A Jedi in New York: Day 5

I’m writing this post retrospectively as Jane recovered yesterday and I spent the day feeling rather unpleasantly ill, finally experiencing the unpleasantness of vomiting first via my mouth then via my arse at about 5am. I feel a bit better now though, if tired. Maybe we’re allergic to New York, maybe we picked up some weird virus, I don’t know. But I think we’re both over it now having spent some time talking to God.

Despite this, we had a great day yesterday. We visited the Natural History Museum which, despite getting up the earliest we’ve managed all week, we somehow didn’t manage to get into until after lunch. This may have been partly due to our practical demonstration of the difference between “local” and “express” Metro trains – the latter of which was the first one we boarded today, then wondered why it sailed past the station for the Natural History Museum, then streets beyond it until we were well over 40 blocks away from where we wanted to be!

We’re going back to the Museum today to see some other bits because we didn’t have a lot of time to see things in the end, though we got a chance to see the dinosaurs and an interesting section on Asian peoples. We got kicked out at closing time though – 5:45 – so we decided to head down to the south end of Manhattan to take a look at Bodies… The Exhibition. I think most people know about this by now, but for the uninitiated, it’s an exhibition showing how our bodies work via the means of real-life dissected bodies.

This wasn’t as gross as I was expecting, interestingly. It was, however, interesting to see the different body parts, how they interact and what they actually look like. There were also some interesting displays on the blood supply to various parts of the body, where they had injected the veins and arteries with a special dye and then chemically “decomposed” the rest of the body, leaving only the blood vessels.

The other great thing about Bodies which I hadn’t really considered before was its stunning use of lighting. The whole exhibition hall was very dark, with pools of light surrounding each major exhibit, but also focusing very tightly on small “body trivia” signs on the wall. The overall effect was very distinctive and memorable, and lent a huge amount of atmosphere to the whole exhibition.

Finally, once we had done this, it was time to go out for dinner to a restaurant I’d heard a little about from a few people and was intrigued to try, though it had a reputation for being expensive. I am referring to Ninja New York, a themed Japanese restaurant where you are served by ninjas and the food is self-proclaimed “high-end Japanese cuisine”. The food was indeed tasty, and the “interactive” dishes, which often involved something exploding or having to pull a sword out of something followed by it emitting an atmospheric mist were great. We also got an after-dinner magic show by “New York’s tallest ninja” who displayed some Derren Brown-style tricks to us which he admitted were inspired by the performer, and that he secretly hoped Derren Brown didn’t get too popular in the States because he’d then be relegated to the status of “Oh hey, you’re that guy who does stuff a bit like Derren Brown”. His mastery of manipulation and misdirection was excellent though, and it was a great display to finish the meal with.

The only things with the Ninja restaurant was you need to be 1) really hungry (we had a five-course banquet…) 2) really rich (…for $50-$70 each) and 3) not mind that “recommendations” sometimes turn into “orders” without you remembering having ordered them (and to counter this, if something unexpected arrives, simply tell them… they’re ninjas, they can handle it). All in all though, it was a fantastic meal that is worth experiencing, particularly, I would imagine, if you have kids.

We’re flying home at 10pm local time tonight. Neither of us want to go home. We’ve started to feel “settled” here now and are coming to terms with New York’s own little idiosyncrasies, although the Metro still occasionally bamboozles us. We’ll definitely be back, without question.

A Jedi in New York: Day 4

Still here! Again, another short entry as it’s pretty late, once again, and we both need our sleep! My legs are exhausted from the amount of walking we’ve both been doing.

Today we went to the Museum of Sex (surprisingly work-safe – the website, anyway) as it was something that little bit “different” to the norm, plus it was somewhere that we could again use our New York Passes.

There are three exhibitions on at the Museum at present – The Sex Lives of Animals, Sex and the Moving Image and a selection from the Museum’s permanent collection.

First came the Animals section, which presented an interestingly “alternative” take on natural history and biology by focusing exclusively on the sexual behaviour of animals, mostly looking closely at unusual behaviour which in many cases, the curator describes, goes against Darwin’s theories of natural selection, against Creationism and instead presents a third possibility.

In practical terms, this meant we got to look at videos of animals masturbating, fucking every possible way they could and even some discussion on homosexuality in animals, including the story of the gay penguins And Tango Makes Three which got banned from many, many educational institutions. It was interesting and, yes, different, as expected.

