As promised, here are a few photos of my recent trip to New York (7 days). I had a chance to visit the Big Apple because my husband's work sent him on a course. We had a great time and stayed at three different hotels courtesy of the Priceline Negotiator ($500/night rooms for $160 - wohoo!), so we got to see a few different areas of Manhattan. The weather was quite chilly, but obviously not as bad as it has been there the past few days with the big storms and such.
Above is a photo of Central Park in the early morning on the Saturday we arrived. Our flight arrived at JFK at 6 AM, so after not being able to check into our first hotel in Manhattan until 3 PM we decided to roam through Central Park a bit. The park was full of all kinds of dogs on their morning constitutionals - it was fun to watch them all run about.A photo of the entrance to 30 Rock - even if you aren't a fan of art deco, it is a beautiful sight.
The tree at Rockefeller Center, after a tasty meal at Alfredo's (the home of "fettucine Alfredo", which I didn't eat - I had lobster ravioli instead - yum).
Above, Times Square. Below, Times Square view from our last hotel - the Marriott Marquis. This was the best of the three hotels we stayed at ( Barclay Intercontinental, the Millenium Broadway). It is a monster of a hotel, but had by far the best customer service (don't get me started, but "customer service" it seems does not mean the same thing in NYC as it does in other parts of the world :)
I don't post photos of myself here often, but here I am at Madison Square Gardens after a Rangers game. It was great fun and the Calgary Flames won 3-0 (Go Flames!). The NYers were not impressed with how their team was playing though, especially towards the end. The best heckler yelled - "My grandmother can score better than you...and she's dead!". Tough crowd.
Below are some photos from the Museum of Modern Art. This museum was one of my favorites, and I found it much better than the Met. I am more of a modern art fan though, so that would probably explain why I liked it better. Here are Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans:
A very unique lamp in the industrial design section.
One of my favorite paintings (look closely and you'll see it's a map)...
A letterpress printed page of the Bible - imagine setting all that type.
I watch the Today show every morning at home, so I had always wanted to go see the taping. On a Tuesday I went down to the NBC studios, had my purse checked by security and joined the group of people waiting to either be on TV and see their favorite morning people. Matt Lauer and Meredith Vieira were done by the time I showed up (8:30-ish), but I got to see Al Roker, Natalie Morales (so pretty in person!), Les Holt, and Ann Curry. Boy are those ladies nice and trim - so petite! I was also amazed by their high heels - they were 4-inches high! I guess they aren't that tall without the shoes!
Anyways, I got to be on TV (waving like a fool with the rest of the tourists) and called my family at home to watch (we're Pacific Standard Time, so there was a 3 hour delay so they could catch it).
During my trip I attended the Center for Book Arts Small Press Fair (which happened to be across the street from one hotel we stayed at) and I met Mindy from Intima Press. We agreed that next time I come to town that we will get together for a private lesson on the Centre's Vandercooks.
I also went to a few paper and packaging shops such as Kate's Paperie and Paper Presentation. I wish we had a Paper Presentation in Vancouver - you can buy affordable small packages of cover stock cut to smaller sizes. I even bought some thick kraft cover stock to bring home with me in my suitcase because it is so hard to find around here.
Here is a photo of Greenwich Village, a great part of town to go shopping in. After nearly being trampled at Bloomingdale's and Macy's, it was nice to get away from the big department stores and find some unique shops in the Village. One store I particularly liked was Sabon, a soap shop that sells soap, body creams, scrubs, etc. They have a little area in the store where you can try the scrubs and wash up and try their lotions out too (which is great after the subway). I have to say, I was very impressed with this store - the salespeople really knew their stuff and they were very helpful and informative. I ended up buying a few things as gifts and for myself. Their packaging was also very nice and the store layout was great. I know, I'm a big geek, but I notice these things.
Here is a photo of the big Macy's to end all Macy's. I went in twice - both times were ridiculously busy. I asked a saleswoman if this was because of Christmas and she told me "no, it's always like this - this is actually kind of slow. Fuggedaboutit." Ok, she didn't say fuggedaboutit, I made that part up.
Here's the back of my head and Grand Central Terminal. A truly beautiful building and worth going to just to see the ceiling.
This is a photo of the Flat Iron Building. I found some good shopping in this area as well. I still can't figure out what the guy in the picture is standing on, all Captain Morgan-like.
Later in the week we checked out the New York Stock Exchange. I was planning on walking in and yelling "What the devil have you done with my money lately?" but I decided that would be a bad idea after seeing all the cops with machine guns out front.
And here is Lady Liberty (taken from the Staten Island ferry). Like everyone else, I thought she'd be bigger - but she was pretty nonetheless.
On our last day we also checked out the Brooklyn Bridge. Boy was it a cold walk - we only made it as far as the first whatchamacalit (connection?) because it was so cold! (That and the fact that we had been walking all day long and had to stay up until 4am the next day because of our late flight).
It was a great trip, I think everyone should try to go see NYC at least once in their lifetime. It did have it's issues - I am not a pushy person, so it took me a few days to get used to the "every man for himself" mentality of the big city, but I got there eventually. It was also great to have just been to Tokyo recently and compare the two cities - despite both being so large and full of people, the way people operate (the whole individualism vs. collectivism thing) is so extremely different. I think I could move to Tokyo and be content fairly easily; however, NY would take a bit of getting used to. (As an aside, I actually had a woman in NYC yell at me on the subway to sit down - someone had gotten off and there was a free seat. She had been on longer than me so I offered the seat to her, "I insist" I told her. She very loudly told me to "SIT DOWN!". Um, ok, jeez sorry - I was just trying to be nice!).
It would be great to go again in the summer when it is warmer. I had to duck into stores and hotel lobbies every once in a while to warm up again :)
Happy letterpressing!
