Returned home from NY last night. It was a great trip, but I’m glad we didn’t spend more than the three full days there. Day one we went into Chinatown and hit all the Flight of the Conchords locations. We got the dumplings at Sweet Spring just down from their apartment (five for $1.25!) and then met the real Mohumbhai, who gave us a tour of his shop and explained how HBO filmed there. He said he gets around ten Conchord fans a day coming to the shop. We also saw the New Zealand consulate building. We’re such geeks.
We did some random touristy stuff, like visit ground zero, which was sad and depressing on so many levels. It’s been eight years and they’re still using a temporary museum and memorial, and the entire site itself is blocked off, although there’s not much to see as it’s just a large hole in the ground. Did they just like the weather destroy all the posters and flyers and pictures people had put there, or did they remove them? While we were down there we ate at the Stage Door deli, which I remember reading about a couple of years after 9/11 as they nearly had to shut down.
We saw Time’s Square, went to Nintendo World and the big Apple Store (both a bit of a disappointment, although I’m neither a huge Apple or Nintendo fan), saw Rockefeller, the Empire State Building, St. Patrick’s, and all the other stuff in that area. Went into Jim Hanley’s Universe, which was cool, but no better than Toronto’s Silver Snail. Of course I go in there and buy Lute’s Jar of Fools, which is probably the same price in Canada. Some of the stuff was way cheaper (I think Gaiman’s 1602 was $10 cheaper than the Canadian price), other stuff was basically the same price when you take the dollar value difference into account.
We went to Chinatown Fair Video Arcade and got rocked at SFIV. It was a cool atmosphere in there though. It seemed like everyone kinda knew each other, and it was almost like being in a Tokyo fashion district. There were actually girls dressed up like 1990 ravers. Saw a dude bring his grey PS2 controller with stuffed animals tied to the cord to play Tekken 6.
Rest of the trip was made up of us eating and drinking. Ate at Shake Shack (holy crap that’s a good burger), the Soup Man (nothing special, and quite pricey), and a random place in Little Italy (good, but then again, Toronto’s Italian is great, too). My favourite stuff was the little diners and delis, though.
Considering how little we planned, it was a great trip. It’s gonna take me a couple of days to recover.