On the floor above was the Sex and the Moving Image exhibition. As the name implies, this exhibition charted the use of sex (or lack thereof) in movies from the earliest black and white silent films, where sex was mostly implied (with the exception of “stag” movies – early porn films, very few of which have survived due to their illegality at the time, but some examples of which were on, err, “display”) through the more liberal approach that developed over the years, taking in (no pun intended) Russ Meyer and Deep Throat all the way to modern porn and celebrity sex tapes, contrasting hugely with how mainstream film deals with sexual encounters. There were also some shorter videos from Beautiful Agony (NSFW) showing different people’s faces during orgasm, and a selection of sex-themed commercials from over the years.

Then in the final room we had the selections from the Museum’s permanent collection, which included male and female RealDolls (sex dolls that run into the thousands of dollars due to their supposed “realism”) to a selection of sex machines, including a terrifying-looking one that was essentially a rubber cock attached to a Black and Decker drill.

So that was nice.

Anyway, we spent rather longer in the Museum than we had intended, as we’d originally planned to move on to Bodies… The Exhibition and also potentially to go and see Ground Zero later in the day. However, we’d also made plans to meet up with the fine gentlemen Papapishu and Regulus for dinner in St Mark’s Place at a Japanese joint called Kenka which is often filled with Japanese ex-pats, is very noisy, serves traditional Japanese food that isn’t sushi (which I’ve never had before, and which proved to be delicious, even the deep-fried garlic) and serves terrifying “specials” such as bull penis.

So it’s been a good day, only marred by the fact that Jane’s not been feeling too well off-and-on since last night. I’m sure you’ll all join me in wishing her a big “get well soon”.

A Jedi in New York: Day 3

Hello again! This has to be the most blog updates I’ve done in a week since… ever, I guess. Nothing like having the time to sit back, relax and not have to worry about anything. Jane’s currently soaking in a nice hot bath, we’ve had a nice meal at the hotel’s restaurant and another great day.

Today we did two main things. Firstly, we revisited Central Park, this time to go to the Central Park Zoo. Jane was very excited about this – so much so that she appeared to be regressing to childhood. I have to admit, it having been a long time since I’d seen a zoo also, I was also keen to see the animals.

Central Park Zoo is relatively small in the grand scheme of zoos. We later discovered by finally reading the guidebook that we bought a couple of days before the wedding that the Bronx Zoo is the one to go to if you want a full-on large-scale zoo/safari-style experience. That’s going to have to wait for another visit though, I think! This isn’t to say that Central Park Zoo isn’t good – far from it, in fact, as the relatively few displays of animals on offer mean that you can easily get around all of them and take plenty of photos.

We started by looking at the Rainforest section – an area where it is impossible for people to walk in without going “Oooh, it’s hot in here!”. Well, duh. In the Rainforest area we saw a huge variety of tropical birds and some amazing monkeys whose species escapes me for the moment, but they had huge bushy tails like squirrels that were very “expressive” in their own peculiar way.

Next up, we saw the polar bears, who were asleep. It occurred to us that it was entirely plausible for someone to go to one of these zoos and not see any animals if they were all asleep. I felt a little sorry for the polar bears as it was a relatively warm day today, but then I remembered how cold it had been for the last couple of days and determined that they were probably all right.

Moving around, we then saw a red panda, which looks more like a tree-hugging fox than a panda. It too was asleep, but at least it had the decency to sleep in a tree where you could see it.

Next we saw the snow monkeys of “see no evil” fame. These little guys were extremely active – running and jumping around and picking things off their feet. It’s strange how watching a creature like a monkey do something that we do – picking fluff from between your toes, for example – is infinitely more interesting and amusing than seeing another human doing it.

Then we saw the penguins, which Jane was very excited about. The penguins lived in a darkened room that smelled of fish, and were extremely docile, swimming right up to the edge of their enclosure and posing for pictures. I was also impressed at their speed in the water considering their clumsiness on land – and the fact that they can throw themselves out of the water at high speed and then land upright without breaking a sweat.

So that was the zoo. Fun, and a worthwhile way to spend the morning.

