities. To be honest, I didn't know what the hell they were going on about, but it sure was orgasmic for the eyes. Highlights included the tightrope walkers on the highwire. They didn't just walk along the wire(rope?). They ran, they danced, did flips and stood on each other among other things while maitaning balance. Another mention is the wheel of death act where two acrobats did various maneuvers on this continuously rotating contraception. It is pretty hard to describe so google it and you'll see what i mean. The clowns were entertaining between acts, albeit a tiny bit cheesy. One scene involved a clown being held high over the audience to depict him travelling through time and space (or something) and he proceeds to flash the Boston Red Sox logo, to the chagrin of the crowd. He redeemed himself by correcting it to the New York Yankees logo which resulted in a loud cheer from everyone.

Not everyday that you see clowns fly. Or get hustled by big black people...

D

All you can eat Hotpot, UC Berkeley

I've been keeping up with the news back home New Zealand and apparently the country has had a white out. Can't say that I'm going green over it. I choose warm, predictable weather over sleet and snow (debatable whether it's actually snow) any day of the week. Hope you people back home are keeping warm.

Our stay in San Francisco was fairly brief. It provided us with a much needed breather after our long flight. Having already been to most of the attractions in the area the last time I was here, there wasn't much need to do anything else but sleep and eat.
I must say, though, the extra rest was negated somewhat. Some people see declining food as being rude, therefore, the act of eating was quite an exhaustive process as I was essentially forced to eat way beyond my usual limit. Things were further complicated due to the fact I don't tolerate spicy food....details of that don't need to be shared...

Easily the biggest dish we had at a Hunan/Guangdong cuisine resturant in Fremont. That's a fish HEAD.

Despite having said that we pretty much accomplished nothing but eat and sleep, we did make one special trip to visit the University of California, Berkeley. The scale and atmosphere of this place simply trumps  the University of Otago.

*gasp!*Traitor! Blasphemy! Stupid asian!

Zoology and Botany. One of many impressive buildings.

Don't get me wrong, I loved my days in Dunedin dearly. What other students are known for utilizing their higher education to destroy public/private property, while also doing a passable Haka* as a challenge to the local riot squad? All the more amazing when you take into account how many were under the influence! Joking aside, it is what it is, though. Berkeley has much greater facilities. You just can't beat larger enrollment numbers and better funding. Furthermore, unlike at Otago, people actually buy stuff from the university merchandise store! Myself included. Unfortunately the UC Bears shirt I purchased lead to me getting hustled by several big, black guys. I'll get to that later.

D