Crimson Bisque

Monday, June 26, 2006

Day 1 in NYC!

woke up to a late start cos dan was out partying the night before and we were exhasuted anyway.

went out to chinatown for lunch and it was PISSING DOWN. i think we brought the bad weather from gla to nyc!:(

lunch was xiao long baos and beef hor fun for me, mixed meat and seafood pan fried noodles for aaron. (we shared the xiao long bao lah) dan left us to our own devices after that.

so we did a tour of midtown!

took the subway from chinatown to grand central station. just to take a look! it was massive, and we were lucky not to get caught in rush hour, so it was pretty empty and left us lots of space to wonder round, take some pictures, and just welcome a lovely start to nyc touring!

then we headed to the UN headquarters and took the tour. just your basic tour of the impt places. the general assembly, security council (room donated by norway), economic and social council (room donated by denmark), the trusteeship council (which we haven't heard of, because, well it hasn't met since 1994. it was established to help colonised countries gain independence. from the 64 countries back then, there are only 16 countries left that are still colonised. room was donated by sweden) saw various artworks donated by various member states (started with 51 member states and now up to 191 i think, and rising. look at montenegro, newly independent, and just applied for membership, approved by the security council already!)

i would astound you with the number of members of each council, and where they come from geographically, and the rotation of the presidency of each council. (1 month for each member of the security council) but i think i've forgotten most of it.. and you'll be bored to death!

our next stop was the chrysler building, one of the tallest in NYC, it was closed thoug, but we took a couple of pics from outside i think.

next up was rockefellar centre, which i always hear about, but now i've seen it! it's really nice with fountains and statues of prometheus and atlas, and it's just generally a very nice place to wander around.

across the road was st patrick's cathedral, the oldest catholic church in the US. it gets > 5000 people for mass on sundays. it's a huge church, and rather new (completed in 1888). but i guess once you've seen the churches in italy, this didn't seem as spectacular. it was still nice to wander into though. as it was sunday, said a little prayer as well. just to thank God for letting us get here after so many delays (with the weather in dublin and the subsequent delays because of a late 1st flight), giving us a nice guy who put us up, and overall just for blessing us with the ability to travel to such wonderful, bustling places!

we backtracked to the new york public library to have a look at the stone lions outside, then headed to the rather confusing times sq. it looked a lot like london with all the adverts flashing everywhere. saw nasdeq and mtv as well!:) i guess it was a must see in nyc, and i can understand why. it's like the epitome of nyc life! busy, commercial, and all about the money!

from times square, we headed down to macy's to see what it was all about. just a huge dept store really, but famous enough! at least we can say we've been there. then we walked into victoria's secrets (aaron was v bored man), H&M and Zara. sigh, i really shouldn't shop and i didn't this time round. quite proud of myself, but also rather motivated by aaron's glum face haha.

our last stop was the empire state buiding. i must say i was impressed with the height, but not v impressed by the facade. it looked rather grotty and old to be frank. but hey, it's an old building! not expecting that much!

then it was down to Oh! Taisho for some lovely japanese food. we had unagi egg tofu, fried mushroom mix, takoyaki, and yakitori, made of, bacon wrapped in mushrooms, shisamu, beef tongue and beef gut. (don't knock the last 2 before you've tried it, it's actually v good, well in that place anyway)

all in all it was a fab day. hopefully tmr, with more energy, and a bit of luck, we'll be heading to the islands (ellis and liberty). hope the weather turns out alright.

P.S. if anyone sees siaocharn online, can help me ask her to email me? thanks in advance!:)

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