Weekend in NYC: Part 1
Warning: this entry is kinda long and boring, so you may want to skip it...
Day 1
I spent the long weekend down in NYC. Any particular reason? No. Someone suggested it, we planned it with a shitload of emails and then took off.
Well sorta took off. We wanted to leave Friday afternoon to try to get ahead of the long weekend traffic and get to the hotel at a reasonable hour. I even took a half day off since I was coming in from Waterloo and picked up Kitty (with a quick stop at Christie's Cookie Factory Outlet), Richard (Thanks for lunch, your company sells awesome sandwiches) and Pauline (from Woodlands, my childhood Chinese school), but Ben forgot where he put his passport. We ended up waiting for him at Coffee Time/Dairy Queen/Chuck E. Cheese. We played X-Men, but the red video component was missing and the controllers were broken. By the time we got going, we were into rush hour traffic, but it wasn't too bad, since it only delayed us by half an hour.
Thanks to some fast driving by Ben and Victor (Thanks guys!), it took us about 9 hours to get down to NYC, which was faster than I expected. We only made three stops: once at the border, once at McDonald's and once for gas. The ride down consisted of hours upon hours of Mandarin C-pop between bouts of sleep, messing with the GPS and gossip (I was riding with the gossip queens, Ben and Kitty after all).
We finally arrived at our Doubletree hotel in Jersey City at 3AM in the morning. We proceeded to check into our room for four people, which unfortunately consisted of a Queen size bed, couch, cot, smoke and a dripping shower head. It was still pretty decent! But then again I didn't sleep on the coffee table/couch like Ben did the first night.
Day 2
Our room (Ben Joanna, Kitty and I), woke up at 9AM, took some dripping water showers and got out of the hotel by around 10AM. Kevin & Pauline got up at 7:30 and were bored to death waiting for us. We were fortunately located right next to the PATH station to get into Manhatten (Pavonia/Newport). Unfortunately, due to some miscommunication, we were delayed a bit waiting for Tim to meet up with us. He was staying in a completely empty condo minutes away from our hotel. Richard stayed behind and we went ahead and went into Manhattan.
We travelled on the dirty and smelly NYC subway system and came out somewhere in Manhattan. Somewhat atypical for me, I didn't look at the maps and just let others take care of getting around. We walked around NYC for a while looking for a place to eat, coming across some sort of farmer's market. We decided to keep moving and found a TGIF, sat down, ordered water, looked at the crazy menu prices and then got up and left. Damn tourists. We eventually made our way to Grand Central Station, where Tim and Richard caught up with us and we met up with Judy (Kitty's University friend working at EY in NYC). We finally decided on Junior's inside the station and had lunch. They serve representative/stereotypical "New York" types of food. I had a Reuben sandwich and it was damn good.
We subwayed up 5th Ave to the Guggenheim, but unfortunately it was under renovations. We walked down until we reached the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We split up, with half continuing to walk down 5th Ave while Tim, Richard, Kitty and I stayed to check out the Met. It seemed like it was about to rain, so I figured hitting up the museum would be a good idea. We bumped into some random people exiting that gave us their pin, but the price of admission is just a recommended donation. We went to check out the Egyptian temple first, then got lost in the American section. There was a section for American colonial furniture and I felt like I was trapped in an episode of Antiques Road Show. I looked around to find the famous painting of Washington Crossing the Delaware. Kitty really liked the still lifes by William Michael Harnett, Alexander Pope and John F. Peto (I looked that up on their website). We wandering around the Japanese art section before heading out to catch the a tour of Modern Art. Thankfully it was not too modern (the most modern it got was a Picasso) and mostly focused on Impressionist paintings (my favourite). Richard was falling asleep while standing. I found it interesting and even though I was familiar with most of the material already, the Met had a lot of famous pieces. I also found it coincidental how the Impressionist Wing's building design was exactly like that of the Louvre's, except smaller.
We left the musuem and started walking down museum mile (with a quick Starbucks stop). Unfortunately, it started to rain. We deliberated whether to walk or take the subway to Rockefeller and decided to keep walking. I got my shoes/socks wet at this point. We walked by a bunch of stores (Apple, FAO Schwartz, Gucci, LV) without going in so we could meet up with the other group. Judy had gone home for a nap and we met up with her again near North America's largest Catholic Church. We arrived at the rendevous point in Rockefeller Concourse at yet another Starbucks. At this point we learned that Victor had gone back to the hotel to rest because he was sick. We had previously wanted to take a boat cruise at this point, but since it was raining, we decided to split up again and wander around.
