Day 5: Statue of Liberty, Standing in the Harbour

Today was a long day. Lots of standing in lines and waiting.

Manhattan is surprisingly far from Pitt Station - about an hour on foot. I decided to catch the subway instead of walking - all my San Francisco hiking is catching up to me and I figured I shouldn't push the friendship.

The first stop on my Manhattan Mission was Wall Street. Later on today I noticed that my New York pass had a walking tour for Wall Street, which I was disappointed to have not seen. However, I imagine I may have a second opportunity to experience the tour. However, I did enjoy the walk.

New York Stock Exchange

Some period band dudes - they were entertaining

Coming up trumps

After walking Wall Street, I headed down to the water to pick up a ferry across to Liberty Island. First there was a wait to pick up my ticket which wasn't too bad, but to get on the boat I had to stand in line in the sun for forty five minutes. That really took the wind out of my sail for the rest of today. That and the other tourists, who experienced the same issues I did, were quite rude and pushy too, which was a real shame.

Liberty Island itself is a fair way out from New York. For anyone who doesn't have tickets to climb up the statue - which sold out well in advance so I didn't have any - there's not much to do. Just walk around the island to find Lady Liberty's best side and admire the view across the water. I did make friends with a couple from Florida and they had funny accents (really southern ya'll kind of accents) but they were really sweet and I finally got a photo of myself somewhere to prove I'm actually here and not just googling stock photos.

Battery Park - where you pick up the ferry - has a lot of memorials. One, The Sphere, used to be at the World Trade Centres and was moved after 9/11

She was such a good model - stood so still for the whole shoot

Manhattan!

See? I'm really here

After Liberty Island, my ferry tour continued to Ellis Island, which used to be a immigration screening and detention centre, back before Australia thought it was cool. It has since been transformed into a museum commemorating immigration and migration and the role it has played on the development of American culture. It wasn't that interesting of a museum, although some sections that covered the examinations and the adaptations that had to be put in place to allow for thousands of medical and legal exams to be completed a day were fascinating.

It's probably a good time to mention that America is incredibly culturally diverse. It's made me realise how non-multicultural Australia actually is. As a kid, I was convinced that Australia was a huge melting pot of cultures and ethnicities, but it looks like a monoethnic society compared to America. Nearly everyone you see is ethnic of some description: black, hispanic, asain. Some areas like Mission in San Francisco have signage in a language other than english. 

By the time I returned to Battery Park it was 3pm and I wasn't particularly hungry. I decided to head towards Ground Zero to see the 9/11 museum. Originally, I put the address into my phone to get GPS directions, but when I looked up I realised I could actually see the One World Trade Centre already, so it was a bit silly to get directions. 

The park itself where the towers used to stand is gorgeous. The fountains, built into the footprint of the old towers, are absolutely breathtaking. The only jarring thing is seeing people taking selphies and tourist snaps as if we were standing in front of Lady Liberty. It just didn't quite feel right. 

One of the two memorial pools/fountains

Surrounding each pool were the names of those who died

One World Trade Centre overlooking the place

A few white roses lain next to names

Inside the museum was heaps of exhibits, samples from the ruins of the buildings and mementos from that fateful day. There were also recordings of witnesses and footage of what happened. It reminded me very much of my visit to the Hiroshima Memorial Museum last year - very much the same feel and concept.

Personally, I was amazed to find out that the twin towers had levels below ground. I didn't realise that. I had always thought they stopped at ground level. Even more surprising to me was that in 1993, they were bombed by terroists - attempting to destroy them. It made me realise how unaware I am of significant events that happened before I was born and made me appreciate at least why the 14 year old kids looked bored and disinterested. They don't know what the world was like before September 11 so they have no appreciation for the significance of it all.

The old tourist sign for the twin towers that was recovered from the rubble

The underground foundation wall of tower one

The last pillar removed from the ruins was also used as a tribute

Some of the steel that had formed the facade of the 1st tower, destroyed and burned by the plane impact

The supporting tower columns and the tower foundations

Ladder 3 - all firefighters on duty for Ladder 3 died in the attack. New York has a lot of memorials to the emergency service officers who died in the line of duty that day

There was a large exhibit you could not take photos that followed the progression of events. It was incredible extensive, including interviews with survivors, footage of the attacks and aftermaths, voice recordings of those that died leaving voicemails to their loved ones. The problem I found with the exhibit was it went into too much detail and took so long to get through everything that it left one emotionally exhausted. Not everything that was shared was important to have - such as multiple samples of firefighter uniforms at different stages of the display. Going through each plane and its path and the government response in step by step detail caused a lot of repetition and I felt myself switch off at a point. That was very disappointing, particularly because by the time I reached the aftermath and the information on the 1993 attack I was over it.

