Wet Wet Wet
Monday 28 March 2005
Our only full day in New York.
And it rains the entire fucking day. No, screw that, it poured the entire day.
We woke up late, started out late, and only reached Battery Park at about noon. After buying tickets at Castle Clinton (I wonder if there are any interns there, ha ha - please forgive my lame sense of humor), we hopped on the ferry for Liberty Island. Well, by hopped on I mean passed through ridiculous security checks before boarding.
What can I say about the whole experience? Big crowds, long lines (though not as long as they usually are, I hear), waiting outdoors, pouring rain and more agonizingly slow security checks add up to two very depressed travellers. Hours later, completely drenched and pathetic-looking, we finally started on our climb up the interior of the monument.
Maybe it was because we were in such a sad state, but I failed to fully appreciate the significance of the moment. At that point it was more like, "Well, we're here, we've spent hours getting wet, we might as well climb the fucking thing."
Lady Liberty's innards
One thing they fail to mention though. They don't let you into the statue at all. You get to climb up to the base, go out through a door in the pedestal and examine the bottom of her robes in all their glory. And even then they're pretty far above you, kinda like this:
Boo.
On the ferry ride back we attempted to take more pictures on the open deck. Not a good idea. The wind conspired at every instant to whip the rain into our faces and into our lenses. In fact, it kinda hurt, like little needles hitting your face. Not cool.
See how sad we looked.
At Wall Street, we got wetter still, before finally buying cheap-ass made-in-China umbrellas from a little Asian woman peddling them from a makeshift stall. But hey, they worked. Somewhat.
The tall buildings were ridiculous, and made Jingli happy. He's a real city boy. We couldn't find the Bull at Wall Street, which pissed me off, because I had no trouble finding it the last time.
Somewhere around Wall Street where George Washington apparently stood once.
We walked around the WTC site. They've now got a viewing wall around the entire place, although it's more like a secure fence. I did miss the atmosphere of the area that I remembered from the last time I visited though. It was in March of 2002, when the tragedy was still fresh in everyone's mind. Anyway, you can't really see anything now from the fence.
They had a viewing platform built beside St. Paul's Chapel (in the background of the picture) nearby then, where you could stare out into the gaping chasm and go "Fuck..." under your breath. Of course the elevated view was better than the one from ground level now. The chapel fence was filled with tributes and notices for missing people, but they have since been taken down. It's really these human touches that connect with people though; I can't feel too much from a construction site. Hopefully after they complete work on the new building something will be done to retain that human touch. To remind people that beyond the lists of names, real people were affected and real lives were altered.
A quick subway ride to Grand Central Terminal followed. I dragged Jingli there because, well, it's iconic and all. Plus, it looks real pretty.
He quickly figured out how the subway worked, and could navigate the tons of lines at this point with no problem. Next, we took another subway ride to Brooklyn so we could see the bridge and maybe even walk back along it. The rain had subsided somewhat so we were kinda hopeful.
Unfortunately when we exited the station it was pouring again. No-go. All we managed to get was this lousy picture:
It was dark by then, so next stop: Times Square, where Jingli went nuts for all the flashy lights and neon signs. There's not much more you can say about Times Sqaure, so just look at the pictures.
Ah, Ernst & (De)Young. You remember them, don't you, Eddy?
When you're cold, wet and hungry, you kinda yearn for a good dinner. We ended up at Bubba Gump, this really touristy-looking, probably overpriced chain restaurant at Times Square. It seemed to use Forrest Gump as a theme. However, the food is good, like the coconut shrimp. Who'd ever think of that? Putting shrimp and coconut together. Sounds weird, but was really good.
After dinner, we walked to Fifth Avenue. This was taken along the way. I have no idea what any of the buildings in the background were, but damn, doesn't it look all gothic and cool?
The rain finally stopped as we walked down Fifth Avenue, and we celebrated by taking tons of pictures.
This here's St. Patrick's Cathedral, my personal favorite New York church, because it's huge and gothic and looks unbelievable. You can't see any detail on a PC though, so too bad if you're one of Them.
Rockefeller Center is a ridiculously huge complex of buildings that seems to take up several blocks. It also has an ice-skating rink in the middle, as if taking up several blocks wasn't ostentatious enough.
These poor tourists had no idea they were such great subjects for my picture.
St. Thomas Church also looks good and has some great detail on its doors. Unfortunately you probably need to have a Mac to display it in all its glory. Pictures somehow look really shitty on PCs.
We also switched to taking some black and whites, and New York is perfect for them. Every single street corner just cries out to you, "I'm so noir! Take me, take me!" And so we did.
You can see my favorite skyscraper in New York, the Chrysler Building, in the background here:
They look so great, I'm thinking of blowing them up and framing them.
Anyhow, that was our first and only full day in the Big Apple.
Our only full day in New York.
And it rains the entire fucking day. No, screw that, it poured the entire day.
