view from above

“I might’ve lived my life in a dream, but I swear this is real”
~ R.E.M. (from Leaving New York)

New York is a very special place. It doesn’t take a genius to figure that out, but it also has a very special personal significance to me. There are a handful of events in my life which really shaped me as a person. These are events which, had they not happened, I would be a significantly different person today. Many of those events are described on this website such as the one time I went for a swim and almost didn’t come back, while others are not, either because I haven’t got around to it yet, or because the content is not suitable for public viewing (wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more). While I will make no attempt to describe it in detail here, the year-and-a-bit that I spent living in New York is one of those life-shaping events.

My first visit to New York occurred on March 20th 2007, during my 5-month odyssey through Latin America. I know what you’re thinking, “there may be many Spanish-speaking people in New York Daniel, but it is not in Latin America”. This is true. In the middle of this odyssey, I had a half-time break during which I traveled to New York among a few other US destinations. In fact, I came to New York via Boston on the chinatown bus – only $15. It dropped me off in the middle of a very dense chinatown where everyone was speaking cantonese, and all of the restaurant and shop signs were in chinese. For a moment, I felt like I back in Hong Kong.

I immediately warmed to the city. It was everything I imagined it to be, and more. It was surreal – I felt like I was walking around in a movie set. It really was a city that never slept, which suited a nocturnal being such as myself. The constant activity of the place was energizing, empowering even, I felt like I could do anything, anytime I wanted. And the food! Oh, the glorious food! On three consecutive nights, I dined at Per Se, Daniel, and Jean Georges (all of which are now 3-star Michelin restaurants) and during the day I just wrote down long lists of sights to see, and saw them. In fact, there was only one location on my list that I didn’t get around to – Columbia University. When I left, after four jam-packed days, I was exhausted but very satisfied. I wanted more, but I was also sad because my only real shot at living there had passed me by when Columbia rejected me for their PhD program in Sustainable Development.

Curiously enough, on May 4th that year, I learned that I was accepted to a masters degree at Columbia. I was ecstatic, moreso because I had actually visited New York and knew what the city was like. I returned on a warm August day under slightly unusual circumstances. I had just been to the world inline speed skating championships in Cali, Colombia and was not only very tanned, but very distraught because I had had the misfortune of having my laptop, camera, and ipod stolen from my (locked) hotel room. I arrived at 1am on a Monday morning, and by about 4pm, I had almost all of those items replaced, and then some. The feeling of being able to do anything, amplified by being at a university that I honestly never thought I was good enough to get into, was returning.

Leaving after that year was difficult. On the surface, the decision should have been an obvious one – I had been offered the opportunity to speed skate professionally, full-time, and train for a shot at the Olympic Games. But still, I hesitated, and it wasn’t until a few forceful “you must go” prods from my Columbia professors, did I really wake up and make the right decision. Before I left, I held a party in the form of a (surprisingly) well-attended karaoke night. That’s when I really realized how much I would miss the place. The city is amazing – I loved it even before I knew ANYONE there, but now I had made many friends, and friends who I may never see again owing to the transient nature of the place. It was never quite this bad with Melbourne, but that’s probably because, being Australian, there is always the (very likely correct) assumption that I will eventually return. With a place like New York (and the difficult visa requirements of the US), you just never know.

I’ve been back twice now, both times for brief visits. Leaving the city after these occasions was surprisingly the most difficult. Why? Perhaps it is because the brief nature of them, and the necessarily rushed efforts to see as many people as I possibly could in an impossibly short space of time reminded me of just how brief and fleeting life really is, and how important it is to really cherish every moment (trust me, when you’re sharing food with a gorgeous girl for what could only be two hours tops if you’re lucky, you learn to cherish every moment ). Perhaps it is the realization that you didn’t just make a bunch of new friends in the crazy city, but that you really meant something to them (or at least enough for them to appear ostensibly happy to see you).

Another thing that perhaps entices me to the city, is that it feels like “home”. A long time ago, at my first Amnesty International Australia Annual General Meeting (try saying that ten times in a hurry), I was sitting, chatting casually to the former president of AIA, Cathy Kingston, and she told me that I was a “misfit”, and that it was ok to be a misfit. (Incidentally, this is another one of those defining moments of my life). I had never felt that I really “fit in” anywhere. I never fit in in Hong Kong (where my relatives would constantly berate me for not knowing how to speak Chinese even though I did), and I didn’t really fit in in Australia either (although in several specific groups, namely MUMS and MUCAAS, I very nearly did). In New York I was probably the least-alone in my mis-fitted-ness, and that was probably a major contributing factor to why I felt so at home there.

I grew up in Hong Kong, a city of life which feels, in many ways, much like New York. But Hong Kong today is nothing like the Hong Kong I grew up in, and I’m not talking about all the new buildings. I’m not even talking about the switch in sovereignty from Britain to China. I’m referring to the fact that almost all of my friends from when I lived in Hong Kong have moved elsewhere, especially the ones whom I would consider close. Maybe I’m simply afraid that New York will become like another Hong Kong, another ghost town, because I recognize the transient nature of the populations in both cities. That transience, the way that the city seems to live and breathe and circulate with people as its nourishing blood, will always make it extremely difficult to leave.

The team has recently moved into our latest, and (hopefully) most permanent accommodation yet – flat oranjewoud. This move has caused me to reflect on my recent, rather nomadic existence. So I present a feature article on the various places I have lived in recently.

They say that a man’s house is his castle. I haven’t lived at “home” with my parents since I was about 14 years old when I moved from Hong Kong to boarding school in Melbourne. Accommodation took the form of dormitories shared with progressively fewer people as one advanced in years. While at Melbourne University, I lived in a three-bedroom apartment overlooking the Royal Exhibition Gardens. This is easily the nicest place that I’ve called home.

It was host to my 4-times-a-year solstice and equinox parties which took place on the saturday night closest to the spring/autumn equinox or winter/summer solstice. These gatherings were attended by a very diverse group of people and often included singing, dancing, and jamming on various musical instruments including, of course, the piano. Oh, there was also alcohol at these parties. I should probably mention that.

Possessing three bedrooms also allowed it to provide accommodation for visitors. For long periods of time, I would host a friend or two just for a bit of company. At parties, it was not unusual for people to spread themselves out over the living room floor.

After living there for seven years, I moved to New York. I lived on the upper west side of Manhattan on 86th street, between Broadway and Amsterdam Ave. Because rent in Manhattan is kind of ridiculous, I lived in a ground floor studio apartment with no natural light.

I lived there for about a year and slept on a couch (which I eventually sold to a friend, and crashed on it many times in subsequent New York encounters). There was actually another chair in the room which folded out into a stretcher-sized single bed (you can just see it in the foreground).

Even though this accommodation was considerably smaller and less glamorous than my Melbourne apartment, I still hosted many visitors who would visit New York. I think the fact that New York is a fairly major tourist destination helped a bit, and the location on the UWS was pretty darn good. Not that you ever really have to worry in a place as densely populated as New York, but the apartment was close to everything…

Except a speed skating track. So after living there for just over a year, I moved to the Netherlands. Now my choice in accommodation was non-existent here because it was all provided for as I was now a heavily-sponsored elite athlete (supposedly). Our first base was the “city” of Enschede, and our resting place was Resort Bad Boekelo, which used to be a giant water park but had since been converted to a complex of serviced apartments which were actually quite pleasant, even though they were a long way from everything.

Between two and three people shared a two bedroom apartment, and I had a bedroom for myself.