It was still amazing, from an engineers perspective, to see massive steel beams, designed to resist deformation due to bending, simply folded in half by the force of the building collapse. Really blew me away.

I still think the museum itself is a must see. It is at bit like Hiroshima, a memorial to an important, tragic event that has shaped the modern world.  But maybe don't try and take everything in.

As the line for the World Trade Centre Observatory was long, and after the museum I was very tired, I decided I would have an early night in. My back has been playing up again - lots of standing makes me hurt - so a rest should fix it.

Besides, tomorrow is one giant party. HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!

Day 4: New York City Rhythm

I'm not sure I'm a fan of New York City. It's loud, smells funny and there are a lot of people and ALL of them are rude. Okay, maybe not all of them, but you're conditioned to give no one eye contact and just worry about you getting from point A to point B.

I really don't like that. No one smiles, no one talks to anyone and people keep cutting in front of me.

This morning I woke up well before my alarm. Which was great, because lying in my comfy comfy bed was awesome.

My day began with a tour at the United Nations across town. The tour paper said to arrive 45 minutes early, so I made sure to arrive an hour early. The problem was, my tour was at 9:45am and the visitors centre doesn't open until 9am. Which would be fine if the security checkpoint wasn't only running two X-ray machines and a large pile of mail was needed to be scanned as well. It also didn't help that security wouldn't let us in, even after 9am, to avoid clogging the security room, so we kept getting pushed back by staff members who received priority.

Luckily, because I arrived so early, I was the first of my tour group to make it through security and as such, when I arrived at the tour desk, they started the tour straight away - with just me in it the group. So for five minutes I had a VIP tour of the Security Council - just me and my tour guide. After five minutes the rest of my tour was filled and we continued as normal. Due to meetings occurring inside the Economic and Social Council Chambers, we didn't stay long in there and were unable to take photos. However, we did have long sessions in both the Security Council and General Assembly. Both are such amazing rooms in design. It was a wonderful experience - even if the tour itself was rather basic level material.

The Main Secretariat Building

The Security Council - New Zealand is currently President

Locations of Peacekeepers deployed by the UN - it was acknowledged that peacekeepers were more than just soldiers. Some are doctors or engineers.

It's a school in a box!

Statue from Nagasaki - this side faced away from the bomb

The side that faced the blast melted

This amazing looking room is the General Assembly - only used for a couple of weeks a year

The famous knotted gun - in the UN Courtyard

After the UN Headquarters, my camera was running low on battery - it had refused to charge last night - so I headed back home. It was nearly lunch time and the plan was to charge my camera whilst I had lunch then get going again. But first, I decided to pick up my New York Pass. And then, seeing I was going to have to walk past it anyway, I pushed my camera to complete flatness by climbing the Empire State Building instead.

The Empire State Building was amazing - still very true to its original art deco style. We were introduced first to the retrofitting that has been undertaken to reduce energy consumption of the building. Apparently, buildings consume 80% of New York City's energy and retrofitting buildings is a much more cost effective method of energy reduction than simply building better buildings. The Empire State's retrofit had reduced energy consumption by 40% - which is incredible. 

We next went to the 80th floor - which is the stage before the observation deck. This is a technological marvel for the 1930s - the highest single elevator ride at the time. On the 80th floor we discovered the numerous engineering feats that resulted in the tower were see being built in a mere 11 months. We also learnt about the skyscraper wars which resulted in the Chrysler building and Empire State and the important role the construction project played in supporting families during part of the Great Depression.

The 102nd floor viewing deck was not available today - but I did go to the 86th floor viewing deck. And this is what I saw:

Pretty Awesome huh

The merchandise shop for the Empire State had a lot of King Kong Gear - included toys in both male and female King Kong. Very cute.

