Hik Hearts NY

6/12/08
If I didn't have anything to do (musically speaking) I would buy a one way ticket there. 't was an awesome week.






The night I arrived, my hostel was located a block from times square. Times square reminds me of Shibuya, with a lot less asians. Lots of bright lights and shops. I dug the M&Ms store..



The NY waterways cruise. Very cool (or should I say freaking cold) tour that lets you see the NY skyline, statue of liberty, brooklyn bridge, empire state building. There's also a tour guide onboard who talks about the history of the city.





Did a walking to tour to Brooklyn with Big Apple Greeter (http://www.bigapplegreeter.org/) My tour guide was David M who's a Brooklyn resident. It started off with the crossing of the Brooklyn bridge, the scenery was amazing!
David took me to some unsual places where I definitely wouldn't of discovered if I went by myself. Looked through some odd performance spaces (one had a a bunch of ponds where the audience stands, weird) and odd stores (there's a store that sells a pencil sharpner that's in a shape of a cat and you insert the pencil into its rear end, and the cat screeches while it sharpens)
We also walked through Dave's stomping ground which is Park Slope 'n Prospect Park.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park_Slope
I strangely felt at home in Brooklyn.

Infact if I lived in NY, I would definitely live in Brooklyn. It's full of liberals!
Park Slope would be very nice, but it's a bit expensive. A few celebrities live there (Steve Buscemi, John Turturro, Jennifer Connelly, Peter Sarsgaard)
Dave's a personal friend of John Ventimiglia who's best known for his role as Artie Bucco in the Sopranos. Big thanks to Dave!

More to come..

NY

After a monster 20something hour journey, I'm finally here in New York!
This was definitely the longest flight I've ever been on. And I'm jet lagged a bit (woke up at 4am)

I noticed that the international qantas flight is better than the domestic ones. You get to choose a wide variety of inflight entertainment for the long flights. So during the flight I watched The Dark Knight, a Richard Dawkins documentary, a Stephen Hawkings documentary (which was a bit complex), an Akmal Saleh stand up show, Arj Barker show, Andrew Denton interviews, Michael Parkinson interviews and some other random stuff.

The security at LAX was pretty tight. Went through security screenings tons of times. The first music I listened to when arriving in the US was NIN's "Year Zero" which was kinda freaky. It wasn't that crowded luckily as it was 6am when we touched down at LAX.

By the time we arrived at NYC, I was pretty stuffed. Never have I felt so drowsy after a flight. My eyes were redder than a stoner's eyes.
The shuttle bus (which was more like a slightly bigger tarago) ride to my hostel was interesting. They drive like maniacs over here. Our Jamaican driver driving while using his cell phone, doing illegal turns and cursing at other drivers. He gave us a bit of a tour guide around the neighbourhood explaining where all the strip clubs are 'n stuff too. All the essentials.

H.