Although I did struggle a bit to fit everything in; that’s what she said.

After living there for most of the winter, we moved to apartments much closer to the city center (Bad Boekelo was a 40 minute bike ride from everything), although initially, we had a shortage of furniture.

These apartments were in a new housing development and lacked basic things like curtains, lights, and any furniture. For a week or so, I slept of a sheet of cardboard.

We eventually furnished these apartments and they turned out to be very spacious and liveable. They were also a 10 minute walk from the town center, which was very convenient. Unfortunately this was to be short-lived, because as soon as we came back from Calgary finale, we had to move again, to our current base of Heerenveen.

We lived at a hotel called the Heidehof for almost two months (we were told we’d be there for three days) before we finally moved into our new apartments at Flat Oranjewoud. It’s an old people’s home, which goes some of the way to explaining the smell. On the plus, I now have my own apartment, although the bathroom smells so bad that I don’t really ever want to go in.

Hopefully we’ll be here all the way until after the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. The old people are nice and the view is extremely relaxing. Location-wise, it isn’t bad – we’re about 5 minutes by bike from Heerenveen’s town center, and about 2 minutes by foot from Thialf, one of the world’s most awesome ice skating tracks (those who have been following my facebook photo albums should note that this is the same track where all those competitions that I shoot take place).

it is lonely

I stare into the belly of the beast
column by column, only ribs, no guts
a sliver of silver slips ‘tween platforms
thunder shakes, rattles, screeches
passes without stopping

a light flickers
like a candle
a warm distant dream in the cold city
is it mine? I do not tempt fate
it grows, it glows, pupils dilate
struggling to swallow light

the thunder slows
screech, slow, clank, bang, beep
doors part, light beckons
a seat! glances dart, flick heads
go!, they whisper. I teeter on the brink
nods of approval push

is it mine?
which direction? which platform?
how can I be sure? sands shift
bodies move back and forth
but I stand fast
too slow

beep, my heart jumps
the seat is taken, I motion towards
doors close, heart sinks
why did I wait?, this is my train
this is my platform
no, it is not my train

slowly moves away
noise saturates the air
and stings my lungs
and draws a tear
it is gone

it is lonely

Christmas day in the big apple. Lily arrived on a flight the previous night and was severely jet-lagged. Here we observe that she has crossed the road. This wouldn’t ordinarily be a problem except that we weren’t supposed to cross the road, at least not to where she is. (She’s the one in the green jacket)

We began our adventures with a lovely Christmas lunch at Jean Georges

Walking down 5th Avenue on a very busy Christmas evening.

It was very crowded. Luckily, we had Nick with us. Although the average height in the US is much higher than most countries in Latin America, Nick still stands out a little and is easy to spot in a crowd. Can you spot him?

The Rockerfeller centre…

A church, opposite the Rockerfeller centre.

Holy water…

’twas a cold Christmas evening.

A giant Christmas tree in front of the Rockerfeller centre. There is an ice skating rink nearby, but the crowd was too dense to move close to it.

Though not as impressive as the lights that adorn the sides of buildings in Hong Kong, midtown New York did make a comendable effort.

…and, in case anyone wanted a hot dog, or some roasted cashews…

This was just a little bit wrong… so naturally, I took a photo.

Lily and Caitlin observe Times Square for the first time…

Walking around the East Village, we spotted this ‘modified’ streetsign.

We stumbled into an Irish pub and had a few drinks…

This was a common sight during the holiday period… me sniping with my camera. Nick is probably smiling because he knows that he’s not got my camera pointed at him.

For Boxing day, the girls went shopping and me and Nick decided to visit the American Museum of Natural History on what is probably one of its busiest days of the year.

oohhh… pretty rocks.

more pretty rocks. Those who have followed danielyeow.com closely will know that I’ve already been to this museum, but only got to see a small portion of it. During this trip, I tried to ‘fill in the gaps’.

oohh… a crossword.

A very large tree… displayed to exhibit its rings. This tree was about 1500 years old when it was felled.

The female Anopholes mosquito… vector for Malaria.

This is a very large room… in this room is a very large whale.

mmm… Calamari…

a tiger

Nick examines the exhibit which gives you a sense of scale for the universe…

For example… Jupiter and Saturn in front of the sun…

The African animals exhibit is dominated by a very large bench. Oh… and there are some elephants too.

This is the exhibit of the ‘local’ fauna… straight out of the subway.

What are you looking at?

…and finally, the good stuff – Dinosaurs!

This is a very large fish. Imagine picking this guy’s bones out of your teeth…

This fellow was a sea snake.

A fairly complete Allosaurus skeleton. In the foreground, is a T-Rex skeleton.

this one really made my jaw drop. Archaeopteryx… the link between birds and dinosaurs… and what a beautiful specimen it is.

Touch a Deinonychus claw? Ok… I will.

A Stegosaurus… and a great deal of text refuting the two-brains theory…

A Triceratops… they’re a little bigger than I imagined them to be.

A Badger…

Unable to find the time to watch the “cosmic collisions” show at the museum’s planetarium, I was content to observe two Mooses colliding. (is that the plural of “Moose”? is it Meese?)

This was terribly kinky… I guess these guys solved the problem of uncomforably hard church pews…

mmm… yum yum yum

when the trunk is pointed up – it means good luck

Later that night, we meet up in Central Park to go ice skating… which was fun, except that I dont take too well to rental skates.

We met up with Meribah and her sister and went to have some dinner in the East Village at a very colourfully decorated restaurant called “Yaffer”.

Us? Tourists? Nevar…

Some random art in the West 4th Street Station… (i think).

A nice early walk across the Brooklyn Bridge… phwoar, very impressive.

On the 27th, we went on a “Sex and the City” tour. Apparently, it is a TV show about some people living in New York… our tour began in front of the Plaza hotel.

This was one of my favourite parts of the tour – muffins. Someday I’ll get around to watching the actual TV show so I will actually understand some of these references.

No, don’t be silly, we’re not tourists… we’re just fans of Narcissus.

…is there chocolate in my teeth?

In this TV series, there is a character named “Carrie”. This is her “stoop”, which I think is just another word for “the steps leading up to the building containing her apartment”.

Caitlin samples a cosmopolitan.

We were in a restaurant/bar which was used in the series…

Despite never having watched the show, the tour was enjoyable because I got to see some of New York and the tour guide was very informative.

Later that night, Lily met up with Iyana, a friend whom she met while spending a semester in Amsterdam who now lives in New York. The owner of the bar, Gary, sits to the left of Iyana and made us some nice drinks and undercharged us some ridiculous amount.

…and of course, what trip to New York would be complete without a trip to Macy’s?

The next day, we spent the morning browsing through the Metropolitan Museum of Art…

…which was just magnificent.

We rushed past most of Egypt to join a tour… hmm… is that the book of the dead? (yes, it was… *bows*, see, I DID pay attention during my archaeology classes on ancient Egypt)

I was not particularly fond of most of the art from the formative years of the US… but the rooms were very nice indeed.

Tuning the cymbals… getting ready for some pretty sweet tambourine riffs.

Lily did French at school… no, it seems that the ancient Egyptians didn’t write in French… darn.

Mummification does a surprisingly good job of preserving… stuff.

As all good mueums of art should have… a room full of statues.

The rooms were works of art in themselves… if I ever live in a very very large house, I want at least one room that looks like this.

People are the same everywhere… but fountains are not.