I ended up having McDonald's for lunch again. I wanted to have pizza, but over here you can't customise your own pizza to remove cheese - which I cant eat - so I couldn't have it. Very disappointing.

After lunch I headed to Times Square. Consider my a little underwhelmed by it. There are a lot of billboards - all digital of course - and a reasonable number of people, but not any more than in any other part of New York. Maybe it's all the construction going on. Who knows. Needless to say, I found the scramble crossing in Japan more exciting.

There it is...

That's the famous building - in the background to most movies

I took my opportunity to go buy a Broadway ticket. None of the musicals took my fancy, but TKTS (the discount ticket shop on Broadway) did have tickets to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night - which I really did want to go see. Buying them meant I had two and a bit hours to spend in Times Square before the show started.

So I went to the Times Square Discovery Museum to see the Avengers Exhibit. And it was awesome! Being an interactive exhibit, you were recruited as an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D and got to test your physical abilities against Captain America's and fly around in Tony Stark's Iron Man Armour thanks to motion  capture technology. Had a totally fantastic time - even if it was supposed to be for young teenagers.

The play itself was pretty good. Having already read the book gave me a good understanding of the plot and why the main character, Christopher, behaved the way he did. The lead actor was fantastic - doing an excellent job of capturing the mannerisms of autism and it was a funny, emotional, performance with some very clever breaking of the fourth wall. The ending where he explained how he solved the maths problem was hilarious - if the fact they had changed the problem to make it easier disappointed me. My only other real disappointment was he didn't explain why he hated bananas. (They start out yellow and end up brown). But overall it was a good play, if sometimes a bit arty, that I feel fairly depicted the book and the experience of autistic children.

Walking out of the Barrymore theatre surprised me with how bright the place was. It was as if someone had just switched on the lights inside the house. It was pretty incredible to see actually.

 

Tomorrow is the public holiday for 4th July. I'm planning to head down towards the World Trade Centre Site and the Statue of Liberty. It's a fair walk (about an hour according to google) so I intend to try my hand at the subway. Wish me luck!

Day 3: I'm in a New York State of Mind

WHOOOOOOOOO!

BEST CONCERT EVER....

Hello everyone from New York City, the city that never sleeps - which is why I am up at this ungodly hour writing this blog.

This morning I left San Francisco, sneaking out of my Bed and Breakfast at 5:30am. The stay had been lovely and I would recommend them for anyone visiting San Francisco. I did have their breakfast before I left, but after checking in and passing through the TSA checkpoint (they made me take off my shoes and gave me a pat down) I was hungry again. Plus. I knew the flight, being economy, wouldn't feed me and I wouldn't get a chance to eat until the concert.

So I bought a frozen yogurt and berry blend from a shop. It was yummy. Plus a strawberry smoothie. In some way, I am telling myself I made healthy decisions - but the sugar rush tells me otherwise.

The flight itself was uneventful, I slept most of the way. Arriving in New Jersey (yes, I arrived in New Jersey then caught the train to New York) was exciting though, seeing New York City's famous skyline on the horizon. And all the smog. I knew this was going to be fun.

My accommodation is wonderful. Whilst Keith, my host who is a professional drag queen, is out of town - his friend and his boyfriend have both welcomed me into the apartment and Daisy, his pug, has been nothing but friendly (although she won't share her toys). The place is a couple of blocks from Madison Square Garden, which was good because I arrived at 6:15 and needed to be walking in the doors of Madison Square Garden at 7pm.

The concert itself was incredible. There was no opening act. I was sitting next to a lovely German family and was enjoying a conversation with them when the lights dimmed and out came Billy Joel. He was hilarious - as shown in the first video - but also still can sing all of his songs perfectly. Although some of the high notes had to be sung by his band instead.

This event was particularly special as it was his 65th concert at Madison Square Garden. This breaks Elton John's record. So we all received a neat little banner, they raised a larger version of it midway through the concert and then Billy Joel dedicated a song to Elton, his long time friend. AND IT WAS AWESOME.

Other highlights included the performance of For The Longest Time - which had beautiful harmonies, the whole crowd singing Always a Woman and Piano Man, and Billy playing the guitar for We Didn't Start the Fire and then juggling the microphone stand through Still Rock And Roll To Me. He tossed it across the stage to one of the stage hands before concluding with my personal favourite: Only The Good Die Young.

