New York the sixth

I found a small slice of the Antipodes in Midtown this morning - Culture Espresso, where you can buy a flat white made by a hipster. It's like a portal straight to Wellington.

Also there was Tash's most excellent friend Lee. We had a giddy chat about the whoa-ness of New York, before heading to and parting ways at Grand Central Station where I jumped on the 4 train to the Upper East Side.

The Guggenheim. Frank Lloyd Wright, you magnificent bastard.

There's currently an exhibition of black and white Picasso drawings taking up the whole exhibition space around the ramp.

A few of the drawings are way too cracked out to appeal to me, but I enjoyed most of them, such as this concept art for the Iron Man movies.

Aside from the Picassos there was also a fabulous Kandinsky exhibition, and a selection of other works that are probably from their permanent collection, including some Degas dancers that were much superior to the ones we got in Auckland this year.

  And this, The Football Players by Henri Rousseau. Don't you just love things that are jaunty? And they're playing that newfangled rugby game, what? 

(This is not my pic - I stole it off Wikipedia. You're not supposed to take photos, although everyone does. The attendants are really polite about asking you not to - there's no slapping the camera out of your hands or anything - so you feel shamed rather than coerced into obliging.) 

I tootled around the Upper East Side for a while, watching rich dogs being walked and rich babies being nannied. I didn't really see any fancy people though, not even in the big-name designer portion of Fifth Avenue. It was kind of a letdown. I demand socialites!

I had lunch at Neil's Coffee Shop. I've no idea whether this place is a local institution or just a random diner, but from the picture on the wall I can tell you that Steve Martin ate there back when his hair was only 50 per cent grey. So, like, 40 years ago?

In the afternoon I went to the Whitney Museum. The bastard who designed these dark and unlovely staircases is not magnificent. However the art, all modern American and mostly by artists I'd never heard of, is great. And because this is New York I didn't have to worry about how pretentious I was for liking it! 

The bestest part was this, Fireflies on the Water by Yayoi Kasama. For one minute you get shut alone in this room. The floor is water and the walls and the ceiling are mirrored, and hundreds of strings of lights hang down. It's insane and surreal - to quote Philip J Fry, it's like that drug trip in that movie I saw when I was on that drug trip that time. (Again, not my photo).

New York the fifth

Day at the museum - the Museum of Natural History. It's a cool place, with a mix of super-modern interactive exhibits and more traditional museum fare, like native costumes pinned to dummies with horrifyingly rendered faces and those retro educational filmstrips they always make fun of on The Simpsons.

This is the planetarium-side entrance, around the corner from the more famous Ben Stiller entrance. And that is a huge ball.

You can go inside the ball, where Liam Neeson will tell you all about the origins of the universe. You then walk down a ramp that outlines the major milestones in the 13 billion years since the Big Bang - although all dates and timespans are inserted into the displays on dials or buttons that can be pulled out and replaced, I guess in case of new science just to hand.

There be some freaky stuff going in the history of human development exhibits.

Yep, some freaky, freaky stuff. If that just looks like a black square, tilt your screen or adjust the brightness until you pee your pants.

But there's also penguins...

...and tigers...

...and DUGONGS! Oh my!

And what the crap?! looming dinosaur skellingtons.

LOOOOOM!

I also figured out enough of the subway to catch the C train to the museum and back. And took a terrible photo of same like a big tourist dork. Although...if I just...

Nope, still terrible.

New York the fourth

Plpth! I got a drip of Hudson River in my mouth. Because...I'm on a boat. Or I was.

I went on a pretty sweet cruise right around the island of Manhattan. While that northeast bit looks a little like I may have been voyaging on the Land Titanic, there is in fact water all the way around. It was a gorgeous day, perfect for the taking of a billionty photos.

The Financial District. Those two under-construction buildings are the new One and Two World Trade Centre buildings.

FREEEEEEDOOOOOOOM!

Downtown from down river.

Brooklyn Bridge.

