The Cloisters

Sorry for taking so long to post this one - 30+ hour travel from Ohio to Singapore is truly a snoozing matter.

So, The Cloisters. What is a Cloister anyways? Something in close proximity (Khalwat)? Something buried deep in a cupboard? Now that the mists have parted, on with my travelogue.
The Cloisters Museum was my last scheduled stop in New York. Decided to use up my Metro transit card and took a long traffic-fouled bus journey from 51st street to 191st. Doesn't sound too far, but with New York's traffic, it was almost a 2 hour journey.
Along the way, I was trundled past the Cathedral of St John the Divine, a Gothic cathedral STILL in construction.
Front-ish view
Back-ish view After a false alightment at Fort Tryon park (yes, Tryon, it's not a typo)
I finally came to the battlements of this wonderful Medieval museum.
The museum was blissfully empty for a while, but a high-school excursion and a tour group with a shrill tour guide put an end to my bliss. I was running from tapestry to chapel to cloister, in a futile attempt to escape the ravening horde. This graven image soon became my constant companion: (praying for succor - think about it)

Barbarian hordes aside, I found delightful views, such as a graven coat of arms of the Porcelot family, very apt for this Chinese Zodiac year. A deserted (for the winter) outdoor cafe area The museum even had a gallery of roundels depicting modern day workplace scenarios: Who knew those crafty medieval artisans also practiced prestidigitation? (take that George!)

But alas, my trip down memory lane was over and I had to endure another traffic-fouled-double-hour seat warming exercise back into the city, only to have to rush to catch my airport shuttle bus. [sigh].

The Morning After
Yes, this was my plane, scheduled to take me from Ohio to Detroit. I kid you not, it truly went pthptpthpthpthpthpthtppththththththppthth all the way, except for when it was trying to land, and the entire cabin started imitating a paper cone subwoofer.

Well, 30 hours later, I landed in wet old Singapore, where everything looked foreign. Adjustment time... I miss Ohio [sob] and the weather there. I was glad to be away from roomie's stinky food though. When I checked the fridge to make sure I hadn't left anything behind, I smelt something suspicious from the packet of raw meat from his half of the fridge. Urk.

It was a walk in the park

but I need some fuel, don't I?
Had breakfast at Burger Heaven (yeesh!) while waiting for MoMA to open up. My first and last corned beef hash...

MoMA was interesting, but a little too abstract for me. So I thought I'd try the Guggenheim. Bright idea eh? Turns out it was a dud, because the entire grade school population was there too.
Decided to abandon the attempt, and had a light lunch on a bench near Central Park. I ate about half of it before I took a pic. It wasn't that light...
I decided to abandon the nearby plethora of museums and trek the Park!
Here's the semi-ubiquitous (hi Jeanette!) icon of the park..
Click the pic to zoom in... trust me.

Central Park is really spectacular, even in the last throes of winter. Even in melting ice, it's beautiful, a reservoir of serenity in a city pulsing with impatience and hypertension.
A saw a few die-hard joggers, sweat rolling ineffectually through plucked eyebrows, expectorant pluming in the cold, hard air.

I deliberately strode and stumbled counter to the recommended counter-clockwise direction of movement in the park. Why? I was already footsore, and I needed to get southwards.
Nice lake.
This morning, I saw my first central park squirrel.
Apparently, he didn't like me interrupting his meal, cuz he tried to brain me with a nut a minute later. Sat down for while to re-tie my shoelaces for the 15th time, and then hobbled (but in a New York fashion) to the Museum of Natural History, to get an IMAX Cosmic Collisions movie, narrated by the other Ole Blue Eyes, Robert Redford. Not enough foot power for an extended tour, but the museum is a definite re-visit for next time!

Tomorrow, the Cloisters!

Fluff is better

Man.

Company was good. It was dramatic, it was funny, it was Sondheim.
There was no band or orchestra or pre-recorded track. They were great!

Mamma Mia! is, by comparison, a sitcom. BUT, The music! It was all re-recorded, but it retained all the little musical gems that any ABBA fan remembers. Lots of old great hits, but put into new context. Kudos to the music arranger, the writer and the cast! It was soooo funny! Visual and physical gags galore! Some of the costumes were so kitschy, they were perfect howlers.

[Sigh] Why can't we have this kind of quality in Singapore?

On a completely unrelated topic, I had dinner at the Montparnasse, chosen from their Pre-Theatre menu, which was a Prix Fixe.

Duck Terrine appetizer (those are two pieces of crunchy toast, not deep fried sow's ears)
Coq Au Vin with mashed potato and chopped salt pork (chicken was dry, but gravy was nicely smokey - it was interesting, but far from the best coq au vin I've had - I'm using the Parisienne version as a benchmark)

And for dessert, Creme Brulee and a Doppio Espresso (why do American waiters always confirm that this is a Double EXpresso?). No pics because the pic I took was ugly.

Phew! Time to rest me poor abused feet. More walking to maybe the Guggenheim, Moma, or the Cloisters...