The level of detail was, at times, astounding.

this is a painting – these are in no short supply in the Met.

This s a painting of an ear… and other stuff.

close up… we see there is much more to this ear than meets the eye.

There are even one or two paintings by some Spanish fellow named Picasso…

A Badger… no… actually, this is a very thin Cat.

Yet another magnificent room in the Met

$2 Hot dogs… mmmmm

The absurd queue for last-minute cheap broadway tickets… the group split. Some of us went to see “Rent”, I had already seen Rent, so I went to see “Cyrano de Bergerac” which featured Kevin Klein and Jennifer Garner, who was surprisingly good… and she wasn’t bad at acting either.

Everywhere we went, there were scary people dressed up as characters from children’s TV shows.

Us? Tourists? Nevar… a lovely posed shot with a member of the NYPD

Does this seem strange to anyone else?

This was the queue to get into the Guggenheim museum… ugh

That Frank Lloyd Wright guy sure knows what he’s doing when it comes to architecture.

The idea is to go right up to the top via elevator, then slowly spiral down through the exhibits until you get to the bottom.

It was a very busy day… like most days in New York.

Even the Cafe was wonderfully decorated with photographs.

…can you tell that I like the architecture of the building?

Sunset over central park, taken from just outside the Guggenheim

…and in the capital of capitalism, we just *had* to buy stuff at the gift shop.

After the Guggenheim, we skipped across central park and found ourselves a nice Thai restaurant called “Land” which was recommended by a friend…

…and there was much rejoycing… and eating.. mmm… eating.

Later that night, we strolled up into Harlem to check out some Jazz…

It was goooood… and we were pleased.

At about midnight, the ‘traditional’ jazz stopped and there was a whole African drumming-with-jazz hybrid gig… and by this time, the place was packed

forget the subway, this was the rumble we were after…

Caitlin’s neck was sore… so Lily thought it would be a good idea to try and strangle her…

St Nick’s… must remember that (because I live here, and can go back whenever I want… )

Apparently, it is impossible, or at least very difficult to wave your hand around in one direction while simultaneously twirling your foot in the other… I’m not entirely sure what brought this up.

…and another one of our favourite activites – sniping each other with our cameras

Most days began like this… or a variation of it – a brief meeting at my place do decide on a loose itinerary for the day… and also so that the geographically-challenged would not get lost, at least between my place and our first destination.

Which was gospel at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem on that particular morning

…which was actually pretty cool. Apparently the head pastor of this church even has his own radio show.

…and more meeting up with random friends in New York…

…how dare she! in the city that never sleeps…

New Year’s Eve began at Junior’s – a cheesy cheesecake shop in Brooklyn

Which actually had some pretty nice cheesecake.

After that, we attended a private party of sorts… hosted by a friend-of-a-friend at Columbia.

Obviously a very sophisticated, in-depth philosophical discussion… complete with wine in plastic cups

Does this seem strange to anyone else?

Nick fiddles with the Champagne bottle while Caitlin snipes

Nick, not being very experienced at fiddling with champagne bottles… um… couldn’t control it when it popped (that was not a dirty joke), and made a bit of a mess

10… 9… 8… 7… 6…

5… 4… 3… 2… 1… yay! It’s 2008

We even got to see the ball drop in Times Square.

…so don the pink hat Caitlin!

…and Lily!

…and Nick!

…and Meribah!

…and some random guy…

this banner was hung quite low… as if Nick didn’t have enough to worry about with that low arch, he also had to worry about grazing his shins on this stupid thing.

…and, as is customary at parties, there was some dancing…

Nick demonstrates his dip-ability

New York apartments are typically not very big… although this was was fairly decent – the area you are looking at is probably about the size of my whole apartment.

Nick and Lily smoke it up on the dancefloor…

Even Meribah got in on the action

…and like all good Australian tourists, we decided to take over the ipod briefly to ensure that the music was dance-able to.

you can tell that I like having my picture taken, can’t you?

A strane side-effect of having a rather large and professional looking camera, is that people like to ask you to take their picture.

…the party starts to wind down, and plans for moving out into the town are hatched.

The elevator… a lovely antique thing with a swinging door.

trying to decide where to go next…

we stumbled outside and, quite randomly, found ourselves an Indian restaurant (which we later returned to to eat… it was GOOD) which was playing bollywood music

…and giving out free drinks… which, in retrospect may not have been the best idea in the world… actually, I take that back.

…so we just went crazy for a few more hours.

while I experimented with my camera’s flash and its long-exposure capabilities.

a psuedo-congo-line

the ghostly images that the flash-long-exposure combination picked up were pretty cool… i thought anyway

Even from the street, it all looked pretty happening.

Nick and I demonstrate… I’m not sure what… but whatever it is, we’re doing an stellar job of demonstrating it.

Australians? In New York? Surely you’re mistaken…

…and the fish we caught was THIS big!

Meribah demonstrates her martial arts skill… or maybe she was trying to dance… I forget.

Look at the camera Meribah! Otherwise you won’t be able to remember any of this…

…the next afternoon (as if we’d wake up in the morning after all that)

the sun begins to set over downtown…

The Barnes and Noble at Union Square…

and interesting mix of structures… one wonders WHAT they were thinking when they joined the two…

Some birthday presents for Meribah… she has a thing for peanut butter and sweets which feature it

A very large arch and Christmas tree at the north end of Washington Square park

Sittin and chillin in a cafe in the West Village…

…and here we met up with an old school friend, Derek Choy, and his brother Ian

…who, conincidentally, was in the same year level as Nick, and was suitably freaked out by the coincidence of bumping into him in a cafe in the West Village.

Nick and I are sitting on a bench which belonged to the Medicis… how cool is that?

Somehow the group got split… and the keys ended up with someone who ended up not getting home first… d’oh. So we just waited, then nipped down to the 24-hour French restaurant to eat some soup.

This is what I bought at the Guggenheim shop… I never knew that they modelled the whole museum after some coffee cups.

does this seem unusual to anyone else?

We tripped down to Chinatown…

…so that we could catch the super-cheap chinatown bus to Boston to visit Nick (who had returned to Boston at this point)

A trojan cow watches over south street station

We went to this awesome north-african restaurant where we had lemonade with mint leaves and rose petals… and it was AWESOME!

This is Nick’s apartment… and Nick, right about when he realized that he left his keys in his mailbox keyhole.

the view from Nick’s apartment is pretty cool… and visibility that day was also very good.

Lily, the tourist, helps another tourist with the fiddly ticket machines

We picked the worst day possible to attempt the “Freedom Trail”… it was -12 celsius with a windchill in the region of the -20s. We didn’t finish the trail, it was just much effort to even be outside.

but we did complete at least part of the trail

first stop – the golden dome… are you sure that’s it Nick? (at this point, Nick rolls his eyes)

Boston Common… how lovely…

awww… it’s Sam Adams.

This building is “Old City Hall”… the guidebook says so.

This poor donkey had to stand perfectly still out in the blistering cold. Good thing it isn’t a real donkey…

oh, I like tea parties!

at the museum, there was this lovely exhibit where you pushed buttons and lights would come on! here, the freedom trail is illuminated in blue.

Funny thing about this whole museum… if you replaced “Patriot” with “Revolutionary”, it would have been difficult to tell the difference between this and the “Museo de la Revolucion” in Havana, Cuba. The Boston massace… quite pale by today’s standards, resulted in the death of five (count them) patriots and the hands of the English pigdogs.