Harlem River Drive. That hilly green carry on is what all of Manhattan used to look like before everything was chopped down and flattened.

That's a little rail bridge with a section that turns sideways to let boats through. And in the background, some Jersey shore! With 100 per cent less fake tan and 100 per cent more completely untouched throughout human settlement than the one you're probably thinking of.

George Washington Bridge, and, if you squint, the Little Red Lighthouse, which is a big deal in some kind of children's book nostalgia way. So maybe the US equivalent of Hairy Maclary. Also, who knew the undersides of bridges were so photogenic? Maybe the homeless are on to something...

That freaking aircraft carrier Chris was telling me about, which is the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum.

Aaaand some more pics that no one needs to see of Times Square, this time by night. I'm pretty sure it's only Monday, but it's insaneballs out there.

Todays cultural discoveries: 

• Pop Tarts - disgusting (it's like Kellogg's smooshes together all the factory byproducts from making actual food and puts some sprinkles on top)
• Diet Snapple - delicious, and with a fun fact on the inside of the lid ("Jack-o-lanterns were originally made out of turnips")
• McDonald's sundaes - exactly the same (The Clown demands conformity!), but come with a little package of nuts. Heh heh hehehe.

New York the third

I spent most of today loitering in and around Times Square, waiting for my show and watching tourists do weird stuff, like flipping compulsively through racks and racks of I heart NY T-shirts. What, do they think the next one might say "I Squirtle NY"?

Nobody needs to see photos of Times Square, but here are some anyway... 

The show I saw, The Book of Mormon, was extremely silly and I really liked it. Aside from the dancing, which is something that gives me the icks in most musical theatre - all that standard kick, twirl, clap, kick, clap, kick, jazz hands, really, what is it adding?

New York the second

So that view is much better during the day. Which is lucky, because that's when my camera takes much better photos.

I can see all the way to Downtown and the river. So cool!

I walked just wherever today, aiming to soak up some typical New Yorkness and what have you, and ended up going down to the southern tip of Manhattan and back.

Typical New Yorkness, somewhere around Midtown.

This is Abe Lebewohl Triangle on the intersection of Stuyvesant Street and 10th Street, and I think this makes me the only person ever to make a pilgrimage to a location from a Step Up movie. Dayna might remember. Or she might facepunch me for implicating her.

Future Hallowe'enkins outside a grocer's shop.

Oh yeah.

Some rad street art on Bowery. Mix it up, Mr Monopoly! Or, more likely, an Important Political Statement.

The Financial District from kind of under Brooklyn Bridge. I could totally live in that building, 8 Spruce Street, for just $2865 per month!

New York Stock Exchange. Buy! Buy! Sell!

Battery Park, and Jersey City in the background.

 Lurking in the bushes to take a photo of shirts versus skins.

I saw a chalkboard outside this place saying "We have flat white!", and threw aside old ladies in my haste to get inside. Where I saw this on the counter. Hehe. I'm Hugh Jackman, and I approved this coffee.

Hugh don't lie - it was a good coffee, and the cafe, which he actually owns, has this view (that's a tiny Statue of Liberty there), so well played on both counts, Jackman.

This dude was scampering up next to people showing off the size of his nut.

This is part of the walkway that goes around the lower west edge of Manhattan.

I'm currently watching Saturday Night Live live from New York. It's...pretty much the same as watching it the next day on the internet. Except that I can see the building it's being broadcast from out the window. Yep.

New York the first

Sleep soon, words later, view now:

Oh yeah.

LAX

I'm in Los Angeles. Or, to give it its English name, The Angeles.

Everyone is super-friendly (the security check guy repacked my carry-on for me after I had to pull it to bits for screening, and was really happy to do so), but unredeemed themselves with the patting and the x-raying.

The flight was alright. The girl next to me was watching Grease - I remember "Pinks you punk. Pink slips. Ownership papers?", then next thing Will Smith was punching an alien in the face, so I guess I got some sleep.

I just realised the music coming from that bar over there is a Crowded House cover. Huh.