Oh, if you see footage of the Protest Against the Iraq war in New York, look for me in the background. I'm one of the few thousand people wearing black.
Like the St Patrick's day parade, and maybe footage of ConEd examining some manholes around 55th St. Yes, I walked everywhere today.

Scenes from Six Hours on a Sunday

A selection from all the images for the first 6 hours of my day.

My first breakfast in New York, at Cafe Metro. Food was just OK, but they had surprisingly decent coffee, even if it was a drip brew. Where are all the small specialty coffee stores?
10am, the morning after St Patrick's day parade. There're very few people on the road, and crappy ice is still on the roadside, making walking across intersections an Olympic-class effort. There's the long-jump, the 1 meter hurdles, and the 5 foot puddle crossing.
What may be New York's thinnest high-rise, near Madison Square Park. To be confirmed!
Spot the red birdie!
Virgin Megastore at Union Square! Took me about an hour of walking, puddle-dodging and dangerous-looking-groups-of-men avoidance to get there, but it was worth it. Managed to find Broadway musical CDs and DVDs!
At Union Square Park, on my way to lunch, a big fat squirrel determined to eat nuts, oblivious to any two-legged threat bobbling by
And, the same not-so-little guy from 5 feet away
Lunch! I finally make it to a seafood/crab place - my one indulgence for the day. Other than the Broadway musical tonight, and the potato chips for tea..um yeah. Ahem. King Crab roll, with preserved old ginger (appetizer).
The main course, Seafood Pan Roast with linguini. Very Yummy!
Drama in New York! Concerned New Yorkers peacefully protesting the protracted Iraq war, escalating tensions with Iran, and generally, the Bush administration.
Couldn't tell which building they were circling, if they were at all...
Whoa... Time to rest up for this evening.

St Patrick's Traffic Jam

I had the vague idea of avoiding the St Patrick's day parade, mainly because of it's rowdy and green-beer-vomit reputation. Other than a few bellowing (and one bird-calling) youths in outrageous hats, nothing much happened. It took me half-an-hour to cross the street intersection, but nothing much happened. I got hungry and thirsty and footsore, but nothing much happened.

Here you can see a part of the parade, with a sea of Irish butts, or supporters of Irish butts.
This appears to be the Rockefeller Center skating rink, although I could be mistaken.
You can try watching the ground for ice, watching your back for 3 types of traffic, watching for pickpockets, watching your left and right for 3 types of traffic and watching the area ahead of you for anything action-worthy, and you might be a little more forgiving of my not knowing what the heck I took a picture of.

After confirming that the Broadway Theatre I was looking for was where it was supposed to be, and a lot of mapping out potential places to eat at (am I Singaporean or what?), I finally decide to buy dinner back from Ess-A-bagel. They sandwich a lot of things in between bagels. I chose:
Hot Corned Beef on Whole Wheat, Smoked Fillet of Trout with cream cheese and lettuce, on Whole Wheat. Woof!

Here's a cross-section:
Well-fed, to avoid embarrassing stomach rumbling while watching Company.

Unmolested

Yes! Especially for those who fear for the safety of a lone (but large-ish) Singaporean wandering the streets of New York, I'm still alive and unmugged! Whoo Hoo!

I started by circumnavigating the block where my wee pod (hotel room) is located, then expanded my rounds to a lunch and Broadway theatre recce. I found the Great White Way which is actually now the Great Messy Smokey Rainbow Way.

It's hard to get pics without telling anyone with a functioning eyeball that you're a tourist, so there are no real pics of Broadway, but:

• Great - yes, it's large and sprawling, and there are lots of lovely shows to be seen, most of which I can't see, because of time, and money (lack of).
• Messy - Slush, sludge and inevitable big city litter. The massive snow drop half melted, and created huge unjumpable half-frozen puddles that look deceptively shallow. There are lots of cold, wet feet in New York this night.
• Smokey - not from ciggys, but from the ridiculous number of new immigrants operating New York hot dog stands. Most of them fire up the grill so much that the meat oil from the legions of grilled hot dogs create a dramatic fog that wraps around your eyeballs and olfactory senses, and leaves you wide open for a wet foot.
• Rainbow - too many neon lights, and jumbo LCD screens.
  

Company, the revamped Sondheim musical, was great. Hot and cramped, but great.

First impressions of New York - it's a little bit like a very cold Singapore. Well, the weather is the obvious thing, but like Singapore, the part of New York I'm in has a few restaurants/cafes/bistros/sandwich bars on every street.

Plan for tomorrow: Breakfast, then to Chinatown for cheapo bathroom slippers or something. Or some cheap food. Or something.