The building was quite nice…

It had a nice spiral staircase

…and some spiffy displays.

Including a very nice model ship

…and an advent calendar in the shape of the building.

The basement contained a lovely collection of old photographs.

We got quite sick of the ridiculously cold weather, so we ended our trail at the Quincy market

we had some clam chowder…. mmmmm

and so we spent some time trying to decide what to do…

We went to a lovely pub called “republic” for a drink.

Apparently the place is usually very busy… but due to it being unusually cold, it was… not very busy.

It was so cold in fact… that steam coming out from the grates immediately turned to frost… crickey!

Nick’s apartment’s common area… now home to three Australian refugees

the next day wasn’t nearly as cold, it was only -6, so we had a walk around Harvard

…meh… library’s kinda nice.

…but ice skating on the “Frog Pond” seemed far more appealing.

This was actually an attempt by Caitlin to get a photo of me, but I was just too fast and you can’t even see the blur.

That night, we dined at a Tibetan restaurant and we were having such a good time, that I slipped on a prawn-tail and… it flew into the air and… into Nick’s water. The laughter which resulted from this probably nearly got us kicked out of the restaurant…

The mighty Charles river… qute a serious body of water… is frozen.

So we threw some rocks out onto it.

did I mention that it was very windy?

…and that we were very hungry?

so we walked through MIT and then took the train to the bus stop and went back from Beantown to the Big Apple.

….aaahhh… home again, home again.

…back to morning strolls through central park

We thought we’d do a tour of the UN… even though I’ve already been on a tour of the UN… and have even been inside for the odd conference…

Oh well… it was fun… I knew all the answers to the questions that our guide asked.

The Security Council…

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

A gun, converted into a guitar…

The General Assembly

…and, of course, the gift shop

I felt that this rather random piece of… thing… should have been a bit more prominent, rather than being hidden in a corner near the gift shop.

…ahh, all the lovely art that surrounds the UN

We came out in time to see all the flags coming down.

walked about a bit… took some photos…

what else to do in New York? The Opera, of course.

The buildings of the Lincoln Centre are truly magnificent… one gets the feeling that no expense was spared.

The lighting design was particularly impressive

This is what happens when you get rush tickets… its really just pot luck where you end up sitting. The view wasn’t too bad from up here, and the acoustics were actually very good from where we were.

ahh… those lights.

feeling slightly whimsical afterwards, we decided that it would be funny to make it look like Lily had a luminous afro…

Lily and Caitlin discuss the program at a cafe afterwards while I decide just how many courses I want to order.

hmm… Central Park is so Lovely, I wonder what it looks like from the top of one of those really tall buildings?

Hmm…. it still looks quite lovely.

A lovely view of the Empire State Building as seen from the top of the Rockerfeller Centre.

Ice skating seems to be a recurring theme…

Not satisfied with just the opera, we took it upon ourselves to go and see the ballet.

I arrived very early to get good rush tickets… good thing I did. Ten minutes later, the queue was very long indeed.

The interior of the complex is… magnificent, of course.

I must say… for $12, these are pretty awesome seats. I’d rather be lucky than good…

…and, not to be outdone by the opera venue, the ballet theatre also had a very spare-no-expense look about it.

after that, we had another stroll across the Brooklyn Bridge, this time with the aim of getting a good view of the city by night.

…yeah… I guess that’s not a bad view…

I know I’ve already mentioned this, but the Brooklyn Bridge is terribly impressive…

After that rather long night, we gorged ourselves (at 2am) at a very nice 24-hour Ukranian restaurant. Yum.

“It’s just a bunch of men with guns who forgive other men with guns for crimes against women” ~ Donald Steinberg speaking about accountability problems over issues of rape being used as a weapon of war.

This was a bit of a let down. Santa Monica beach at about 10am. I think the weather might have had something to do with it. The bus there took such a long time, I had to get a taxi back so that I could be at the airport in time. LA public transport struggles a bit.

Mountain View

Mountain view is a quaint little town near the San Francisco bay area. It is famous for being the home of Google. In fact, Google has been so kind as to provide free wireless internet access ANYWHERE in Mountain View. We stayed with some family friends of Nick’s and this was the idea launching pad to visit the campuses of UC Berkeley (in Berkeley, an hour away by BART) and but a few short train stops on the Caltrain to nearby Palo Alto, home of Stanford University.

The University of California at Berkeley. Unfortunately, the day wasn’t the clearest and one could not see much of the bay, even from the tower. Me and Nick thought, being a government university, Berkeley would not look as pristine as some of the private institutions. Well… maybe it didn’t look *quite* as nice, but it was still mighty impressive.

The large grey building you see in the centre of shot is the whole reason we’re here. That entire building does maths. The view from the top floor is pretty sweeeeet.

The noticeboards here get quite a workout.

…and one for those mathematicians who are following our progress from the safety of your own homes (or offices), some maths jokes.

These curious looking gates link… well… they look nice don’t they? Apparently, many years ago, the area where I was standing was outside of university bounds and was where a lot of student housing was located. The uni realised that they actually owned all the land there, and decided to do away with the streets and build their big student union buildings there.

The buildings and cafes here had nice names.

…but… what if you already look really good?

They were terribly subtle when it came to advertising for jobs in the bookstore.

I hate to spoil the fun, but the sign actually used to say “geological” Laboratory. You can *almost* see where the old letters were painted over.

The next day, we boarded the Caltrain to San Francisco to have a look around.

Those Australians who read this blog will understand the (slightly strange, to be sure) humour associated with these signs.

There is a famous pier in San Francisco, I’m not sure if it is famous for this reason, but in any case, the sea lions are very cool.

Trams, for various reasons of practicality, are not able to run as much as they used to. However, if one’s eyesight were bad enough, one might not even notice the difference…

We decided to rent bicycles so that we could cover more ground more quickly. Here we are riding on the wrong side of the road… again. Although it may not look it, it was quite cold on that day and we had the good fortune of being able to ride into the wind on the way to the golden gate bridge.

Another deceptive photo. It was actually very foggy on that particular day and we were just very fortunate that, just as we got to the bridge, it cleared enough for me to take a good picture of it.

This shot was trickier to take that it looks… I was riding an unfamiliar bike (which felt HEAPS different to my road bike at home) and trying to operate a camera while also trying to remember to ride on the right side of the road… multitasking at its best.

Our next stop was Stanford. We were fortunate enough to have one of Nick’s family friends, a former student of Stanford and now part of the faculty, to take us around. In the morning we sampled her (rightly) famous pancakes with all sorts of add-ons, including whipped cream. They had a 3 year old daughter who delighted in watching her breakfast become a work of art, only to be consumed moments later.

On our way there, we stopped by the organic farmers market. (and also because I left my bag in the other car…)

We parked just north of the main quad and ventured in, accompanied by our guide (she’s the one in the cart).

We ascended the “Hoover Tower”, affectionately known as Hoover’s last erection, to catch a better view of the campus. It was… very nice.

In addition to all the academic’s offices and clasrooms and lecture halls, there were also fairly large museums on campus, including this one which had an impressive display of Rodin sculpture out the front. These doors are… the “Gates of Hell”, from which “The Thinker” was drawn (you can see him, looking over the door).

Standford’s Athletics facilites are mighty impressive… I spent no small amount of time just perving on the track…

It was difficult to capture the impressiveness of the Stanford campus in one shot, so here is a picture of the “front door”, the main quad from the north (notice that, in the northen hemisphere, the sun light comes from the south, which is why this photos didn’t come out very well.

