New York (Part 1)

Day 0 - Manchester to NYC. 14 hours.
"Intriguing possibilities" - "Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross"
LONG journey. Got yelled at in american customs for not having my return ticket on me! Douche bag! Watched The Social Network on the plane. Oh and by the way, American Airways food is Gross! :P Got a taxi from Laguardia (airport) to Manhattan. Time Square is so BRIGHT! Like as bright as it is in the middle of the day. It really is a fantastic sight. Hundreds of adverts, on tv-like screens, each of which the size of several houses! And those are just the small ones!


Day 1 - Snowy City - "Just" - "Radiohead"
Woke up to find the city blanketed in snow. Had a full cooked breakfast in the hotel. As a breakfast dish they were serving Corn Beef Hash! With the snow, decided it would be a nice to walk around central park in the snow. It was! Went to the zoo and saw the penguins, they weren't hatching an escape plan as far as I could tell but I couldn't be sure :) Went to a little FAO Schwartz thats was mainly a sweet store and bought some Nerds (sweets I used to eat as a kid in the early 90'. Thought they didn't make them any more!) and also bought a Push-Pop (used to eat them in school too). Then went to this huge apple store and checked out the new Apple 27" monster, and the mac book air (really looked like you could use them as a frisbee!). After a few teething problems with the underground (like not being able to get to the right side of the track) figured out how to work it, so should be set to explore the city for real tomorrow! off to "Dave and Busters" some kind of amusement arcade apparently. Wonder if it's anything like blackpool pleasure beach… I imaging not! haha :)

OK, so Dave and Busters was Exactly like Blackpool pleasure beach! But still good fun :) I had Philly Steak rolls, which are a bit like spring rolls, cut in half lengthways, but full of gooey steak, with lots of plastic cheese to dip them in, Mmmmmm :) After that, went next door and watched Black Swan, fantastic film. Then spent half an hour playing around in Time Square with my camera.

Day 2 - "Remembrance Day" or "Reptile"
So I think I have finally figured out the underground. So I took the "R" Train to Whitehall street. From there I couldn't resist a little walk down to the dock, to take some pictures of Brooklyn over the water. There were a few people taking helicopter tours down there. Then I walked through Battery Park, to the Museum of the American Indian. Battery park was lovely, all covered in snow, and calm in respect to the rest of the city. Who would have thought that in a city this big you would be able to take more than ten steps in freshly fallen snow! From here you can see across the water to the statue of liberty. I'll have to come back here soon. The museum was nice, it was laid out a bit higgledy-piggledy but there were some interesting things there. There was this enormous indian head dress that was so big, it was bigger than me! In the lobby was the statue that was shown in the movie Black Swan that I had watched the night before! It's not often you see something in a movie and then see it for real the day after! :)
Just outside was the Bowling Green Bull, so I made sure to snap a photo of that before heading back to the tube station. On the way back there was some random little market stalls full of fresh-ish looking fruit and lots of locally made cookies and biscotti (Incidentally, they don't seem to know the english word for a biscuit here, but they sure as damn it know the Italian name!

Went to Planet Hollywood for lunch. Ashley works in the restaurant industry and so had managed to get a $180 voucher! Seemed a bit excessive for lunch, but I managed to get through a plate of teriyaki ribs and a 22oz rib eye steak! Ordered some cheese cake for pudding, but couldn't make a proper start on it :P We still had loads of money left over on the voucher so I made sure that the dude serving us ordered whatever he liked off the menu also :)

At this point I just want to mention for anyone coming, or planning to come to New York. I would highly recommend staying in a hotel on Time Square. It's incredibly convenient for everything and in a perfect spot. I'm just off for a walk down 42nd Street to watch the sunset!

By the way, the skyscrapers here are massive. You know that 'looking up' thing you do when you stand under Beetham Tower in MCR, well it's like that everywhere. It makes you dizzy! The buildings opposite the hotel are so enormous, it's impossible to describe the scale of them. It will take you about 5 minutes to walk lengthways down them and they must be about 80 stories high. There are 3 of them, huge ugly things, but unbelievably impressive! Stood in-between them, then looking up, there is a scratch of sky high above, but not much at all!

OK, Went for a walk down 42nd Street. Past Bryant park (which is lovely at night by the way, there is a huge marble fountain, up lit and an ice skating rink, it's so nice). Saw a taxi who had opened his door on a moving bus! (disastrous!) walked passed Grand Central Station and the Chrysler building and out to the dock, then back again. There was this guy, sat on the street corner playing percussion. He was drumming on these upturned buckets and boxes. He even had an old bathroom sink! He was really good at it as well!

