2019-01-02 New York
We're in New York!
First glance, quite a sharp change from Quebec City's pleasant service and calmness. Here it reminds me a lot of Hong Kong. Everyone's busy, everyone seems rude but they're just really really short on time.
UPDATE: One week later, nope, they're just rude.
It was nice to see the stuff from movies and American pop culture in person. Stuff like the A train, the various parks and buildings that are often in movies, and also just the insanity that is the NYC subway.
People are much louder than in Quebec. Strangers often talk to each other. Buskers are incredibly skilled. I've seen people sing, dance, fight, sleep and pee. There's a lot of people doing a lot of things.
We were privileged enough to witness a common New York custom, a drug deal! Three guys got onto the subway platform, and two of them just started dancing. This was used to distract people from the third person sitting on the bench. The dancing guy threw a jacket to the guy on the bench, who used the jacket as a courier. He took money out of the jacket, swapped it with the goods then threw the jacket back to the dancing guy.
I mean, if you wanted to do a shady deal, I'm not sure why they didn't use a dark alleyway or something. But I guess this works too.
Accommodation
We were based in way uptown Manhattan, between Harlem and the Bronx. It was in one of the mid-rise apartments on the ground floor. The apartment has seen better days (its very old) but you can tell that it used to be quite amazing.
This is lobby of the first accomodation. The building is pretty old. Poorly maintained or maybe just old.
This is the toilet of the shared basement of the first accommodation. We never went inside it, probably because it looks like a serial killer lived there or something. This area is also where we had to do our laundry.
We shared the apartment with a Korean couple and their 3 year old son. The kid, Wyatt, was really happy to see us for some reason. The parents were pretty quiet. We had the master bedroom.
This is the house manual for the second accommodation. Our second accommodation was based east of downtown Brooklyn. We had a room to ourselves inside an artist couple's den.
These guys were absolute control freaks. The rules state that we are not allowed to use the living room or kitchen. They weren't even home! They had a friend (who was actually very nice) homesit for them while we were there. We used the kitchen bench to eat our food but then I got a message warning me to follow the house rules. Meaning that they were watching me through a hidden camera or something. But the only reason I was eating there was because I didn't want to make a mess in the bedroom!
Their main reason for not letting people use the kitchen is because they value their privacy. Makes sense, if they were home. It would also make sense if they weren't hosting AirBnB tenants.
To top it off, the bedroom was absolutely tiny. Like too-small-to-open-our-luggage tiny.
Activities
Theatre with Avenue Q
We've watched the Book of Mormon so we figured we'd check out the writer's other (older) offering, Avenue Q. It was pretty good! The message and story was actually pretty decent, though I still struggled to understand some of the lyrics. Not cheap though, I think it ended up being around 250AUD per ticket.
Jazz at Minton's
Minton's Jazz club is the self proclaimed birthplace of bebop! We watched a show by Hector Martignon. A little too hot for my liking, but I still managed to appreciate it. It was a fusion of latin jazz, Brazillian, Columbian and world music. There was also a great guest singer for one of the songs in the sets.
I also have managed to catch a blooper at the end of their final song! I'll try and upload it here.
UPDATE: Here it is! Epic cymbal smack at 1:34
Food
NYC is huge on food culture. I think that's its main saving grace. The only problem is that it's always soul/comfort food. All the time! We were so sick of all the tasty food we bought some apples, tangelos and carrots to eat in the mornings.
Taste bud overload is real!
Norma's
We tried to go here but it was packed and required booking early. Pretty sad about this, they were rated really highly.
Korean 1
Dolsot Bibimbap.
Unagi!
What the hell why is this one upside down?
Just normal Korean food here. We just wanted to sit down after spending all day walking.
Korean 2
Side dishes. We miss this stuff.
Its pretty weird they have these grooves on the side for eggs and kimchi.
Look how fatty it is!
KBBQ! Really good stuff here. The soybean paste stew was also much bettter than back at home. They have more stuff in it!
Sarabeths
French toast at Sarabeths.
Katz's Delicatessen
Pastrami at Katz's. This was meant to be world changing and famous, but not so much unfortunately.
Dallas BBQ
Free Christmas cake at the end of the meal!
Gigantic beef ribs.
The ribs weren't too fatty or sickening. This is different to a smokehouse/sidedoor BBQ style barbecue.
Sticky wings and fried broccoli. That was a small broccoli, we almost bought the large but the guy warned us thankfully.