While in transit at LA international airport, on my way to Boston, I managed to spot one of the new super-sized Airbus A380 planes. It didn’t look particularly big, until you realised how far away it was.

Cambridge (20/3/2007 – 25/3/2007)

Cambridge Massachusetts, famous for being home to Harvard University and The Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Not only that, but they are but a mere 30 minute walk from each other. How convenient. I stayed at a lovely guesthouse which was smack in between both of them.

Due to delays, I got into Boston at about 2am on the coldest day in March for like… 60 years or something. Yay. It was very cold, thankfully, it warmed up a bit during the course of my stay. This is the view from the window of the place I was staying at.

The famous JFK school of government. Kind of ironic that the best photo I took of the logo and name happened to be on a barrier…

The name says it all. The Ivy League originally referred to just the athletic competition of 8 private universities located in the North Eastern United States. It has since become representative of the educational philosophy of those very old schools – elitism, academic excellence, having too much money etc.

Harvard, not being satisfied with just the one athletics track, has two. One of them is indoors… (I mean… what if it snows?) and the whole facility is very spiffy indeed. Their football stadium (yes, STADIUM!) wasn’t snowed-under, it had a gigantic inflatable tent set up over the playing field which was heated, so that teams could train all year round.

Something must happen in between the time that these people are children and when they become grad students… becuase most of the ones I’ve met are pretty sharp.

The “Nerd Culture” at MIT isn’t frowned upon. As a matter of fact, it is strongly encouraged…. some of these titles in the bookstore are an indication of that.

MIT’s athletics track was interesting in that the lanes were alternating colours. I wonder if the grey surface is slightly faster than the red.

In the middle of the track, aside from the “keep off the grass” sign, there was a plastic canine of some sort. Standing next to it, is my guide, Peter McNamara who is a current PhD student here.

Speaking of the Nerd culture, this is the marking on one of the many bridges that cross the Charles river. Apparently, some time ago, a fraternity decided to measure the bridge using the unit of measurement, the “Smoot”. Where Mr. Smoot, then a fresher, was laid on his back and… used as a yardstick to measure the bridge.

The great dome at MIT. It is quite impressive. Unfortunately, during my visit, nothing was placed on the dome. In the past, there have been a myriad of things placed on the dome as pranks, from giant wooden screws to police cars.

After doing some crosswords in the maths common room, we ventured up to Peter’s living quarters to drop some stuff off before hitting the town. The view from his window is quite magnificent. Here, we look across the Charles river at the Boston skyline.

That night, after dinner, we went to the pub to socialise with some of the grad students. There are quite a few international students here, for example, the two rightmost people in the shot are from Portugal and Italy respectively.

The bar closed at about 1:30 so… we ventured back to the maths department and played table tennis in the basement (as you do). I asked if there were any 24-hour libraries at MIT, no there weren’t (though some libraries opened until quite late). Then I asked if there were any 24-hour computer labs – ALL computer labs at MIT are 24-hour…

The next day, I went back to Harvard to have a look around its many museums. Here is a view of the small, but quaint museum of scientific instruments.

The Harvard Museum of Natural History loved its little models. Here are some butterflies.

Of course, the highlight of the Harvard Museum of Natural History is their famous glass flowers. I thought that “glass flowers” meant shiny, ornamental-looking things but these, these were quite something else. They looked very very real.

If nobody had told me that they were made of glass, I may well have mistaken them for being real. They were created using the same techniques that jewellers use to make small bits of ornamental glassware, except the object in this case was to make realistic models of plants.

The level of details was astonishing, especially on plants like these, where there were very fine hairs.

They were mostly models constructed on a 1:1 scale, but some were enlargements and others were even cross-sections of various parts of plants. I still had trouble believing that they were glass…

In addition to the glass flowers, no museum of natural history would be complete without an extensive collection of rocks. I must say that Harvard’s collection is the most extensivest collection I have ever seen.

Among them was this Iron meteorite. It has been cut open and polished so you can see the crystaline structure of the inside which was, one would think, probably formed in a zero-gravity environment.

The good thing about having a very extensive collection of rocks, is that some of them are quite pretty.

MIT pure maths people pour over the times crossword. It really is a team effort here and Friday’s crossword is supposed to be the hardest one of the week. We flew through yesterday’s crossword… and we did the same today… although it did take slightly longer. The moral of this story, if you’re into crosswords, come to MIT.

A corridor in MIT. They all look the same… no really, they do. So do all the buildings. I guess they made the architecture uninspiring so the students would spend less time outside ogling at the buildings, and more time inside ogling the maths.

These two scrabble buffs go at it with words that I never knew existed (especially those two-letter ones). Notice the chess clock – yes, scrabble is very competitive here.

After touring MIT, we had a lovely dinner at a Portuguese restaurant, which was generously paid for by the department.

Afterwards, we went to a pub (The Thirsty Scholar) and drank no small amount of beer. That wasn’t paid for by the department…

The Boston Museum of Fine Arts… housing much more than fine arts alone.

As is customary in all good museums, there is a section devoted to the archaeology of the ancient near east (one wonders why there is only ONE subject on it at Melbourne Uni). They had a wonderful collection of cylindrical seals which were, in my opinion, superior to the stamp seals… but they were eventually replaced by the stamp seals.

Nick looks at some seals, while i capture a small man on my digital CCD and a blurry lion in the background.

One of the special temporary exhibits which was on was a showcase of some interesting fashion photography. Here is a foot, in a very high-heeled shoe… through an x-ray machine. You can see the buckles…

Here is a very well-decorated harpsichord. It is probably so that whoever is playing it can put a recording on, and nobody will notice his fingers not moving, or the levers not plucking the strings because they are too busy looking at all the lovely decorations.

These are exactly what they look like – glasses. Someone, who was bored at a dinner table one day, decided to do this properly, and tuned up some glasses for dinging in tune…

Some interesting guitars. Notice the one with three neck, clearly evidence for a long standing alien occupation of our planet as one needs at least four arms to play it properly (and humans don’t have four arms).

The museum building itself was quite impressive. In the centre, there was a lovely decorated dome.

What could this be? A coathanger’s hairy end (ewwww)? No, it is, in fact, a cow.

There’s a sign you don’t see every day in a museum. Please touch signs are normally confined to houses of ill-repute. Here, we find one next to a small statue of Abraham Lincoln, I wonder what *he* would have to say about the “please touch” sign.

A view of Boston Common, not very different to what it looks like right now actually.

This was quite extraordinary. It is a wedge of glass with the bottom bit cut to look like mountains and rivers, then painted to look like… er… mountains and rivers. Anyway, the wedge-shape also gives it a remarkable kaleidescope effect.

There were, of course, some impressionist paintings. The inset image shows some of the finer surface detail.

Of particular interest to me, having studied some arabic, was a small collection of arabic caligraphy. This one says – “I seek God’s protection from the cursed devil, in the name of God, all merciful, most compassionate. O God, O the most auspicious opener of doors, open for us a blessed door.” Maybe it was at the entrance to an ancient bank vault or something.

This is the Hindu god Ganesh. Here he is depicted with his many wives. Many wives? You may ask… well, just look at that trunk, its so long and thick – what woman could resist?

Although the outside of the building looks quite old… the inside was very modern. This was an interesting sculpture at the entrance… the other entrance… yes, there were two entrances.

A Monet, as in Claude Monet… water Lillies.