At the end of the concert, we spilled out onto the streets. There was a few people that had way too much to drink and were still mentally in the concert - you could hear them screaming for Billy a block away. I made it home and finally got a chance to reply to my emails from the day. Going to sleep puts me only in one place:

Day 2: San Francisco - Open Your Golden Gate

The weirdest thing about San Francisco is that nothing really opens until 10am. So being up at 7:30am wasn't super helpful for going anywhere, but it allowed some good time to practice my speech and channel surf the TV. I noticed there was a lot of repetition of TV shows throughout the day. But more on that later.

My first stop for today was back down on the Embarcadero to get photos of the building I had seen yesterday. It was pretty quiet at 9:30, with everyone else still warming up for the day. So I happily dawdled along the foreshore before turning towards the Coit Tower - a great lookout spot for San Francisco.

Ferry Building - Sample of San Francisco Heritage

San Francisco Tram

Pier 1 Heritage Building

And on the other side of the road - Skyscrapers

Pier 7 - You could fish off the end of it

Oakland Bay Bridge - you may recognise it from the logo of the Golden State Warriors

Along the Piers is the Exploratorium - a science museum for children. Outside they have a number of external displays - including concrete barnacles and a concrete reinforcement failure due to rusting. Pretty neat.

Barnacles are large and aggressive in San Fran

I think this is circuitry, I couldn't see the sign that explained it.

As I walked up to Coit Tower, I realised how crazy this city is - in the best possible way. In the middle of this busy city area is a park and a square called Levi's Square. Why? Because Levi's (the jeans company) -  bought the name. They have a large shop there to and I think their headquarters. Even more crazy is not just the number of stairs I had to climb to get up to the Coit Tower, but that people had their houses with the only access being these staircases! So they would park at the bottom of an enormous hill and climb up. I don't know how they handled the groceries.

Random Park in the Middle of the City - very chill

Levi's Plaza had an attractive water feature

Levi Shop

My ticket up Coit Tower was a little - patriotic

But look at that view

It was interesting to see that despite the beautiful weather, there was a lot of fog hovering around the Golden Gate Bridge - which you can note in the above picture. Typical. That was where I was planning to go after lunch.

I headed across San Francisco and decided to head up to Lombard Street - famous for its eight hairpin bends in one block. And let me tell you, some of the streets in San Francisco are crazy steep - as in stairs for sidewalks. But Lombard Street is special. Very special. I haven't the faintest why it was designed the way it is, or why people live there. I guess cause it's special.

They build buildings on weird angles on this street

Just kidding, Lombard is just really steep

1 block - 8 hairpin turns. BECAUSE WE CAN!

The tower in the background is Coit Tower - I walked down from that to the top of Lombard

After Lombard, I headed to KFC for lunch. I figured it was quick and easy. Colour me disappointed. The chicken looked reconstituted (really flat for chicken strips) and it was a bit on the spicy side. Oh and it was served with a scone. I don't understand that at all. And no chips - potato and gravy instead. But it was super cheap - which was a plus. And the drinks were free refills. Also a big plus. 

The last stop of the day was Golden Gate Bridge. I had done some morning google to inform me that the best viewing place was Battery Spencer, on the north side of the bridge. So I caught the bus. Unfortunately the bus stop was 2.3 miles (3.7km) away from the viewing area. Which meant I walked some more. I am grateful that it was at least down hill. 

My new camera lets me take good selfies (the screen rotates)

Ain't she pretty?

The truss supporting her

Whilst walking across the bridge - the fog rolled in. Lost the view of the bay

After crossing the bridge back to San Francisco. I caught the bus to the UN Plaza. I was a little disappointed actually that it was just an open space with pillars and the UN Charter written on the footpath. But the Town Hall down the road - it was amazing. Very gothic style. And out the front was the women's soccer match and the crowd was getting very excited. 

UN Logo at UN Plaza

Town Hall - with the soccer game

My first sighting of the Rainbow Flag

My final night in San Francisco was spent packing for tomorrow. I leave for New York at 7:55am. Because I walked so much today, I gave in and grabbed McDonalds for dinner. And it was good.

So on that note: