If you want a pictorial version of this long boring entry, Kevin, Ben and I have uploaded a bunch of pics on Facebook.
Day 3 "Let's Roll"After getting up late at 9:30AM, our sleepy room was out by around 11AM, two hours late. Once again Kevin and Pauline had to wait for us. At least the shower was working after a call to the front desk the previous day. It was sunny and warm, in stark contrast to the previous day. We hit up the PATH and went directly to the WTC subway stop.
At the subway stop, Victor wanted to play DS together. He let us know his desire by saying "Let's Roll". That became the running joke of the weekend along with Richard packing more stuff than the girls combined, and Richard and Victor sleeping together.
The WTC site is a big construction area. There was an informative display with a timeline and photos. After taking a few photos, we came across Century 21 and went in. Century 21 is like a larger version of Winners with more brand names. Kev and Richard got bored quickly and left to explore the surrounding area. Ben went crazy and spent $400. The girls had a good time too, but bought very little in comparison. I picked up a pair of running shoes and a few shirts. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to try the running shoes extensively before purchasing because there was a plastic tie keeping them together. After I tried it in the hotel I found that there was not enough arch support and it felt like my knees were coming together unnaturally. Hopefully it'll be better when I break them in.
After extending our time shopping we headed off to wander some more. We headed in the direction of New York City Hall. Someone suggested Burger King for lunch, but I quickly vetoed it, since I've never in my life eaten anything decent there. We ended up at an Eatery, called Olivia's. I had a light lunch of a panini sandwich because I knew I would be having some Katz Deli soon. We began to walk around the park and the surrounding area. Ben soon got tired of carrying all his stuff so he had to head back and drop it off in the hotel.
From there we walked to
NYC Chinatown. NYC has the largest concentration of Chinese people in the Western hemisphere. This was reflected by their large Chinatown. And like all other Chinatowns, it was dirty, smelly and full of garbage and good deals. We bought a few oranges and Kitty and Victor hunted around for some bbtea. They eventually found a place selling smoothies with real fruit. It was very tasty.
We passed by a small section that I was told later was Little Italy. The section we went through consisted of a few blocks of furniture and lighting shops. We were getting close to Katz's, but early for the rendezvous time with Ben. We decided to walk west on Houston for a bit and came across an Adidas store. We went in for some comfy seats and AC. The Adidas store conveniently had touch screen monitors with games. We spent a while there, watching Victor and Richard try to beat the German's high score at snake. They were unsuccessful.
We headed out back toward's Katz's deli. On the way, we heard some music playing, so we headed in that direction to find out what it was about. We were in the
Bargain District of NYC. The neighbourhood had a bohemian feel to it, especially when we discovered the source of the music. It was just some dude blasting (very loud) music from his apartment and people had congregated outside on the street. A lot of shops were selling their wares as well. A little dissapointed, we headed back to Katz's.
When you get into Katz, you are forced to take a ticket to record what you ordered. Think Marche for an equivalent analogy. From what I could tell, their most famous sandwiches were the pastrami, corned beef and salami. After waiting in line (or budding in front to where my friends were), I ordered a pastrami. The meat cutter first gives you sample to taste and then you wait for him to cut up the meat. The sandwiches were quite expensive, going for about $12-13 a sandwich, but they are quite large. The pastrami on rye was excellent and I thought it was better than Schwartz's in Montreal (although 3 times more expensive). At Schwatz's, there were chunks of fat in the sandwich, that I didn't enjoy so much (I ordered a medium fat Montreal Smoked Meat Sandwich), but at Katz's, the fat was more evenly distributed. After washing it down with a Dr. Brown's root beer, we were off to see Rent.
Kitty had ordered tickets the previous week to see Rent, so we didn't have to use TKTS, which was recommended by so many people. Richard and Victor didn't want to see Rent and ended up at TKTS and watched
Spelling Bee (according to Victor not as good as
Spellbound). We met up with Joanna, Judy and her friend Steve and proceeded to enter the theatre. In yet another strange coincidence, Judy's friend Steve knew Kevin because they lived in V1 (Waterloo dorm) together.
Whenever I think of Rent, the first thing that comes to mind is the
spoof in Team America of Rent. It was fitting that we were in East Village earlier in the day, which I think the play was set in. I had a bit of trouble picking up what the documentary guy was saying at times, but the rest of the cast was good. Ben kept raving about the cross dresser's performance.
After that, Joanna and Steve headed off and we walked through Times Square to the Virgin Megastore to meet up with Richard and Victor. I taught Judy how to play some guitar hero and also walked around Times Square a bit. Some of us wanted to stay in Times Square and others wanted to go to a Cheesecake place. Kevin met up with his friend John and with Pauline, decided to stick around Times Square. Ben, Victor, Richard Kitty and I headed off to the far away Cheesecake place.
Unfortunately it was already pretty late on a Sunday night and when we arrived, at Veniero's, the seating had already closed. We ordered some takeout and decided to head back. On the way, Ben and Richard couldn't resist getting some Popeye's Fried Chicken. We couldn't think of anywhere to go that would still be open on a Sunday night, so with our unhealthy food, we headed back to the hotel.
We got back, unwrapped our food and starting eating and chatting. Eventually we cracked out our DSs (we had four after borrowing Joanna's) and started playing some Team Tetris. I sucked badly (I was tired) and played until 3:30 AM. Kitty had gone downstairs to pack so she could be ready for more shopping the next day.
Day 4: More ShoppingKitty and Pauline had planned to get up really early in the morning and go back into Manhattan to do some more shopping. They hit up Century 21 and Forever 21. I slept. We eventually got out of bed at around 11AM and proceeded to pack and get out of the hotel. We met up in a mall across from the hotel and did some more shopping. The girls eventually came back and met up with us and they also continued shopping. After a quick meal at the food court (Popeye's for me) and getting berated for leaving my DS in the car we started our drive back.
We were greeted with traffic trying to leave NJ, but eventually made it out. This time the ride back consisted of more C-pop, hearing about Ben's experience being the #1 Street Fight player in Canada, sleep and playing DS. We met up with the other car at the exact same McD's as before and had a leisurely dinner. We discussed our favourite part about the trip, which I have posted below:
Kitty: Rent
Ben: Rent
Richard: Dunno, (sleeping with Victor?)
Kevin: Dunno, (Apple Store?)
Victor: Katz's Deli
Nelson: Nintendo World Store
Pauline: Shoe Shopping
On the way back, we ran into some traffic getting into Toronto. That's when the other car got on the Walkie Talkie and declared "Let's Roll!". So we started playing 4 player DS between the two cars. That was fun, but kinda sucked when it started lagging due to the increasing distance. Eventually our DSs ran out of batteries and the traffic cleared up. We met up in Scarborough Town Center at around 1AM to redistribute the people for optimal home delivery and concluded our weekend of fun.
Labels: bbtea, deals, diary, DS, Facebook, Food, Holidays, Theatre, Travel