We ate at Dallas BBQ many times (we didn't eat the food in the photos above all in one go!). Dallas BBQ was amazing!
Cuban Food
Los tres golpes. Translated to the three hits, it was pretty good! A little greasy.
3 milk cake. Properly called Tres Leches.
Cuban food has become a lot more prevalent lately. I think its because of Cuba opening its borders to the USA recently? I dunno.
Raclette
Over in East Village we have Raclette, made famous from a Buzzfeed video. Everyone we've spoken to here has seen the video but hasn't actually checked out the place itself yet.
We checked it out. Not very cheap, but it was a cool novelty. The problem with the raclette cheese is that it hardens very quickly. So only a minute after the cheese slicing, you've got a block of hardened cheese.
Managed to find the entrance to Raclette NYC in the blistering cold.
A hipster menu sign thingy.
Look at that cheese!
Its already hardened at this point...
Keki
Keki is a famous bouncy cheesecake shop. Unfortunately we didn't get to eat it while it was fresh and bouncy, but only after it has been in the fridge.
Pizza!
Random pizza place before we took the (pointless) ferry to Staten Island.
Denino's
We went all the way to Staten Island a boring suburb that apparently has the best pizza. We don't really like pizza in general but it turns out NY pizza is amazing!
Dim sum at Jing Fong
Jing Fong is a highly rated dimsum place in NYC. It was packed! We got seated with another group.
And the thing is, the dim sum at home was better anyway... Now that I think about it, the dim sum in Perth was better than Hong Kong and Singapore. Not sure what we have world class dim sum but there you go.
Shopping
Century 21 was meant to be some mecca of amazing deals and cheap designer clothes but we were pretty disappointed. All the big brand stuff is meant to be 65 to 75% off. Some of it is. Unfortunately the stuff that's actually any good is very expensive and the cheap stuff feels cheap.
We ended up getting some decent stuff from Nordstrom Rack which is basically Myers.
Exploring
Times Square
Overpriced souvenirs! Times Square was pretty disappointing. There were way too many people. And for what? Lots of walking?
Rockefeller Center
We did the observation tower Top of the Rock thing. Not really worth it, I've done a bunch of observation tower things in various cities and always come away really underwhelmed and sad at the fatness of my wallet.
Out the front there was a skating rink and an alleged famous Christmas tree. I say "alleged" because there was maybe a million people there and I could not see a single damn thing.
Central Park
Steph was on the swings here. She was going a little too crazy and almost kicked derpy pedestrians (who should know better than to walk within the swing perimeter) in the face.
I'm trying my best to blend in. Is it working? Everyone seems to wear hoodies here and look menacing.
Here's a picture of Steph camouflaging somehow. Can you spot her?
I'm told lots of movies are filmed here.
Empire State Building
We didn't actually go in here. We saw it though. From the Rockefeller Center.
Korea Town
KTown was pretty disappointing. You go there expecting a Myeongdong or something but it ends up being just restaurants. No multibangs (!!!) or cosmetic alleys.
Statue of Liberty
On the ferry! Ready to see the Statue of Liberty...
... From like 2km away. At least it was free.
Random Photo Dump
Holy moly look at the size of that thing!
This makes so much more sense.
Food trucks galore in NYC. Is that what Perth's recent food truck surge has been going after I wonder? Maybe the food trucks back at home could take further notes and reduce their prices by about 2/3.
NYPD! Get down! Its cool to see stuff that you really only see in the movies.
There was a super super hipster guy who sits here. You pay him and he writes you a poem on his typewriter. I'm not sure how much more hipster you can get.
The New York Times building itself! They have a large Go presence.
The bulidings are really cool here. Each townhouse-y thing come in various shapes, sizes and colours. But in the end they're all consistent with the architecture.
Another angle of the buildings.
Lots of graffiti everywhere in the city.
Our last accommodation had this as the metro mezzanine floor. I don't know why its like 1km long. I'm sure there's a reason.
Leaving
We grabbed this pastry for the train out. Its called a Kouign Aman, a breton dish that's basically a croissant in the shape of a muffin, glazed. It taste amazing! We came back to get more the next day.
We took the train to Washington DC and managed to breath a little.
Conclusions
New York is insanely busy, packed and expensive. It feels dangerous around every corner, and everyone seems poor and rich at the same time. The food culture is fantastic, yet expensive. The cheap food is also good. No one skimps on ingredients. Lots of random things happen everywhere, the buskers are insanely talented. It still feels like a city of expression and opportunity, where you're given a chance as long as you're willing to put in the effort.
