For those who don't already know, I went onto a trip to New York last
week!!  The trip was really great.  I saw a lot of things, and I believe
I learned much from the trip.  The following is the account of what
happened.  The trip was all planned out three weeks before the trip when
I spoke with my elementary school friend, Wei & Yun, who are on their
own trip all over the map within the states. However, they were quite
glad to go around New York with a handsome English translator, and the
best part is that He's free and very dedicated.   So, I jumped in and
met them at New York!  Wei is from Taiwan, and I haven't seen Wei(f) for
two years.  But Yun went to France since 6 years ago, and I haven't seen
her for 10 years!!

The first impression I had when I got out of the terminal in JFK
international is cold, rainy, and many taxis.  Although later I heard
that this year is actually one of the warmer years due to the El Nino
that's raising hell in California.  Beside Wei & Yun, who I spent
majority of the time together breaking our legs walking up and down
Manhattan.  I also met Wilson, Wilson's martial art dojo friend Jesse,
and Wilson's sister.  I have always promise Wilson to visit him ever
since this poor guy moved from sunny California to this rural place so
far east, and this time I'm there!

Wei & Yun & I lodged at the Westside YMCA west of the central park and
right next to the famous concert hall Lincoln Center.  The YMCA is
pretty crappy, small, without private bathroom, and reminded me of
college dormitories, (and the DC if you know what that is)  And talking
about be ancient (the multi-story masonry structure was some gift from
some spanish royalty who knows how long ago), the worst part is that
there is no telephone in each bedrooms.  This creats a huge
communication hazard for us.  If you plan on going out with people
within the building, that's fine.  So if you plan on meeting friends
from outside, chances are somebody is going to wait due to
miscommunication.  However, the place was cheap and in the center of
actions and close to subway stations.  So I didn't complain much :b

Let's go over a few high lights of my trip.  Wei & Yun pretty much have
in mind about where to travel from their Chinese and French travel guide
book.  So we courageously popped into the subways.  Let me tell ya, it
was dirty, and no more comment.  However, unlike the BART, the subway is
relatively cheap, and people here actually use the subway system!  More,
one good thing is that the subways are all somehow connected
underground, and as long as you don't get out of the station, they
charge you a flat rate of $1.50, which saved us from paying extra for
missing a station here and there and got lost from time to time.

We went to the SOHO district.  Anyone tell me what "SOHO" stands for??
The Soho district is a few blocks northwest of the chinatown and little
Italy.  The high lights of the district are the small but definitly
worth while art galleries of all sort and art shops cluster around the
street corners.  There was one store that displays an array of designer
made tools and household stuff.  You will be amazed on how everyday
stuff such as plates, chair, forks, light fixures, cook wares, and all
sorts of tools can be made in such neat fasion.  Final point is designer
are quite expansive -- don't touch, look only.  If you break a plate,
you're on cup-o-noodles for the next three month.  There were also
countless galleries featuring paintings, photographs, 3D art works, and
ugly drawings that supposed to look good.  There were so much to see
that frankly I wouldn't mind to visit Soho again!  There is a cafe with
modern metallic design that's must see.  I bet you cannot guess it --
the must see part is its bathrooms!  The bathroom is nicely fashioned,
roomy, and coed.  But the exciting part is that the door panels for each
toilet cell is TRANSPARENT! However it was such a dissapointment that
the panels turns opaque when the motion sensor within the toilet cell
senses a person walks in.

We saw the broadway show, and I realized how apart I am away from these
art stuff.  Not only after the show and read my brochures, I didn't
understand anything on what they were singing about.  Btw, the show was
Cat.  Other than that, the show was quite splender and flashy.

Of course we went to see Wall street and skyscrapers.  It was quite a
dissapointment that the market didn't rally nor crash during the time we
walked through the visitor's viewing area within NYSE.  Trading was
light, slight weakness on transportations.  Other than the impressive
number of monitors and screens they can pack into that small area, the
result is that there wasn't much shouting and physical movement to be
seen. The lobby of the Federal Reserves look a little different from lethal
weapon 3 -- many more securities and bars, and we were shuffled out
nicely by the securities.

The architectures were very impressive.  Not that I endorse phony walls
and decorations hanging from the roof, but it was quite a sight to see
rows after rows of extremely tall buildings cluster all together in that
little island.  We were very lucky on the day we went up to the top of
the World Trade Center twin towers.  Looking from far, the twin towers
don't seem that big, but after you're up there, you're on top of
everything!  After days of rain, the sky cleared up and we could clearly
see all the bridges, statue of liberty, empire state building, and
streets dotted with yellow cabs from up there.  It was pretty amazing to
me that all these huge structures were built before the nowaday
"partnering" and other modern construction management tool were
available.

We went to the museum of natural history.  It's pretty much similar to
the science museum over here in SF but with much larger collection
especially on the dinasour fossils.  Although I only had two hours to go
around the metropolitan museum of art, I was lucky enough to be
accompanied by an artist, my friend Yun.  Not only did she help in
pronouceing the names of European artists, she's also very good at
explaining and tell little stories about these artists and paintings.

There are so much more about what I saw in New York, the museums, clubs,
ferrys, the wind, the park, the stores, the streets, and the people.
but my hand is sored is wine is out.  So, chat with me if you want to
know more :)

Dav.

ps. yup, NO PICTURES online, what can I say, I can't afford a scanner ^_*