This afternoon we took the three-hour Circle Line Island Tour, which circumnavigates the whole of Manhattan with a guided commentary. The tour we elected to go on at 3:30 also happened to coincide with sunset towards its end, so it was likely to be a good photo opportunity. Photos to follow when I’ve been through all of them – over a thousand now, I reckon. 🙂

A Jedi in New York: Day 2

A short post tonight as it’s pretty late and we’re both exhausted! It’s been an interesting and fun day today, though, as we had another long walk and took in a Broadway show – specifically, Avenue Q, which proved to be both hilarious and touching.

Acquiring tickets for Avenue Q was less easy. Our New York Passes supposedly got us money off Broadway tickets if purchased through a ticket seller called Applause. We could have phoned them up to order, we later realised, but after waking up later than we’d intended and wolfing down some breakfast at, again, the Ritz (omelette today… tasty but not quite so enormous as the pancakes portion) we decided to pay Applause a visit and pick up some tickets.

Why Avenue Q? Two reasons. Firstly, we’d played a song from it in the last local pantomime that I’d taken part in. The song was “Purpose” and I found it pretty catchy, but knew nothing about the show it was from. Secondly, I remembered that Rampant Bicycle had mentioned the show a while back, along with a number of entertaining-sounding songs such as “The Internet is for Porn” – and also something about puppets. Puppets? I was intrigued.

But I digress. The offices for Applause were actually in an anonymous-looking office building of the type that bigger companies rent out tiny rooms in when they need a tiny bit more space. The depressing loss adjustment company I temped with for a short while (which, incidentally, made me come perilously close to hurling myself off a tall building from sheer boredom… despite tall buildings not being easy to come by in Eastleigh) hired out a tiny office to put their typing slaves (including myself) in. They rather naïvely supplied everyone with wireless Internet access, however, so I spent the majority of my time when I should have been listening to boring, slobbery old men dictating their boring, slobbery old reports about small hairline cracks extending from skirting boards to the ceiling surfing the Internet.

The point of that? Wandering down the corridor to the Applause office put me depressingly in mind of that horrible place. Fortunately, once we were inside we were greeted by a typical-looking ticket window, which is kind of the last thing you expect to see behind a door in a place like that. We were greeted by a friendly woman who sold us some tickets and gave us our discount, promising that we’d be able to pick up the tickets at the theatre half an hour before the performance that evening.

There’s no amusingly tragic end to this story, if you’re waiting for one. We picked up our tickets, we saw the show which was, as previously stated, great fun.

Also today we had planned on visiting Central Park Zoo (another attraction we could get into with our Passes) but the walk to Applause had been a long one so we decided to simply stroll around the park and enjoy the scenery. There are plenty more photos to come from there.

Tomorrow we are going to head for the Zoo and possibly one (or more) of the museums on our list.

A Jedi in New York: Day 1

Those of you who know me, follow me on Twitter or have been secretly watching me from the bushes will know that I got married to my beautiful and gorgeous now-wife Jane on Sunday 26th October. The wedding was a huge success thanks to the not inconsiderable labours of the new Mrs Jedi along with assistance and financial support from our respective parents. Some photos can be found here with more to follow – if you were in attendance at the wedding and have some photos to upload, please feel free to use the Upload button to contribute your own photographs.

Now we’re over in New York for our honeymoon – yes, it’s the land of Papapishu and Lord Regulus, and we arrived last night, so today was our first full day here. I’ve decided to blog the experience (most of it, at least…) as a nice record of what we got up to. Like the wedding, there will be photos to follow upon our return – watch this space for details of where to find them.

So what did we get up to today? Quite a few things, actually, considering the fact that we decided today would be a day of “wandering” and discovering things rather than setting out to specifically do something. The only task we had to complete today was to pick up our New York Pass, a cool little card that Jane found out about before we left. Essentially, it’s a card that allows you free or discounted entry to a lot of the popular New York attractions such as the Empire State Building, the Guggenheimer, Madame Tussauds and numerous others, as well as money off Broadway tickets and food at various restaurants.

We began our day with breakfast at the Ritz Diner on East 62nd Street at 1st Avenue (or whichever way around you’re supposed to say them), a pleasant little dive that we found on our first night here. It’s a 24-hour traditional American diner with a huge menu (the kind that Gordon Ramsay would immediately want to set fire to and jump up and down on) and cheap prices. I had a stack of pancakes with eggs (sunny side – partly because I can never remember the American expressions for the different types of eggs except that one) and Jane had some waffles with bananas and blueberries. The breakfast was so enormous we theorised that it would be enough to sustain us for the whole day’s activities… and we weren’t wrong.