At night trotted around Time Square, but it was really too cold to go anywhere, so stayed close to the hotel. Got some pizza and a brandy in the hotel bar, and then to bed.

Day 3 - Jamie Lidell - The City

Today we got a train to Canal Street, on the train was a bunch of old african guys walking down the cart singing barber shop! We came out of the subway and instantly walked down the wrong street and got lost in an area called "Tribeca", which is a nasty and scary looking place! When I got my bearings I managed to find Little Italy where I went to a little place called Persano down Mulberry Street (the heart of Little Italy) well it was a quiet and relaxing little place, really transported you away from the hustle and bustle. After that we wandered about a little around the Italian district, stopping at a few bakeries on the way to pick up some cakes, before it slowly turned into China Town. Before long, found myself in this little park, all full of beautiful trees, singing birds, and Chinese people playing cards. After a few shops we ended up and the subway station again, to find an old man playing a single stringed violin type instrument, playing traditional Chinese folk tunes (I really have to find out what that thing is called, it sounds so wonderful). After this we took a quick visit to Soho because Ashley wanted to go to "Dash" (A shop owned by some people called the Kardashian Sisters who are apparently 'famous'). This shop had a queue outside it and several bouncers! So not wanting to feel like and idiot, I let her go in there, while I went into "Evolution" across the road. It had real human skeletons for sale and this pot of assorted human bones for individual sale!

After this I went to "Carnagy Deli" which is famous for it's big sandwiches, and when I say big I mean BIG. I got the "Woody Allen" which is pastrami and corned beef. This thing was just like a mountain of meat with a tiny little, pathetic looking piece of bread on top. The only thing I can liken it to is say the meat version of the raquleqte! It's just an excuse to eat a pile of meat :) It was really nice, Graham would have loved it! On the subway on the way to our next place, a bunch of kids doing street dance to music, one kid was doing standing back flips on a moving train! Impressive. For pudding we went to a different restaurant (a little excessive I know) called Serendipity. Famous for it's pudding I got a Pecan Insanity something and an Apricot Certifiable something (the last one was supposed to be a drink, but it looked like and entire pudding to me) I got through a quarter of both of them and nearly died! Awesome, but far too much!

On the way back there was a guy down in the subway who had his own plank and was tap dancing, he was really good, all over the place, on his ankles, and up the wall and everything. Quality, there really is a lot going on in this city!



Last night I had a dream that Oceansize were playing a cover of a faith no more song! After playing "Part Cardiac". So that'll be todays song.
Day 4 - Part Cardiac - Oceansize
Today we stood in line, in the freezing cold wind for about 2 hours to queue up to go and see the statue of liberty. At this point it would be wise for anyone else following this path to avoid the carts selling 'cheese pretzels'. I knew it was going to be wrong, and the first bite confirmed that, but wrong in a macaroni cheese pie way, which is OK if your me, but by the end, the thing was zoo gross, *yuck*, NOT a good idea!

Packed like sardines on this little boat, we rode to Liberty Island. We quickly ran around the statue, took loadsa photos, and then dived into the cafe for some lunch. After there was another 20 min queue to get back on the boat in the cold. The next stop on the boat was Ellis Island, but because of the size of the queue, we decided to give it a miss. Instead we went to the site of 9/11. That was a very strange experience, and really changed the tone of the trip. We popped up out of the subway right in front of  where the twin towers used to be. It is very strange to stand around and stare at a 'gap'. Very humbling. It's insane to see how much of a mess has been made of the surrounding area. There is a lot of construction and rebuild work going on around there, and we went into the memorial preview site. They are building on 'Ground Zero' to make two huge square waterfalls where the towers were, and a big underground museum. Very odd, and very humbling.

After this we went to the Empire State Building. If you are planning on going, don't bother getting the 'Combo' ticket. This allows you on a go on a very ropey, and unnececarry simulator, and costs a small fortune. After that they let you up to the 86th floor. We arrived just as the sun was going down. It was cloudy so couldn't see the sunset, but all the lights on the city started coming on. As it slowly got darker and darker, the view got more and more spectacular, until it was unbelievable. I had a pocket tripod and trigger so managed to get some spectacular photos.

For tea I had Lobster tail Macaroni Cheese from Ruby Tuesday, which was lovely! and a pint of beer which cost $8! and more closely resembled 2 pints!