This painting was commissioned for a diplomat of some sort. He wanted a souvenir of Rome but couldn’t be arsed buying all the postcards, so… he got a buddy of his to paint a painting of him sitting in a room full of paintings of all the different sights in Rome, quite a clever idea really.

Speaking of impressive rooms full of paintings, the museum of fine art had them in ample supply.

Bartley’s burgers, supposedly one of Boston’s finest eateries… yes, that’s a queue to get burgers… they must be pretty special.

Not wanting to wait in line on a cold night, I went and sat down at a local joint called “Charlies”.

Where I chowed down on some lobster chowder with a double lobster roll… mmmmm (notice the chowder is almost finished… ) .

New York (25/3/2007 – 30/3/2007)

There’s no place like home… except maybe New York. I was surprised at how much like Hong Kong New York was. There are differences, of course. New York is much bigger. It is also much colder for much longer. The pace of life is very similar though…

This is the impossibly cheap bus ticket which took me from Boston to New York. A five-hour bus journey for $15. Mexican transport was a shoe-in to win the bang-for-your-buck award, but this one just blows everything away. I’m still trying to figure out how they can afford to run it so cheaply.

The bus dropped me off smack in the middle of Chinatown. This scene looks so much like Hong Kong I really believed that I was there for a while…

That’s more like it… I hate to think how much the advertising space costs on some of those billboards. For those of you who are wondering where I’m standing, I took this photo standing in the infamous Times Square, on the corner of Broadway and 42nd Street.

New York is famous for its fine dining, and I was not dissappointed. I ate at a lovely place on the north side of Columbus Circle called “Jean Georges”. This is my dessert… mmmmm. The vanilla ice cream (immediately south-east to the small shot-glass of mango nectar) was the best vanilla ice cream I have ever had.

Surprisingly, this is actually the first restaurant I’ve been to which has three Michelin stars. I’ve been to a few which probably would get three stars when the writers of the red guide get around to rating them. I will dine in the formal section later (when I’ve arranged for some better clothing – there’s a strict dress code) and find out what all this three-star fuss is really all about.

Apart from everything being open ridiculously late (many things never close here), New York is also known for… well… excess. Here is a rather long limo…

Columbus Circle by night, right on the South-West corner of Central Park. Immediately behind the column is the Trump International Hotel and Tower.

On the 26th I took a day-trip to Princeton University in nearby New Jersey. On the subject of Ivy League universities having too much money, here is a fine example. This is Princeton’s Ice Hockey rink. MIT has an ice rink too, but it is only open during the winter months.

The architecture in Princeton is much more European-influenced and much nicer to look at than, say, MIT. Something I’ve noticed about American Universities, at least the ones I’ve been to, is that there is a great shortage of campus maps. It took me all of half an hour to find the building I was actually looking for.

And here it is – The Woodrow Wilson School of Government, housed in Robertson Hall. Quite possibly the ugliest building on campus, at least on the outside. I was able to sit in on a class during my visit. I sat in on “Course 542 International Economics”, a master’s level course, but one which I found surprisingly easy to follow, especially given the fact that I have no formal training whatsoever in economics. It was very interesting.

Now for the real reason that I bothered to take the one hour train trip to come to Princeton for only a day – Hans Blix. He gave a talk on the challenges and the great need for disarmament. He spoke much of the cold war as well as more recent events including, of course, the war on Iraq.

This very grand looking building is Grand Central Station.

Continuing my food adventures, I went to the Grand Hyatt (relax dad, I didn’t order EVERYTHING). I couldn’t decide whether I wanted seafood more, or just a good hearty steak. Luckily, they had this dish – “Surf and Turf”, penne with chunks of crab meat on the left, kobe beef on the right.

Desert was equally special with cake, stawberries dipped in brandy and some very very rich dipping chocolate mmmmMMMmmmm. The meal was very nice, but not as nice as the casual dining (no jacket required) section of Jean Georges from the night before. After this meal, I had my first big scare of the trip – I lost my camera. Or so I thought. It had fallen out of my pocket when I got up after my meal and, luckily, it had found its way under my seat where it waited patiently for my return not twenty minutes later.

Downtown Manhattan is where the business district is at. If you don’t find the above photo funny… that’s probably a good thing.

Right in the heart of it – the NYSE, or New York Stock Excange for those of you who didn’t grow up with an accountant for a father. Security around the area was super-tight with all vehicles being thoroughly searched before being allowed to enter.

The Brooklyn Bridge – an marvel of modern engineering. In its day, the world’s largest suspension bridge and the worlds first ever steel wire suspension bridge. The towers were also, for a time, the tallest structures in the western hemisphere. Built in 1883, it was plagued by problems (like the guy who designed it dying) but it did eventually get built. It really is very impressive.

The United Nations Building. Again, security in the area was super-tight with many groups of police patrolling with automatic weapons.

The New York City subway is truly marvelous. Surprisingly, it is not the busiest underground system in the world (bested by Moscow and Tokyo) but it is certainly a very good one. An MTA ticket will get you anywhere on the subway or on the extensive bus system, above ground.

Now the tallest building in Manhattan, the Empire State Building towers above 34th Street.

86 Floors up, and one gets a great view of New York. Although Mexico City’s greater metropolitan area is supposedly slightly more populated than New York’s, I’m sure New York, or at the very least, Manhattan, is more densely populated.

Looking south, we can see the towering buildings in the business district surrounding Wall Street. If you look very carefully, you might be able to make out the Statue of Liberty on an island to the right of the main body of buildings.

An integral part of experiencing New York is, of course, to take a New York taxi. These turn out to not actually be too expensive, due mostly to the fact that distances aren’t that great. Here we are, driving along broadway towards Columbus Circle.

That night, I dined in a quaint little establishment called “Per Se”, by famous chef Thomas Keller of “French Laundry” fame. The restaurant is located in the spiffy new Time-Warner centre which overlooks Columbus Circle. Getting a table at this restaurant is notoriously difficult and my persistent checking-up on my status on the waitlist may have had something to with me getting a spot in the end (I called about once every hour all day). If you check out this list, you will find Per Se to be quite highly regarded.

Right from the start, I had the feeling that they might have mistaken me for a food reviewer or something similar, as I was given a complimentary glass of very fine champagne. Turns out that it was because it was my first visit. I also spoke with the floor manager for the night who asked if we could try something “a little different” tonight. I was delighted and honoured that such a restaurant as Per Se would experiment on such a person as myself, and I happily agreed. Above, one of the more “conventional” dishes – “Oysters and Pearls” : Sabayon of Pearl Tapioca with Island Creek Oysters and Sterling White Sturgeon Caviar.

In addition to the orgasmic food, I had non-alcoholic drinks matched to my meal… at my request. The sommelier obviously thought this was a fantastic idea and went along with it, trying some things which he had clearly tried before and some other things which he… hadn’t. This dish is a strong contender for the coveted accolade of being “Daniel’s favourite dish ever”. White Truffle Oil-Infused Custard : with “Ragoût” of Périgord Truffles.

This is what ultimately did it for me – the selection of salts. Nine different and unique salts for me to mix and match as I pleased with each main-course savoury dish. Some were from exotic locations like Hawaii, others were found deep underground, so deep, that they are found amongst Jurassic-period fossils. Mixing and matching the right salts to each dish could either give a subtle hint of flavour where previously there was none, or it could cause something of a taste explosion, especially with some of the creamier dishes.