After that, we glanced at our guidebooks to attempt to work out which way we had to go to pick up our New York Pass. We knew it was somewhere in the region of Times Square but didn’t really know how to get there. It turned out we had to head vaguely West. So we did, crossing 1st, 2nd and 3rd Avenue and being momentarily confused by the lack of a 4th Avenue and instead having a Lexington, Madison and Park Avenue before we reached the famous 5th Avenue.

Upon reaching 5th, we had a stroll down it to look at the man shops, including, of course, the striking exterior of the Apple Store. I resisted the temptation to go in but took some photos of the outside of the building because, after all, it’s interesting to look at. But enough of that. We continued along 5th until we came to the corner of 45th Street, down which we turned because we’d noticed earlier on our guide map that we could pick up our Passes from Planet Hollywood which just happened to be on 45th Street and Broadway.

Down 45th Street I came across a sight which made us both chuckle a little – the Big Apple Hostel. Now, the location of this place is amazing – about 2 minutes’ walk away from Broadway – but from the outside it looks like the least inviting place in the history of ever. The fact that it stands right next to a distinctly pleasant-looking coffee house makes it seem all the more out-of-place, particularly given its proximity to the glitz of Broadway and Times Square.

Finally we reached Planet Hollywood and picked up our Passes. We stopped at the bar to have a milkshake – by this time, it was lunchtime, but given the enormous size of our breakfasts we weren’t feeling hungry in the slightest, so we settled for a simple drink and an ogle at the cheesiness that is the interior of that place.

Upon leaving PH, we strolled down Broadway. The sun had come out now after a dull start to the day with a few minutes of rain, so I took the opportunity to take a lot of photos. I’m finally starting to work out what the different settings on my still-quite-new Nikon D40 DSLR do, as will hopefully be evidenced by the photos I’ve taken. The photos certainly look nice on the camera’s built-in LCD – I guess it remains to be seen if they still look good on a monitor!

Jane led me down Broadway to an unknown destination – to me, at least. Said destination became immediately apparent once we reached East 34th Street and we saw the Empire State Building rising majestically into the skies. We decided that now would be a good time to ascend the gigantic building and also to take the New York Skyride simulator tour. Yes, we are doing gratuitously touristy things, and I’m sure those of you who live in or know NYC will be groaning at what we’ve done so far, but what the hell. The last time I came to New York I was four years old and can remember precisely jack shit about it, while Jane had been more recently but had ascended the tower on a very cold day when visibility wasn’t great.

The view from the top of the ESB was predictably fantastic (and yes, there were yet more photos taken) but the other thing which struck me about the building was the sheer number of queues you had to join in order to get to the top. There’s a queue to get through security. There’s a queue to get your tickets. There’s a queue to get in the elevator to the 80th floor. There’s a queue on the 80th floor to get in the elevator to the 86th floor, where the observation deck is. Once you’ve finished viewing the, err, view, there’s a queue to get down to the 80th floor, then a queue to get to the elevator to the 2nd floor… you get the idea. The whole experience, which was, let’s face it, getting in an elevator and going to the top of a really tall building, took over 3 hours altogether.

This sounds somewhat cynical. I don’t want to give the impression that ascending the ESB is a worthless experience – far from it, as the view at the top is spectacular. However, one shouldn’t go into it with the foolish assumption that I had, which was that it would be relatively straightforward to get in and get to the top!

Following our visit to the ESB, we decided we were hungry and decided to return to Planet Hollywood for dinner, as our two New York Passes gave us $20 off our meal there. While Planet Hollywood may not be the classiest cuisine in town, it was certainly very tasty and gave us the energy we needed to get back to the hotel.

It was a long walk around, but we covered a lot today, and I developed my “feel” for the area enormously. Before today, my knowledge of New York geography was extremely sketchy, despite playthroughs of Project Gotham and Grand Theft Auto. Incidentally, Grand Theft Auto has the “feel” of New York pretty much perfect (in my outsider’s opinion) and I recognised Times Square from both Project Gotham and Forza Motorsport 2. Kudos. No pun intended.

No idea what we’re covering tomorrow, but I’ll post if I get a moment! In the meantime, for those who are really, really interested, here’s a Google Map of today’s trip.