center of the universe

it is such a shame to have delayed serious blogging about my 2-day trip in NYC. such a shame to have delayed raving about this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and everything else about my favorite city. favorite whaa? hell yeah! i bet your ass i can survive there because i know i can, to the nth level, deal with walking and subways and bad traffic and "rude" people (no, not all new yorkers are rude. come on, rude people are everywhere) and most of all, their no standing policies. yes, no standing policies. you'll see a lot of this all over manhattan. people actually get tickets for standing on prohibited areas. you'll have to pay a good $115 fine for it. so yeah you just have to do that walk and talk thing a la house m.d. and the west wing.

2 days in NYC isn't enough. it has never been enough...specially if you're coming from a little known city in western canada called edmonton. i've always wanted to come to new york city. early this year, i kinda invited some people to go with me in the summer. unfortunately, that plan went down the drain because i spent most of my loonies in manila. damn exchange rate! with the surprising turn of events, i still managed to leave footprints along times square. my mom invited me to go with her to maryland to visit her cousin's family whom i haven't met. i said no at first because i only had money for my upcoming california trip (3rd time in less than 2 yrs) and there's nothing much going on in maryland really...well i guess except if you live in baltimore or somewhere close to washington dc. how did she lure me? she lured me with "i'll pay for half of your ticket...and you're uncle said they'll take us to nyc." whaa? nyc whaa? you f'realz? the moment i heard those three magical letters, N-Y-C, i instantly said yes. i found out that it's only 5 hrs drive from where they are in maryland to nyc. so yeah they can totally take us there. 

hotel rates were mad expensive when we went there because it was the mid-summer season. my aunt managed to book us a room at a hotel in staten island which worked out well for us because we got to go on that 30-minute free ferry ride to get to manhattan. the closer the lower manhattan skyline gets, the more butterflies flock my stomach. it felt like i was going to disneyland or something. my relatives were laughing at me because they can tell from the look on my face and my 360 degrees head turns that i was mixed nuts excited to be there. there was a lot of construction going on in manhattan. i thought it was just in the movies. we had lunch at this place called lotus express at the financial district. good food. a lot of corporate people dines there. most of them gets their food to go. it's fun to walk with those corporate new york people. man, they do walk fast like they're doing a power walk exercise. i've also found out that the name wall street was derived from the fact that during the 17th century, a wall actually stood there as a boundary. we then rode the subway to get to times square. while we were getting our metro cards, i swear to lucifer, i saw kate shindle got on the train. kate shindle originated the role of vivian in broadway's legally blonde. she's really pretty in person.

when we got to times square, it was pouring rain. while waiting for the rain to stop, i've managed to buy a copy of that day's new york post and also tickets for the double-decker bus tour. they have good deals on bus tours in the summer. most of them comes with a free water taxi tour. the bus tour took us everywhere. there were three different loops that you can go on to. there was the downtown loop, uptown loop, brooklyn loop, and the manhattan night tour.

we did the downtown loop tour first. we went around times square, theatre district, macy's, madison square garden, empire state building, flatiron building, greenwich village, soho, chinatown, little italy, city hall, world trade site, battery park, lower east side, east village, united nations, the famous waldorf astoria hotel, central park, the plaza hotel, radio city music hall, & rockefeller center. when we got off at the rockefeller center, i was like "oh lordy! tina fey walked on this very pavement a million times!"....."this was where tracy morgan reunited with grizz and dot com!"...."jason sudeikis punched andy samberg right here!". luckily, i managed to keep my cool. then i saw promethus. i'm not hallucinating but he did tell me "yes mm, that really is my sculpture you're looking at. you're not dreaming. you are in nyc." as if he tangibly gave me the fire that he stole from zeus. hehe ok refresh your greek mythology knowledge. then we went inside the nbc experience store. i wanted to buy everything in there. specially merch from fave shows. but too bad, i'm not a lottery winner yet. we didn't get to do the observation deck thing because we didn't have enough time to do it. then we walked our way back to times square to catch the night tour/brooklyn tour.

