US / Canada / French Canada Tour 09


Wake up again at a Latino Time – either we are on a Latino Time zone or we are just not getting used to the NY time zone…
Breakfast at Starbucks again… How original yet unsatisfying.

Keeping in concert with the theme of this visit to NY – we wanted to go somewhere different so we walked on foot from our hotel to the UN Headquarters – the headquarters of the most relevant political body on the planet… ahem cough.

On the way – we stumbled onto a filming of either a bad sci-fi movie or bad sci-fi TV show. There was this guy who ushered Ant and I off a footpath – and around the street corner – there was a mock protest with people wearing balaclavas holding up signs saying “Back off Clones” or something. It felt a bit half arsed and straight to video or bargain basement bin. A few cars then drove past – and they finished filming and let us through. Speaking about film shoots – the other day we found a poster on 5th Ave saying that you could not park in a particular area for three days due to the filming of “Wall Street 2”… wall street harder… Also of interest – we spotted a flyer stuck to an apartment entrance which pretty much said “Ugly Betty is an emmy award winning series” and “we are looking for loft apartments to film in and if you are interested ring 555xxxxx…”.

The UN Headquarters was built in the 60s and had been unrenovated since the 60s. At the entrance – we had to do an underwhelming security screening in a tent (felt like a 911 afterthought). When we finally gotten into the HQ – it felt very Thunderbirds. I felt Thunderbird One might blast out of the visitors centre and the eyes on the portrait of Kofi Annan might flash or something when he is needed to launch Thunderbird Three.

We bought some tickets to a UN HQ tour. In true UN style – they had all different languages available but we had to wait thirty minutes for the next available engrish tour. While we waited – we read through the meeting agenda for the UN today. Excitement she wrote – I couldn’t wait for the “Rights of Woman in the Internet Age” at 10am chaired by the People’s Democratic of China.

When our tour started – we all were given visitor passes (this is just like work) and did a quick tour of some of the gifts given by member countries. Tackiest of them all was a tapestry given by Belarus which depicted in tacky 80s style the nuclear fall out from Chernobyl. There was this gay / captain planet-esque who was half naked and was supposed to represent something (which was lost on translation). Ant and I thought it was a scream and I had him take a picture of me in front of it posing.
Our tour guide was this really nice African (African African not African American) who was super diplomatic and tried to explain how relevant and important the UN is. We liked throwing in curb balls about why the US hasn’t paid its membership fees during the George Bush Jr era, which "China" was she talking about and other shit stirring tid-bits.

We visited the General Assembly Hall (you know – the one with all member countries). It was very tacky with some horrible murals on each side painted by some blind kids from Korea or something. When we asked what they mean – the guide said they were painted in a manner where you can interpret what it means by yourself… or something.

It was kind of funny how they assign seats in the General Assembly each year. They do a ballot and pull a country out of a hat (or powerball ball dispenser) and that country gets to sit in the front. And then all the other countries get to sit in alphabetical order from there. This nearly always means that Iraq, Iran and Israel always sit next to one another. Hey hey hey! We spotted Australia (third row from back) and took some pictures. Also of note – the seats had the most crummy interpreter equipment which makes a Sony Walkman from the early 80s look cutting edge technology.

The UN is fairly broke – and I guess that is evident by the state of the building. But the US is going to start up its membership payments so they have commissioned renovations for the Security Committee room and something else which escapes my mind.

We might have saved the best UN part for last – after the tour we went down to the basement for the… you guessed it… the “UN Gift Shop” – where you can get all the tacky UN merchandise that you would ever want (or never want). Ant bought a “UN To Do List” post it note magnet thing. UN Things to Do… “Buy milk, blow up Iran…” There were UN T-Shirts (hot hot hot), UN Spoons, UN Stamps (not food stamps), UN bears, and flags. Shit loads of flags. In fact – there was a flag for every UN member country… and yes – you can get flags for Nauru and North Korea. And there was a section for each country in the store where you could pick up tacky country-themed overpriced crap (Akubra Hats… etc). Speaking of overpriced – even though the UN Headquarters is officially on international territory – they still charge US sales tax. Basterds.

We had lunch at the nearby Union Square with some overpriced premade sandwiches.

After lunch – we headed to the MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) which we had tickets for from the other day with our “Top of the Rock” tickets. It was big, large and had lots of art from the Impressionists onwards. I think we had managed to get a good deal with the $30 Top of the Rock / MOMA double ticket because entry to each attraction was $20. Although the MET is the bees-knees when it comes to NY art galleries – MOMA was still pretty good and beats a hell of a lot of other galleries. We had a bit of a browse at the MOMA shop afterwards. I liked the “DIY Stencil kit” which taught you how to stencil like Banksy – and even gave you stencils you could use to spraypaint grafiti or decorate a birthday cake!

From MOMA – we did a bit more walking around Midtown and Times Sqaure. We were contemplating going to another play or musical and we were walking around the front of “West Side Story” when a tout tried to give us merchandise. We ignored him (like we do to all touts) and he then screamed out “you are ignoring me because I’m black isn’t it! All you south Africans are racists!” – to that we just laughed and headed across the road to the TIXS booth.

We started to contemplate going to the “39 steps” – the Hitchcock comedy spoof play thinking it might only cost us about $30 each – but they were going to charge us about $90 which was a little step and we passed on it.

We headed back to the Hotel where we did some hotwiring and booked us a new hotel (for about $220US for a night) because we wanted to stay an extra day in NY. Unfortunately – we couldn’t book another night at the Thirty Thirty hotel – because they were full.

We headed by subway to the East Village district. When Ant and I stayed in NY last time –we stayed at here at the East Village Bed and Breakfast which was really cool because the woman that ran it was super friendly and it made it feel like you were at home. She took care of me whilst I had my “worst ever” hangover last time (which I will get to shortly).
Taking the L train to the East Village brought back memories of our last stay in NY (mostly good, but sometimes I would remember the rats crawling around the train tracks). Speaking of rats – I finally spotted my first rats this visit. (Spotted. R at the L train.) I think the MTA have been introducing better pest control – so the rats spotted counter has been a lot lower than our previous visit.

The East Village (like all districts in NY) has a distinct feel – a much grungier, artsy feel which is cool. We decided on a going to a Japanese restaurant for dinner. Ant collected most of the fake spider web decorations getting to our seat (Halloween is next week and NY seems to be totally decked out with pumpkins and ghouls and corpses hanging from window ceils, etc). Dinner was really yummy – Ant had some Udon noodles and I had my fav dish – Katsu Chicken Curry. It was super cheap too – tastes the same as Wagamama but at a third of the price of Wagamama. And the service was three times better than Wagamama.

After dinner we headed to a bar called “The Cock” – and before your mind goes to the gutter – there is a picture of a giant rooster at the front. This bar used to be the sister bar to the “Hole” – where we went last time we were in NY and I had the worst hangover ever. But before you judge me – the Hole had a $10US cover charge and a free bar where you could order anything. Before you know it – I had befriended the bartender and he was pouring half cokes, half vodkas and vola – I had passed out in the gutter. Klassy with a K. Now the “Hole” has closed down and the “Cock” is now at the former “Hole” location. The “Cock” was a lot grungier than the “Hole” but still had the $US10 deal – although you had to stick to bottom shelf sprits and some weird beer. Anyhows – we had a great time and didn’t have a repeat performance of the “Hole” but didn’t get to bed til 4am.