N00B YARK

Before we start the next iteration of our scheduled New York blog series, I would like to note that the score is currently 2 TV, 0 Nathan. I thought that since I could listen to music and blog, and since blogging in a room with a TV shouldn’t be all that different from blogging with music, that I should be able to blog with the TV on. Unfortunately, I had never watched the series House before, and I managed to catch what my brother told me was one of the more mind-bendy episodes. Note: I think that shows like House can be addictive for me, because it feels like I’m learning something (there’s something intellectual going on somewhere in here, I know it!) when I’m really not. Rather, I’m learning with something that’s been diluted somewhere between useful and homeopathic. Anyways…

Sorry if I cut this one short, I couldn’t sleep last night, so I’m running short on it now. Probably shouldn’t have eaten that chocolate, because now I don’t feel quite so low on energy. Rawr.

Thus ends day five of the adventure.

To remedy our previous skip over Korea Town, we hit it this morning. In comparison to lil’ Italy or China Town, Korea town is much smaller. However, it’s a whole lot less grubby than China Town. There’s none of this open fruit and fish stall business, for one, and let me tell you that all the Korean restaurants I passed by so far have been pretty gosh darn immaculate. Oh, and the random-stuff shops that are pretty prevalent in China Town? There might’ve been one in Korea Town (not counting that book store). So what does this say about the Chinese vs. Koreans? Next to nothing.

After that, we hit Grand Central Station and the UN, both of which weren’t all that impressive. What was impressive was the street fair that we walked into on the way from the UN to lunch. From the end we were standing at, we could see booths stretching for a fair number of city blocks, with the street shut down all along the way.

A street. Shut down. In New York. For a street fair.

Didn’t expect that to happen.

Of course, we immediately ditched our plans to get lunch in Korea Town and got some gyros from a street vendor, and proceeded to shop around. Unfortunately, like all street fairs, it suffered from a pretty uniform booth makeup, such that once you saw part of it, you saw most of it.

After figuring that out, we ditched the fair (of course we bought stuff! To uphold the American way!) and tried to find Broadway theater. Surprise! There is no one Broadway theater, it’s a bunch of theaters. Learn something new everyday.

To wrap up most of our sight-seeing, we went and walked around on Brooklyn Bridge, which wasn’t the best idea after we spent the entire day walking to everywhere else. Like everything else, it wasn’t that impressive in person.

Moral of the story thus far: immersive VR can kill tourism.

And the way people take pointless pictures of things is… not cool. Taking another picture of the Empire State Building is pointless, since you can grab photos from the web whenever you want. Taking a picture of the Empire State Building while your family jumps off because they can’t handle the familial insanity any longer is much more unique.

End rant. Time to sleep.