times square was crazy amazing! the heart of the city was so fckn bright! it's as bright as vegas, i think. big ass screens and giant billboards are everywhere! there were a lot of people, most of them are tourists. my neck was in a tad of pain from all the head turning i was doing. but i totally didn't complain about it. i'm in my favorite city, damn it! the one thing i complained about was when my camera ran out of batteries. never did anything like that happened to me before on one of my travels. well except for my first visit to san francisco. but that was different because i forgot to charge them before i left the house. but with NYC, dude, i came prepared. i charged my batteries and everything. they still gave out. that's what i got for taking way too many pictures. good thing my uncle brought his swanking camera with him. he got me covered.

we had a little more than 2 hrs to spare before the next tour leaves. so i dragged my relatives to the awesome shubert alley. i was gonna go theatre memorabilia shopping at one shubert alley. but unfortunately, they were closed. we went back the next day to get my broadway shopping on. i luckily did. bought a spring awakening and rent shirt. my spring awakening shirt is so cool. it says "there's a moment you know..." in the front and "you're fucked" at the back. aylavet! so for all your broadway needs, go to one shubert alley on 44th st. between 8th & 9th ave. then we went theatre hopping. bought a "die vampire, die!" oh soo [tos]some! while walking along broadway, we passed by this resto that displayed huge cheesecakes on their window. it caught mom's and auntie's attention. then when i looked up....it read, roxy delicatessen. i'm not a big fan of cakes or cheesecakes, for that matter. so i didn't really care if we dine there or not. but mom wanted to try them so we still went in. their slice wasn't really a slice. it was more like 2 slices put together. they're massive! it was the best cheesecake i've had so far. sorry cheesecake factory. 

for the night tour, it was pretty much the same as the downtown loop it's just that you're doing it at night and with a side trip to brooklyn. brooklyn was pretty. brooklyn heights looked gorgeous. got to see how manhattan skyline looks like at night from the brooklyn. it was very pleasing to the eyes. didn't realize that pier 17 is prettier at night.

the next day, we had breakfast at au bon pain near battery park. really loved their broccoli & cheese soup. then we did the water taxi tour. we got on the boat at the south street seaport and it went from the hudson river to the east river. got to see ellis island, statue of liberty, battery park, brooklyn bridge, jersey city, the colgate clock (promoted as the world's largest), museum of jewish heritage, and the city's 4 man made waterfalls. after the water taxi, we walked our way to chinatown. mom and auntie were kinda looking for some good deals on not perfectly branded purses. they didn't have too much luck. then we went to central park for the uptown tour. i didn't know that in the summer, wollman rink becomes an amusement park. the uptown tour went around, of course, upper manhattan. we saw the worldwide plaze, columbus circle, time warner center, lincoln center (where david blaine held his breath inside that round aquarium), dakota apartments (the entrance where john lennon was shot), strawberry fields, american youth hostel, american museum of natural history, cathedral of st. john the divine (this gothic cathedral is so amazing. it has john 3:16 engraved on it's steeple. and you can comfortably fit the statue of liberty in it. isn't that cool?), grant's tomb, apollo theatre, the penthouse apartment where jackie kennedy onassis died, guggenheim museum, metropolitan museum of art, whitney museum, the carnegie hall and the famous carnegie deli.

i heart NYC! it has so much history behind it. learning facts and trivias about it through the tours was really educating...just like when you learn brand new stuff from a snapple cap.  

that pretty much summed my 2-day NYC trip. very tiring but so much fun. it'll be way more fun if you're there with people your age hehe. fortunately, again with the surprising turn of events, one of my bestfriends, claudine, invited me to come with them to NYC in january. whaaa? of course i said yes. it'll definitely be more exciting plus the fact that it is gonna be winter when we go there. then i'll be able to proudly say that i've experience NYC in all sorts of weather....rainy, hot & sunny (nyc gave me a bad tan line on my wrist), and very cold. 

hmmm...i wonder how much would these californians be able to take....hmmm