My New York experience begins now

On the morning of my scheduled flight to New York:

• more snow comes pouring down into Ohio, and there's 2 inches of snow on the ground
• when I arrive at Cleveland Hopkins, there are SEAS of people, all queuing up [oops]
• Fortunately, I spot the self check-in counter [Yay!]
• I flash my still-wet boarding pass and wait at my plane's designated gate. They change the gate at the last minute. The jostling and hobbling road-race for the closest seats to the gate begins 50 feet away.
• The usual de-icing begins. I have spent 1 hour being stuck in a cramped seat with a low ceiling, and we still managed to do a decent imitation of a rock on the runway.
• Smooth flight [Surprise!]
• Smooth landing [Yay!]
• Surprise! There are no free gates at LaGuardia, and we have to do our rock imitation again.
• And again. An hour passes. What was supposed to be a 1 hour flight has turned into a 3 hour leg and back cramp.
• We get a gate!!! Aand, there's an airport vehicle stuck in the snow. And we wait.
• The vehicle stumbles off, and we wait. [humph!]
• The airport runway gate leeches to the flying sardine can, and we all huff our way off the plane, right into a bunch of sour-looking passengers hoping to get on the petulant aircraft. I hear kids behind me piping up with "Thank you for flying Continental Express and by the way, you've missed your connecting flights."
• As I pound my lonely way to the Ground Transportation area, I call to summon my reserved SuperShuttle ride to the hotel. And I wait.
• Hispanic gentlemen show up and cart away passengers.
• Eventually, my hispanic guy shows up, and ushers me into the van. I am immediately accosted by some guy's knee and have to scrunch all the way to the end of the Van-sofa in yet another cramped position.
• We careen our way [no kidding!] to my hotel, and I find that I absolutely have to step into a deep icy pothole in front of the hotel.
  

But! All is not lost! I have a room, and it's clean! and bathrooms are available!
This here's the view from the doorway - the turqoise thing is me bed.
And the view of the phone and 'desk' And the in-the-wall LCD TV. Note the "Which Toilets Are Free" indicators above the door.
And, lastly, the sink, and the closet.
This will be my nightly existence, where I lay my weary head and stinking feet, hiding from mythical New York hoodlums who prowl the streets in search of juicy, fresh, naive prey.

Upgrader of Seats ..

.. I am not. I am extremely unsuccessful in my paltry (exPectorate) and pitiful attempts to upgrade my puny Sardine class NorthWurst airline seat to a Busyness class seat. Apparently:

• I need 6000 more airmiles
• There are no more business class seats available (really meh?)
• I have the same chances of landing an upgrade as I had of winning the USD 316 Million Dollar Ohio lottery

So, I had to settle for:

• A pic of two early bird Canada Geese staking out their Springtime nesting area
• A pic of an extremely fat Squirrel (yes I know I promised, but he was so close by) taking shelter from the sudden snow storm, behind a tree. Wind was blowing the snow from right to left . Unfortunately, the snow was too fine for the camera to pick up.
  If I were a Native American, I might have said that this was a PHAT squirrel (Pretty Hairy And Tasty)... [ahem]
• Attempting to track an desperate but errant parcel that DHL fouled up. I made the mistake of going to the singapore site for customer service. I called the 1-800 number there, foolishly thinking it was a US number. [Ring] [Click] "Hello Baby! I'm sorry, all our girls are .." [HANG UP HANG UP]
  
• Doodling on 'my' whiteboard, leaving this blog's web URL for my co-workers in Cleveland, suddenly bereft of my dazzling personality and Pepper's scintillating chatter. The peanut/poop/Dutch clog-like thingy is my best whiteboard interpretation of Singapore.
  The silly Chinese Name translation is a joke, based on the fun Pepper and I had, translating our Cleveland Colleagues' names phonetically, into Mandarin.
  For instance, our supervisor is "Jiao Na Sen, aka Summoner of coastal trees".
  Another colleague is "Jie Ni Fu, aka Outstanding Intimate Woman", who could also be known as "Evergreen Rainbow of Increasing Clamor". You get the idea...

So, goodbye Ohio! I shall miss you and your crazy weather! (where else can you experience a 50 degree fahrenheit change in temperature in 24 hours?)

Scenes of the Day

Two types of morning views...

This one on here was taken when it was warm and dry.This one one was when it was cooling down, and starting to rain snow, or snow rain.



On an extremely clear day Almost like the default Windows XP background.. and all three from my apartment's balcony..

And here's more from this morning - two days of really warm weather (60F/17C), with melting snow, then last night, we had a big thunderstorm and then SNOW again this morning! Poor earthworms were so confused.
A carnage of earthworm corpses, all drowned, frozen, squashed, dismembered.

Parts of Caution Lake were defrosted, and re-starting to freeze over. The mallard couple are still hoping for spring:
Not to mention them two geese near the far end..

Farewell lunch for Pepper and me! We finally get to try the place that was snowed under before!
Here's the inside view

where I ate
YUM!

Boo Whoo Hoo!!!

Boo Hoo!

Winter's over.
Spring's almost here.
It's almost time to leave Ohio. Goodbye Helpful Tech Commies! Thanks for the West Side Market excursion!
Thank you for lunch at the Great Lakes Brewing Co.!



Whoo Hoo!
No more smelling of charred hydrocarbons.
No more stinky feet.
No more tuneless yodelling.
No more smelling of rancid cuts of pork.
No more damp kitchen floors.
No more worrying about my wok.
Hello New York!