We decided to take a wander down around the Times Square area today and just see where we ended up and go into anything of interest that our New York Passes would gain us entry to. I have discovered that I am more of a planned and scheduled sort of tourist, whereas Mr K is quite happy to be a sort of ‘freeform’ traveller. As you can imagine, these two styles are not exactly harmonious but we are getting along fine (you never know – I have seen couples go to pieces, or for each other’s throats, when they rely on each other during travel, fortunately that is not the case here).
Before going anywhere we need to navigate the transit system, which I can’t seem to help myself, but continually call it the Tube, and we briefly passed through Grand Central Station, which is enormous and beautiful. Such a familiar place thanks to seeing it in so many movies! So familiar and yet, I had no idea where we were going.
We eventually made it down to Times Square and had a bit of a look around. I am not impressed by all of it. There is construction going on everywhere so it is loud annoying, and there are so many hawkers on the street trying to sell you expensive hop on/hop off bus passes… by the 30th guy waving a flying in my face I was getting close to telling the next one to ‘fuck off ya wanker’ in my best Aussie ocker. I think the only thing that stopped me was that most of them are black dudes well over six feet tall. :/
Then we ran into Nicholas Cage, right there in Times Square… well, I can’t back that up. Mr K wanted to go to Madame Tussaud’s. I went to the one in London back in 1995 and it was so traumatic (long story) that I have never had the desire to go to another, but here we were.
It was included in the New York Pass, but I tell you anyone who shelled out USD$36 to go in and see that shite needs their head read.
Mr K was sure to get a picture with the Katy Perry figure, ‘for The Small Child, of course, because he likes her’. Ahuh, yeah sure.
Next stop after that harrowing experience, was the Hershey’s Chocolate shop and the M&M Store (though why, I don’t really know as I am not fond of chocolate at all). We saw a wall of Reece’s Peanut Buttercups which made us think of Roxy (our favourite tame American back home) and Aunty Gillian who LOVES the Reece’s to pieces. 🙂
The M&M Store was very ‘Disney’, without the theme songs, they even had some mad and wildly expensive collectibles like this $3000 jacket!
We were also looking for a New Orleans Saints hat that Mr K had seen down south, but which they didn’t have in his size, and we found ourselves popping into three of the four Lids stores that are all in a one block radius of Times Square… no one needs that many hats.
By then it was time for lunch as we had had a bit of a late start to the day, and we were meeting up with a friend from Mr K’s work and her travel buddy for lunch at the Olive Garden – which is pretty unremarkable, for all the kids of Glee going on about their unlimited breadsticks! 😛
Lunch was great fun, it was awesome to catch up with some fellow Aussies and laugh over the foibles of our American counterparts and to collectively moan about the bullshit tipping system, the uselessness of the pennies and the tedium of one dollar notes and toilet doors that don’t have a ‘vacant/engaged’ door lock on them!!! After lunch the girls decided to join us in visiting the Art of the Brick exhibition, which had closed in January, but was reopened by popular demand at the Times Square Discovery Centre.
I was immediately taken by the cleverness of these 3D sculptures done of famous artworks in Lego. There was Klimt’s ‘Kiss’, Van Eyck’s ‘Arnofini Wedding’, Munch’s ‘The Scream’, a section of the Bayeaux Tapestry, DaVinci’s ‘Vitruvian Man’ and the ‘Mona Lisa’.
Though I admit, I was less taken by these painting/panel like ones which, in theory anyone could create with the help of a cross stitch pattern generator program. But the 3D sculptures were very clever in deed.
Vermeer’s ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’.
Mr K’s favourite artwork of all time, that is never on display at the MET because of the delicacy of the piece, ‘The Great Wave of Kanagawa’ done by Hokusai. Then there was a Lego brick, Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’, one of Monet’s sunsets, a sculpture of ‘Whistler’s Mother’.
Then we saw some more awesome sculptures, a Greek vase depicting Apollo and Mercury playing dice, the ‘Winged Victory of Samothrace’, a double headed serpent and a sitting Buddha, and Rodin’s ‘The Thinker’.
I was quite surprised to see Duchamp’s urinal here, though I couldn’t make out the famous R.Mutt signature on the front. There was one of Degas’ dancers and all sorts of wonderful things, and Easter Island head that I failed to grab a pic of!
Some more sculptures:
At the end of the exhibit, we were offered a brick to write out names on and to leave on a growing wall of visitors…
Then on our way out, I saw our friend Dimitri rendered in Lego!
After that we went to the Rockefeller Centre to see the plaza and do some more shopping (at the MET store again, the Nintendo Store and a few other funky little places). I couldn’t believe the ice rink was still in situ, but then again it’s definitely been cold enough for it, so why not?
Then it was off to the Observation Deck at the Top of the Rock. Sixty something floors up in 42 seconds flat. We had timed this so that we could get some views in the late afternoon and wait around to see the views at night time of New York all lit up. And one thing I will say about being here while it is so bloody cold, there have been hardly any queues anywhere, and this place was no different – just about walked straight in, give or take a security screening (again!)
I don’t know why but, I like these silly viewer/binocular things. They are strangely anthropomorphic in my head and every now and again, the iPhone wants to ‘tag’ someone’s face when it is focusing on them. They are weird and kinda cool. 
We stayed around until it was dark and braved the freezing cold and cutting winds to go back out on the observation decks and take more photos. The pics from my phone don’t really cut it but I got some amazing timed exposure shots from my DSLR. The only problem with standing around in such a place late in the evening in the freezing cold and looking like you know how to use a camera is that everyone was asking me to take photos for them – I must have had five couples, families, solo travellers all asking me to take pics for them. My fingers were stinging they were so cold by the end of it.
I saw this from the Top of the Rock, but missed the significance of it until this morning. Apparently in ‘honour’ of Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist ‘Church’ passing yesterday, the Empire State Building was lit up in rainbow colours for five minutes. Well done NYC… we thoroughly approve of this gesture.
After the conditions on top of the building, we made our way back down and found it was a mild stroll back to the Waldorf. On the ground it didn’t feel very cold at all. We went past the Rockefeller at night and noticed how much prettier everything looks with fairy lights and reached a consensus that all things look prettier with twinkly fairy lights – so note to self, add fairy lights next time I am feeling like I need a pick me up! 😉