Foie Gras, with fruits and brioche and nine salts… this was WAY too much fun! Interestingly, the menu changes every day (I was very impressed to find the day’s date printed on the menu) and I had them print me a copy of my menu for this particular meal. This course took an awful lot longer than it needed to, although it took about as long as it should and not nearly as long as I would’ve liked it to.

“Macaroni N’ Cheese” the most understated menu item yet. Butter poached Nova Scotia Lobster Parmesan “Crisp” (that’s the thing on top) with creamy lobster broth and Mascarpone-enriched Orzo. All in all, 17 courses… quite a feast, and a pleasant surprise seeing as the “regular” chef’s tasting menu is supposed to be 9 courses (11 effective courses counting desserts and starters). Per Se is now the third restaurant to not only feed me with superlatively good food, but to also make me feel very full – something that doesn’t happen often. Although the Michelin guide for New York has come under some criticism, I feel that Per Se is entirely worthy of it’s three star rating. It may well have been the best restaurant I have ever been to…

The next day, I woke up early to the sound of one of these things. This particular example is a Bell-222. Though air traffic over New York is very very very tightly controlled, especially nowadays, there are constantly helicopters flying around for all sorts of different reasons – traffic, police, transport of diplomats etc. So I thought, why not get in on this obviously very “New York” experience?

I was very fortunate that when I called, they had a single seat left in one of their helicopters and had had great difficulty selling it, so I negotiated what I believed to be a reasonable price (the tour company would have disagreed, and we’ll leave it at that). The trade-off… was that I had to sit in the cockpit. Which may, at first, seem like a good thing, but since the pilot actually flies the thing so that people get the best view out of the side windows, it was a little tricky.

The cockpit does, however, have the advantage of having the cleanest windows because it is rather important that the pilot can see through them. Here is a view of Yankee stadium, home of the New York Yankees, a baseball team in the “World Series“, a silly name… and one which would be analgous to calling the AFL grand final the “World League Grand Final” which I think, even the players would think a bit daft.

Here we get a good view of the many bridges which cross the East River and Harlem River.

The upper west side, dominated in this photo by Columbia University… aahhh… so far and yet… so far.

Staring down the barrel of 48th Street. The “twin towers” to the left of the shot are the Time-Warner building towers and the Empire State Building can be seen to the far right.

The Statue of Liberty, whose actual name is “Bob”… or maybe I’m getting it confused with “Liberty Enlightening the World”.

Downtown Manhattan with Fort Jay on Governor Island in the foreground. The skyline looks suspiciously inclomplete without the twin towers of the World Trade Centre. The helipad-pier can be seen just above the end of the wake of the sightseeing ferry which is closest to us (how’s that for a vague description!)

On Broadway, there is a mock-protest. The fact that they are dressed in period costume is no coincidence – this is a publicity stunt-ad for “The Tudors” a new mini-series on Cable TV here.

Also on Broadway – the CBS studios where the Late Show with David Letterman are recorded I was tempted to line up to be in the studio audience for this show… but then I remembered that I don’t really like the show and that Dave isn’t actually very funny.

That afternoon, after a failed attempt to get last-minute-cancellation-tickets to see a broadway musical (Wicked), I strolled over to the Museum of Natural History on 81st Street. Well… I strolled over to a tube station and got on a train which took me there.

The building which houses the museum is terribly impressive. Terrible lizard (otherwise known as Dinosaur) skeletons decorate the main foyer-entrance.

They actually had a very extensive and interesting section on Mesoamerica… but I figured that you’d all had enough of that. Besides, scale models of Chichen Itza are all well and good… but having been there, they just don’t do it for me like they used to.

This is Australia. Well, all the birds… what do you do if a bird poops on your windscreen? Don’t ask her out!

Ancient armenian texts from good ol’ Constantinople.

There were a great many exhibits on different people from around the world.

Including an extremely well thought-out display on the makeup of Samurai swords.

Some of the exhibits were still in a state of not-quite-completeness. Here we observe a go game which has barely started. Interestingly (and quite impressively) this looks like a fairly realistic game and that the people who set up the exhibit actually knew how to play.

This is Hammurabi’s code of laws. It is one of the first examples of a formal legal system… ever. This is a replica, the real thing is in the Louvre somewhere (I may even have a picture of it).

Elephants! Most of the exhibits are three dimensional and meticulously well-presented.

Grrrr Tigers.

This wall was created to highlight the wonders of biodiversity and to warn us that, if we’re not careful, we may wipe out lots of species of stuff.

There was a very impressive hall with a very impressive marine exhibit inside and an impressively large model of a blue whale. Try as I might, I couldn’t get the whole thing in one shot.

A depiction of the hitherto undiscovered scene from Moby Dick where Captain Ahab tries a different strategy and feeds the whale a squid which has been left out of the fridge for more than four hours. In the end, the whale outsmarts the squid by increasing its topological genus.

Another very spiffy exhibit, this time highlighting how different species of fish are related. Try as I might, I couldn’t find the exhibit on intelligent design… or the flying spaghetti monster for that matter.

This is a very very large millipede. Despite its name, the milipede only has about a hundred legs (although it is sometimes uncertain just how many “L”s it has)

This is the mosquito that causes malaria. If only we’d known to find it in this museum sooner, then sub-saharan africa would be much better off. We are going to need a very large flyswat.

Soil… apparently if you really want to annoy someone who researches soil, call it “dirt”.

Early man… well… just before early man. Oh, and I nearly forgot, early woman too. Notice she is looking away from the man. (She is probably looking for a mate with a bigger… brain)

Speaking of brains.

Here is Lucy, one of anthropology’s most significant finds. She is the earliest, and remarkably very complete, examples of the australopithecus afarensis.

And, naturally, as is customary for any museum of natural history, a vast collection of rocks… and, keeping in custom with all things “New York”, here are some very big rocks.

Perhaps we can adopt this one as a pet.

Some mooses… meece… ? These are the Alaskan variety.

They could’ve put a small meteorite on display, but NooooOOOOoooo, they went and found a big one. This one is composed mostly of iron. The gaps are where there was other stuff, and it burned away when the meteorite entered the earth’s atmosphere.

This curious looking thing is called a biosphere. Supposedly, it is supposed to be completely sealed off from the rest of the world, needing only light to sustain its life. That life being some seaweed and brine shrimps. Still, its pretty impressive.

Now, for some more food. This time, I return to Jean Georges for some action in the formal dining section. Here we have Salmon Sashimi on garlic bread with roe, a Spinach Soup with a touch of lime consume at the bottom, and a spoon with a thin slice of blood orange with some white spring onion.

This is an egg sandwich. Oh… did I mention that the black stuff on top of it is Sturgeon Caviar? Its all the rage these days…

Asparagus, with mushrooms. A delightfully simple dish with a complex taste. Most of it comes from the mushrooms, which are wild (causing them to be expensive as they cannot be farmed, but rather, have to be found).

Snapper, a personal favourite. Here we find it topped with sesame seeds, an unusual combination, but one which adds a layer of flavour not usually found in fish dishes.

The cheese trolley. Many wonderful cheeses, but surprisingly no Dutch cheeses. Your selection of cheeses is cut and prepared right there and then.