I, along with Tim, Judy, Ben and Kitty headed to the Nintendo World Store. We spent the hour there where everyone except Ben and I were probably bored out of their minds - I thought it was the highlight of the trip :) It was a really nice store, with a lot of demo stations all over for Wii and DS games. There was a large crowd at the Tiger Woods game and a bunch of people playing Pokemon for DS. They had a museum of sorts upstairs showing off old systems and accessories. They also had a clothing section where I proceeded to pick up two T-shirts. I was excited to be there and couldn't resist making purchases. Ben tried to convince me to get a DS because it's cheaper in the US with the favourable exchange rate and lack of taxes. I was eventually going to get one, so I was weak and gave in. I ended up saving about $24. Ben proceeded to buy two, a pink one for himself and a black one for his brother. I bought a white one to match my Wii. I also picked up Tetris, because I heard from Keith and Tsu that the multiplayer was fun.
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We met up again and decided to go back to the hotel to change and drop off our stuff. Kitty went back to Judy's. We were running late for dinner, so we decided to call for a cab. Turns out that there is no such thing as a cab from New Jersey to NYC and we had called for an "underground cab". It was also a ripoff. We only found out later that the PATH trains to NJ run all night long. Anyway, we met up with Ben's friend William (and his gf) at Virgils BBQ at 9PM for dinner. It turns out that Judy and William know each other because they work at the same company. What a coincidence! After a smokey, meaty meal of ribs, it was off to the club.
We rode a taxi down to the the Meat Packing District for some clubbing. We got there around midnight and left at 2AM. In Toronto, I typically go on Asian nights, but this time in NYC it had a real different feeling. There were a lot of black, white and asians, so it had a different vibe. DJ was pretty decent too (although I think the DJ at Bomber is pretty good as well). The club was also really pricey. $20 USD cover and $10 drinks. After Pauline had a little trouble with the alcohol we headed back to the hotel after a long, exhausting day......to play Tetris DS!
Day 1
I spent the long weekend down in NYC. Any particular reason? No. Someone suggested it, we planned it with a shitload of emails and then took off.
Well sorta took off. We wanted to leave Friday afternoon to try to get ahead of the long weekend traffic and get to the hotel at a reasonable hour. I even took a half day off since I was coming in from Waterloo and picked up Kitty (with a quick stop at Christie's Cookie Factory Outlet), Richard (Thanks for lunch, your company sells awesome sandwiches) and Pauline (from Woodlands, my childhood Chinese school), but Ben forgot where he put his passport. We ended up waiting for him at Coffee Time/Dairy Queen/Chuck E. Cheese. We played X-Men, but the red video component was missing and the controllers were broken. By the time we got going, we were into rush hour traffic, but it wasn't too bad, since it only delayed us by half an hour.
Thanks to some fast driving by Ben and Victor (Thanks guys!), it took us about 9 hours to get down to NYC, which was faster than I expected. We only made three stops: once at the border, once at McDonald's and once for gas. The ride down consisted of hours upon hours of Mandarin C-pop between bouts of sleep, messing with the GPS and gossip (I was riding with the gossip queens, Ben and Kitty after all).
We finally arrived at our Doubletree hotel in Jersey City at 3AM in the morning. We proceeded to check into our room for four people, which unfortunately consisted of a Queen size bed, couch, cot, smoke and a dripping shower head. It was still pretty decent! But then again I didn't sleep on the coffee table/couch like Ben did the first night.
Day 2
Our room (Ben Joanna, Kitty and I), woke up at 9AM, took some dripping water showers and got out of the hotel by around 10AM. Kevin & Pauline got up at 7:30 and were bored to death waiting for us. We were fortunately located right next to the PATH station to get into Manhatten (Pavonia/Newport). Unfortunately, due to some miscommunication, we were delayed a bit waiting for Tim to meet up with us. He was staying in a completely empty condo minutes away from our hotel. Richard stayed behind and we went ahead and went into Manhattan.
We travelled on the dirty and smelly NYC subway system and came out somewhere in Manhattan. Somewhat atypical for me, I didn't look at the maps and just let others take care of getting around. We walked around NYC for a while looking for a place to eat, coming across some sort of farmer's market. We decided to keep moving and found a TGIF, sat down, ordered water, looked at the crazy menu prices and then got up and left. Damn tourists. We eventually made our way to Grand Central Station, where Tim and Richard caught up with us and we met up with Judy (Kitty's University friend working at EY in NYC). We finally decided on Junior's inside the station and had lunch. They serve representative/stereotypical "New York" types of food. I had a Reuben sandwich and it was damn good.
We subwayed up 5th Ave to the Guggenheim, but unfortunately it was under renovations. We walked down until we reached the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We split up, with half continuing to walk down 5th Ave while Tim, Richard, Kitty and I stayed to check out the Met. It seemed like it was about to rain, so I figured hitting up the museum would be a good idea. We bumped into some random people exiting that gave us their pin, but the price of admission is just a recommended donation. We went to check out the Egyptian temple first, then got lost in the American section. There was a section for American colonial furniture and I felt like I was trapped in an episode of Antiques Road Show. I looked around to find the famous painting of Washington Crossing the Delaware. Kitty really liked the still lifes by William Michael Harnett, Alexander Pope and John F. Peto (I looked that up on their website). We wandering around the Japanese art section before heading out to catch the a tour of Modern Art. Thankfully it was not too modern (the most modern it got was a Picasso) and mostly focused on Impressionist paintings (my favourite). Richard was falling asleep while standing. I found it interesting and even though I was familiar with most of the material already, the Met had a lot of famous pieces. I also found it coincidental how the Impressionist Wing's building design was exactly like that of the Louvre's, except smaller.
We left the musuem and started walking down museum mile (with a quick Starbucks stop). Unfortunately, it started to rain. We deliberated whether to walk or take the subway to Rockefeller and decided to keep walking. I got my shoes/socks wet at this point. We walked by a bunch of stores (Apple, FAO Schwartz, Gucci, LV) without going in so we could meet up with the other group. Judy had gone home for a nap and we met up with her again near North America's largest Catholic Church. We arrived at the rendevous point in Rockefeller Concourse at yet another Starbucks. At this point we learned that Victor had gone back to the hotel to rest because he was sick. We had previously wanted to take a boat cruise at this point, but since it was raining, we decided to split up again and wander around.
I, along with Tim, Judy, Ben and Kitty headed to the Nintendo World Store. We spent the hour there where everyone except Ben and I were probably bored out of their minds - I thought it was the highlight of the trip :) It was a really nice store, with a lot of demo stations all over for Wii and DS games. There was a large crowd at the Tiger Woods game and a bunch of people playing Pokemon for DS. They had a museum of sorts upstairs showing off old systems and accessories. They also had a clothing section where I proceeded to pick up two T-shirts. I was excited to be there and couldn't resist making purchases. Ben tried to convince me to get a DS because it's cheaper in the US with the favourable exchange rate and lack of taxes. I was eventually going to get one, so I was weak and gave in. I ended up saving about $24. Ben proceeded to buy two, a pink one for himself and a black one for his brother. I bought a white one to match my Wii. I also picked up Tetris, because I heard from Keith and Tsu that the multiplayer was fun.
+110.jpg)
We met up again and decided to go back to the hotel to change and drop off our stuff. Kitty went back to Judy's. We were running late for dinner, so we decided to call for a cab. Turns out that there is no such thing as a cab from New Jersey to NYC and we had called for an "underground cab". It was also a ripoff. We only found out later that the PATH trains to NJ run all night long. Anyway, we met up with Ben's friend William (and his gf) at Virgils BBQ at 9PM for dinner. It turns out that Judy and William know each other because they work at the same company. What a coincidence! After a smokey, meaty meal of ribs, it was off to the club.
We rode a taxi down to the the Meat Packing District for some clubbing. We got there around midnight and left at 2AM. In Toronto, I typically go on Asian nights, but this time in NYC it had a real different feeling. There were a lot of black, white and asians, so it had a different vibe. DJ was pretty decent too (although I think the DJ at Bomber is pretty good as well). The club was also really pricey. $20 USD cover and $10 drinks. After Pauline had a little trouble with the alcohol we headed back to the hotel after a long, exhausting day......to play Tetris DS!
posted by Nelson at 10:39 PM
6 Comments:
i can't believe i read all that
and i can't believe you got up and left @ a restaurant!!! hahaha
You can take a regular NYC yellow cab from Manhattan to Jersey City, but you have to negotiate and it's damn expensive. Either the driver will name some price and you haggle, or he looks it up in his NY State taxi drivers rate guide (yes, there is such a book, they all carry one) and you pay that. But maybe he tries to change the price at the other end, so you haggle some more. I've done that trip twice, at like 4:00am, and it was a pain both times. I don't remember the exact amount, but I think it was something like US$38 one way. I think cab drivers don't like to make the trip because they have to pay tolls, and they're not allowed to pick anyone up in Jersey.
Jeff
With $6 toll included, we paid $61 and $55 (I think) dollars for the van. On the way back, the driver's opening bid was $90! And then the rate on the meter turned out to be $15. That sucked.
The TGIF didn't have a lunch menu and their regular menu had insane prices. The meal at Junior's was so much better in comparison. Oh well, we're chinese tourist, we do stuff like that.
Oh, and they had a misleading lunch menu posted on the outside. That's what we thought we would be ordering from.
Hey Nels, thanks for posting about your trip. Richard gave me a sort of spotty version of the recap after Vball this week, but it was nice to read about how your trip went. I appreciated the detail. It sounds like you guys had fun. I didn't end up doing much that weekend besides studying and some family stuff, but in the end I'm kind of glad that I didn't go. I think some of the stuff you described probably wouldn't have interested me that much and/or might have bummed me out (expensive cabs, walking out of restaurants, clubbing, raining, etc.). I'm glad you got a DS though. Those things rock hard. I play my DS even when I'm at home and not in transit somewhere.
I didn't realize I made it sound so negative! It was a lot of fun!
Once you work out the cost per person, the cab was about less than $10 per person, so it's not that bad. Walking out of the restaurant was no problem, everyone was in agreement and felt no shame. Also, not everyone did the same activities. For example, Joanna didn't spend any time with us at except Rent and then quickly disappeared after that.
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