More New York

Hey again, just wanted to drop back in and say hello, and get y'all updated on goings-on over the last couple of days.

Unfortunately, no photos today - having some flickr-issues at the moment, and my uploads aren't going through.

So, yesterday, I got up earlyish and made my way out to Coney Island. Site of the original Luna Park, Coney Island was a popular beachside resort and day-trip destination for New Yorkers in the early 20th century. On a downnhill slide since after the 2nd world-war, most of the original theme parks and fairgrounds were long ago replaced my moderate-income and public housing. A few places survived along the waterfront, but last summer's closure of Astroland Park effectively spells the end of the area as an amusement park destination (there is, of course, still a beach, and the New York Aquarium is here).

So, I went out here mostly out of curiosity, to get a look at the retro-decay and degeneration. The parks that are still open always shut down for the winter anyway, but on a foggy day like Saturday, the whole place looks almost ghostly - appropriately enough, like it might just fade away into the mist. It's kinda sad, of course, to see a such a significant place slowly melting away, but there's little to be done if people don't want to visit anymore.

Another famous Coney Island sight is Nathan's famous hot of stand. Established in 1915, Nathan holds an annual hot dog eating contest - you know the one, on the news every year, with the little Japanese guy absolutely dominating a whole bunch of huge American dudes. Well, I paid a visit to Nathan's and tried one of their famous hot dogs. The verdict? Not bad, but I couldn't eat 63 in 10 minutes :P

So, the original plan for yesterday afternoon as to meet up with a friend of a friend, Alice, who's on her own epic international trip, and is here in New York for New Years. Unfortunately, true to form, American Airlines failed abjectly, and left the poor girl sitting in San Francisco Airport for 9-odd hours. At any rate, my Saturday evening was more pleasant than being stuck in transit all day, and I spent some time exploring midtown Manhattan at night - rather spectacular when the fog is as low as it was yesterday evening, shrouding tall buildings and reflecting city lights.

By this morning, Alice had made it to New York, so we met up for Breakfast on the Upper Weest Side. After breakfast, we hit up the Natural History Museum, which was a strange experience indeed. To me, the Museum of Natural History is something of a meta-museum - a museum of what museums were like in the early-mid 20th century. eschewing the interactive, interpretive exhibit of many more modern museums (think of the Melbourne Museum, for example), the museum of natural history is old school. Like, stuffed animals, dioramas, human skeletons and exhibits called 'The African People' and 'The Asian People'. This really is a retro-experience - even an exhibit on the new-fangled concept of 'biodiversity' can't resist such charming inclusions as a stuffed Panda and a Dodo skeleton. Hardly a great contribution to biodiversity there. The natural history museum, incidentally, is the setting for that Ben Stiller movie, Night at the Museum.

Next stop was on the other side of the park, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In addition to the largest museum store I've ever seen (they sell rugs, for goodness sake), they've got a huge building, housing an enourmous collection spanning the whole gamut from ancient pottery through Roman and Greek, Renaissance, Impressionist and Contemporary Art (including the only Damien Hirst I've ever seen - the piece where he suspended a whole shark in a tank of formaldehyde (kinda reminded me of the Natural History Museum :P). After spending a couple of hours wandering through that particularly impressive collection, we took a subway South and paid a brief visit to Roosevelt Island (which I wrote about a couple of days ago) right around sunset. I'll tell you what - if that place is spectacular by day, it's even more amazing with all the lights going. Quite a sight indeed.

A quick visit to Times Square for dinner rounded off a fun and productive day - Alice's travelling companion arrives tomorrow morning (again, scheduled to arrive this evening, but not to be), and I think we'll be hitting up the bottom part of Manhattan Island - Bryant Park, the Empire State Building, Battery Park etc.

'til next time!

Jono