tsewei’s blog

heya people!! I’m back now after a week of fun and ignoring school work! wheee!!

Just thought I’d put some of the photos I took up here so you all can have a look.

Was in New York City for 5 days with my room-mate, then went to Washington DC the following day before taking the 11-hour bus ride back to Ithaca. (ack. yes, 11 hours.)

Realized that I really miss being in the city, where it is always alive and bustling with activity, lights everywhere, and food + shopping everywhere too! haha..

You know those corny tourist tee-shirts that say “I love New York”? haha.. No, I did not bother buying those, but I really do love that city.

Ok. I’ll stop yakking here and start showing you all some of the photos I took. All photos were taken with my Minolta Dimage G400 . Not very sophisticated, hence crappy night photos. Probably something to do with a certain lousy user as well.

To see those photos, click here! –>

Arrived on Sunday evening in Manhattan. Checked into the 1-star Manhattan Broadway hotel on W38th Street (I’m on a budget obviously), and then headed to see the Empire State Building right after dinner. Here’s one I took on my way walking towards it.

After checking the excellent view of New York from the 86th floor on Empire State Building, we went on to check out the area around Times Square , just round the corner from where we were staying. It’s so bright, with all its advertising billboards galore, I don’t think they even need streetlights anymore. And look! Nissin cup noodles! on the top of the billboard! haha..

The next day, we went to Madison Square Garden . Took a tour there, and got to see the entire place, where they usually have their basketball and hockey games, as well as the theater where they have concerts and stuff, and even checked out the NY Knicks locker rooms! Pretty cool tour.

And here’s a few more shots I captured as I wandered around the city.
NYC streets, filled with people, outside Macy’s , the largest departmental store here. (11 floors in total, if I’m not wrong. Great place to shop, if you have the moolah. hehe. But I did manage to find a pretty black dress for only USD10!! yup, ten bucks only! the shopper in me was naturally thrilled at this amazing shopping find.)

NYC also has florists at almost every corner of the street. The cold weather makes it easy to keep everything fresh. Tulips, roses, carnations, etc. Lovely!

And scenes of NYC streets aren’t ever complete without a few of these yellow taxi cabs…

More interestingly, we saw people on the streets, lobbying for support to help Falun Gong in China. Check this out.

We also went to Rockefeller Center . (How could we not? Since we came across this Rockefeller guy so often in our cs201 textbook who own millions and gave away many more millions that eventually started the very discipline of study that is Communications.) Haha, ok that wasn’t really the reason. We just wanted to check out the NBC studio tours. Yeah, we went on a tour around their studios. I’m absolutely thrilled with it. Their TV studios are absolutely sophisticated, and very high cost to maintain. But with their huge budgets, they could very well do anything. Would do anything to be able to work for them. sigh.

The area around Times Square is absolutely filled with lights and bright neon signs everywhere. I mean, just look at this McDonald’s sign. Ever seen anything as flashy as this back in KL or Singapore? The same goes for Times Square’s subway sign as well. Lights just blinking at you from every corner.

Also, interestingly, I came upon this thing. An armed forces recruitment center. haha. Must be hard trying to convince young people to give everything up and fight in a far away place, not to defend your country from being blasted into oblivion, but to “protect democracy” and “give freedom” to those poor Middle-East people. yeah, sure.

We were living within walking distance to Broadway , where all the theatres are. We managed to catch Phantom of the Opera at Majestic Theatre, and it simply blew me away. The singing was spendid, especially Phantom. Absolutely Wow. Sets were quite elaborately done. And of course, it was a very well written musical, with a gripping story that held my attention till the very end. Was really satisfied with the entire experience. Here’s St. James theatre, one of the many that line the entire area.

Despite the chilly winds, we still dragged ourselves to Central Park on a cold Wednesday morning. The park was very scenic, and the skies were just great for perfect photo moments. Absolutely blue, dotted with small tuffs of white cloud, looking almost artificial. Here’s one at the lake, near the W86th Street end.

Saw this funny castle-looking place across another pond at the park.

Some ducks swam towards us, and I promtly took a shot of them.

We also went to several museums: Metropolitan Museum of Art , and the Natural History Museums. Saw some pretty eerie mummies there. And huge scary teeth-baring dinosaurs at the other one. Took the subway , and it looks exactly like I saw it in The Matrix. Dirty, noisy trains, and creepy tunnels. And of course, we didn’t miss out on checking out Chinatown. Finally had my first decent real-Chinese tasting food at a shop run by a Cantonese family. Char siew fann, and peking duck! Nothing great, but it’s the best I’ve got in months.

More next time. ciao~