Formal dining means… Jackets must be worn by gentlemen. Despite not considering myself a very gentle man by any measure (he he he) I was compelled to fit this dress code because if I was to invite Jean Georges (yes, he is a person… no, there is no Mr. Per Se) over to one of my parties, I too would expect him to conform to whatever dress code I decide on. The shirt was bought at a clearence sale at a Brooks Brothers directly opposite ground zero (where the World Trade Centre towers used to be) and the Jacket was acquired at 50% off from Macy’s almost-tax-time sale. Incidentally, tourists with a valid foreign passport receive an additional 11% discount. Does anyone else think that it is strange that a country which imposes a trade embargo on Cuba, has a chain of department stores having a red star as their logo? Speaking of red… the dots on the side of my lip are a result of my face inexplicably deciding to imitate a volcano for no apparent reason.

On the advice of a friend, I sampled some food which is supposed to be the staple of many a New Yorker.

Riding home on the tube. It is very crowded at this busy time… (it was 10pm on a Wednesday night)

The next day, I queued up for a sum total of three hours to get to go into the Statue of Liberty. Here is the ‘original’ torch. Surprisingly enough, the current torch is actually closer to what the artist intended than the torch that ended up being on the statue.

There are free tours given by park rangers (the monument is managed by the parks service). Here, our guide is showing us a replica of the statue’s face.

The statue was orignially assembled in Paris then it was dismantled and transported piece by piece, then reconstructed on Liberty Island. The base was funded and built by the Americans. The statue itself has an ingenious structure which has the thin copper skin supported by an internal superstructure which is linked via a a series of bars which behave in a fashion similar to leaf-springs, acting as shock absorbers between the shell and the internal structure. It was designed by Eiffel, of tower fame.

Before September 11th 2001, people were allowed to walk all the way up to the torch. Nowadays, this is as far as one can go, the observation deck at the top of the pedestal. Here we can see up Liberty’s robes… how revealing.

Yet another photograph of New York’s majestic skyline.

One advantage of queuing up at opening time is that you get to take pictures like these… made possible by the sun’s position in the morning.

And, of course, the standard postcard shot of Liberty Enlightening the World. The weather couldn’t have been better for taking photos… however… due to the fact that it had been a similarly clear night, it was very very cold and very very windy.

Later that day, I returned to the United Nations to go on a guided tour…

The inside of the security council chamber, a very impressive room… donated by Norway apparently. During the meetings, the non-permament members play musical chairs while discussing matters of great importance.

This needs no introduction. The UN peacekeeping forces, known affectionately by some as the ‘blue helmets’ have come to symbolize peace and stability… or maybe it is impotence and inaction… depending on one’s point of view.

This is our guide, her name is Celia, she is French… mmm… French accents… Anyway, here she is explaining the process of decolonization after 1945

Does anyone know what these are? Strangely, I was the only one in the group who did (I was also the only one in the group who knew that there were 192 member states). They are landmines, which the 1999 Ottawa treaty sought to eradicate.

This is the general assembly hall, the home of a very chaotic game of musical chairs which starts every September when a name is drawn out of a hat and gets to sit at the front for a week. Everyone else spends the rest of the week trying to figure out where to sit then, at the start of the next week (or maybe it happens monthly…), the process begins again.

That night saw me dine at the third in my trifecta of delightful restaurants – Daniel. After getting over the initial distraction of my waitress’s thick French accent (among many other distractions, like the decor of the room… of course) I decided that their 6-course tasting menu wasn’t quite what I was after and I asked if they could “add” two more courses which I was able to specify from the A la carte menu. They agreed… and here is one of them – Lentil Soup with Truffle, Quail and Crispy Shallots…mmmm

This appetiser was probably the stand-out dish of the night – “Peeky Toe Crab” salad… who in the world comes up with the names of these things?

This was one of the other courses which I requested to be added… notice the caviar… I’ve decided (to the dismay of my parents, I’m sure) that I really like caviar.

It was especially nice to recieve a menu with my name on it. After the meal, I was treated to a tour of the kitchen where an army of 15 chefs work manically to prepare the food for the people in the restaurant. I also had a twenty-minute conversation with one of the waiters about the food scene in Hong Kong and how all the big name French chefs are starting to open up shop there.

After emerging from the restaurant, I had a brief chat with a limousine driver to whom I explained that I was walking back to my hotel. Taking pity on me (and sensing a business opportunity) he offered me a ride at a considerably reduced rate (which, in the end, I calculated to be only slightly more than a taxi would’ve cost, but considerably more than it would have cost to walk). In the end, we got talking and he took it upon himself to take me on a tour of New York city. It turns out that he believes that the September 11th 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre Towers were partly organised and bankrolled by the US government. Interesting.

This turn of events did, however, allow me to go to some places I wouldn’t have had time to otherwise, like Brooklyn via the famous Brooklyn Bridge, so that I could take a photo of the New York City skyline by night.

At the end of the day, after a long discussion about international affairs and politics, he didn’t charge me any more for the little detour that we took. It ended up taking about twice as long as my helicopter ride and costing about half as much (I like to keep you guys guessing).

For my final day in New York… The Met. A work of art in itself.

The Met had a very impressive Egyptian collection… and they weren’t afraid to show it. This is a section from the famous excavation at El-Armana, the ancient lost city. Akhenaten, a slightly wacko Pharoah decided to abandon the polytheistic order and adopt a monotheistic one. He renamed everything and built a whole new city. When he died, he was succeeded by the famous Tutankaten, later renamed to Tutankamun. The city was abandoned, which makes it a treasure trove for archaeologists because it is so well-preserved.

The collection was extensive… very extensive.

Their collection of American art, showcased the vast wealth (at least of the few very wealthy people) of America, even in the very early stages of its development.

Let us raise our glasses in a toast to — wait a sec, maybe we shouldn’t, it would take too long.

I told you! We are being overrun by little green men.

Now THAT’S a card table! The reproduction of entire rooms in period finishings is reminicent of the Louvre in Paris.

What’s the time? Time to clean the ridiculously ornate clock methinks.

The J.P. Morgan wing, which houses the “Arms and Armour” exhibits.

I wonder how much time the staff here spend polishing their helmets…

A tachi blade… what collection of arms and armour would be complete without a tachi blade?

During the enlightenment period in Europe, Asian art was very popular and influenced European art of the period as well.

This hall reminded me of the Musei Vaticani in the Vatican

The museum had a small section on modern art as well. These three are interesting in that they are essentially paintings of the same thing but from different perspectives.

More modern art… this time, caught in the act of pulling ones socks up.

This piece was very interesting. Despite appearences, it was actually quite flat and it looked different when viewed from different angles. (these are two photos of the same thing)

Pegasus. Interesting trivia – the computer company Asus was originally going to be called Pegasus, but dropped the first three letters so that it would appear closer to the top of alphabetical lists.

The building itself is quite magnificent. It has been slowly expanded and added to over the years, but it is very well-done and you can barely notice the seams where new wings have been attached. Here is one such example. Bet you can’t even tell which side is newer (its the left).

A room full of paintings, a fairly common occurrence in a museum of art. These are more paintings from western europe.

Is anyone feeling horny? They come in all shapes and sizes… although I’m told that the difference is really felt in the way that you blow them, rather than sheer size. You need to have good finger dexterity, of course.

Talk about ornamental pianos… this one was quite extraordinary… and VERY heavy.

Oh! look at the time, I guess I should be heading back to Boston…

One for my maths friends out there… this was the number of my stinky hotel room.

On returning to Boston, we hung about, had some lunch and started watching a game of lacrosse being played in the MIT sporting fields. The game was hopelessly one-sided so we found ourselves a lacrosse ball and did some bowling practice. Note to self: synthetic rubbery ball bowled on synthetic rubbery athletics track = LOTS of bounce (and some wacko spin too!).