We woke up late, started out late, and only reached Battery Park at about noon. After buying tickets at Castle Clinton (I wonder if there are any interns there, ha ha - please forgive my lame sense of humor), we hopped on the ferry for Liberty Island. Well, by hopped on I mean passed through ridiculous security checks before boarding.
What can I say about the whole experience? Big crowds, long lines (though not as long as they usually are, I hear), waiting outdoors, pouring rain and more agonizingly slow security checks add up to two very depressed travellers. Hours later, completely drenched and pathetic-looking, we finally started on our climb up the interior of the monument.
Maybe it was because we were in such a sad state, but I failed to fully appreciate the significance of the moment. At that point it was more like, "Well, we're here, we've spent hours getting wet, we might as well climb the fucking thing."
Lady Liberty's innards
One thing they fail to mention though. They don't let you into the statue at all. You get to climb up to the base, go out through a door in the pedestal and examine the bottom of her robes in all their glory. And even then they're pretty far above you, kinda like this:
Boo.
On the ferry ride back we attempted to take more pictures on the open deck. Not a good idea. The wind conspired at every instant to whip the rain into our faces and into our lenses. In fact, it kinda hurt, like little needles hitting your face. Not cool.
See how sad we looked.
At Wall Street, we got wetter still, before finally buying cheap-ass made-in-China umbrellas from a little Asian woman peddling them from a makeshift stall. But hey, they worked. Somewhat.
The tall buildings were ridiculous, and made Jingli happy. He's a real city boy. We couldn't find the Bull at Wall Street, which pissed me off, because I had no trouble finding it the last time.
Somewhere around Wall Street where George Washington apparently stood once.
We walked around the WTC site. They've now got a viewing wall around the entire place, although it's more like a secure fence. I did miss the atmosphere of the area that I remembered from the last time I visited though. It was in March of 2002, when the tragedy was still fresh in everyone's mind. Anyway, you can't really see anything now from the fence.
They had a viewing platform built beside St. Paul's Chapel (in the background of the picture) nearby then, where you could stare out into the gaping chasm and go "Fuck..." under your breath. Of course the elevated view was better than the one from ground level now. The chapel fence was filled with tributes and notices for missing people, but they have since been taken down. It's really these human touches that connect with people though; I can't feel too much from a construction site. Hopefully after they complete work on the new building something will be done to retain that human touch. To remind people that beyond the lists of names, real people were affected and real lives were altered.
A quick subway ride to Grand Central Terminal followed. I dragged Jingli there because, well, it's iconic and all. Plus, it looks real pretty.
He quickly figured out how the subway worked, and could navigate the tons of lines at this point with no problem. Next, we took another subway ride to Brooklyn so we could see the bridge and maybe even walk back along it. The rain had subsided somewhat so we were kinda hopeful.
Unfortunately when we exited the station it was pouring again. No-go. All we managed to get was this lousy picture:
It was dark by then, so next stop: Times Square, where Jingli went nuts for all the flashy lights and neon signs. There's not much more you can say about Times Sqaure, so just look at the pictures.
Ah, Ernst & (De)Young. You remember them, don't you, Eddy?
When you're cold, wet and hungry, you kinda yearn for a good dinner. We ended up at Bubba Gump, this really touristy-looking, probably overpriced chain restaurant at Times Square. It seemed to use Forrest Gump as a theme. However, the food is good, like the coconut shrimp. Who'd ever think of that? Putting shrimp and coconut together. Sounds weird, but was really good.
After dinner, we walked to Fifth Avenue. This was taken along the way. I have no idea what any of the buildings in the background were, but damn, doesn't it look all gothic and cool?
The rain finally stopped as we walked down Fifth Avenue, and we celebrated by taking tons of pictures.
This here's St. Patrick's Cathedral, my personal favorite New York church, because it's huge and gothic and looks unbelievable. You can't see any detail on a PC though, so too bad if you're one of Them.
Rockefeller Center is a ridiculously huge complex of buildings that seems to take up several blocks. It also has an ice-skating rink in the middle, as if taking up several blocks wasn't ostentatious enough.
These poor tourists had no idea they were such great subjects for my picture.
St. Thomas Church also looks good and has some great detail on its doors. Unfortunately you probably need to have a Mac to display it in all its glory. Pictures somehow look really shitty on PCs.
We also switched to taking some black and whites, and New York is perfect for them. Every single street corner just cries out to you, "I'm so noir! Take me, take me!" And so we did.
You can see my favorite skyscraper in New York, the Chrysler Building, in the background here:
They look so great, I'm thinking of blowing them up and framing them.
Anyhow, that was our first and only full day in the Big Apple.
posted by cinewhore @ 11:28 AM
1 mindfucks
1 Comments:
hey hey... the cathedral pics looked like a drawing/painting on my screen... more like 2-D than 3-D... cool... i like the pic with Jingli infront of it... his expression not bad siah... but his positioning on that pic not very good only... ;)
-ww
gimme some mindfuckery
<< Home