Ah yes, new york city. So recently I made a trip over to the city that never understood why LA people were on its jock so hard, the city that I thought i'd never visit because we had SF. The last time I went to nyc was when Jon and I went to visit Greg before he moved back to the bay. On that trip, most of the visiting was in Boston and Philly. I only spent a couple hours in nyc, and only got out of the car to see ground zero. I drove past times square and wall street and rockafella plaza. I jumped out of the car to try "new york's best" when it came to hot dogs. It tasted like absolute ass. That was all I saw of New York, and I wasn't impressed.

This time however, I spent much longer in the city, flying in on Friday night and staying until Monday night. I think next time I go I'll take some more vacation days and stay longer. Definitely.

I was fortunate enough to be able to crash at my friend Diana's place. She didn't charge us anything. It was roomy enough for all of us to stretch out. She also had some aero mattresses, which made for comfy sleeping.

New york city was really cool. The entire atmosphere is completely different from even San Francisco. I can see why people love coming out here.

Before I get into discussion though, lemme go through what we did:
Friday night:
1) Left SFO on a red eye to JFK. Note: DON'T EVER TAKE A RED EYE FLIGHT ANYWHERE. I will never do this again. Red eye flights FUCK you up for the next day. And since we had NO time to spare, I couldn't take a nap after we got to the city. The problem is this: sleeping on a plane is fucking impossible. The chairs are uncomfortable, but more than that, the pilot apparently thought we were freezing cold. So, he decided to make the inside of the plan the temperature of a fat guy's armpit. I was sweating like crazy. The problem with this is that when I can't sleep during a trip that takes all night or very early morning, it fucks me up not only in terms of how awake I am, but it also messes up my disgestive system. So as a result, the entire day of Saturday i was DEAD tired and my stomach hurt like crazy. Like no joke. I can't remember the last time I was THAT tired, and that includes all of college when I would pull all nighters. I think the idea that I wasn't going to be able to sit down and sleep for a whole day made me even more tired. In the few minutes where I was able to sit down (taxi and subway), I would fall asleep IMMEDIATELY. I even fell asleep in the MIDDLE OF A CONVERSATION with Daco.

Saturday:
(Remember, throughout this entire day, I was fucking exhausted and painfully gassy.)

1) Central Park. Central park is a park that is in the central part of the city. It's also a park. Duh.
-Central park is huge, so trying to see all of it would have taken all day. Thus, I chose to see only two parts of it. The first was the place where Minh became Mr. Czrena Truong. It was nice. The second was the Strawberry Fields thing (big circle on the ground that says "Imagine"). There was a bunch of German tourists there so it made for a nice backdrop of the photo I took. It's important to remember the German tourist thing for a later point. Remind me.
-I can see how Central Park would be really cool if:
a) you came in the spring when the trees are green
b) you came in the fall when the trees are red and yellow
c) if you lived in nyc and you needed a cool place to do your daily run
But in the winter when it's cold as shit and the trees are bare, it's a bit less interesting.

2) Went to Sugar Sweet Sunshine Bakery (see fiona, I got it right). This was a small cupcake bakery. Had a couple tables, but maybe sat 8 people at most.
-It was at this place, on a Saturday afternoon, that I had THE best cupcake that I have ever had in my ENTIRE LIFE. No joke. If you come to new york, you MUST go here, and you MUST, MUST, MUST have a pistachio cupcake. The frosting was amazing, the cake was soft and moist, and the top of the cake was just a tiny bit more firm that the rest of the cake, so as if it were like baked like an actual cake. Amazing.
-After eating the pistachio, I decided to get another one. Fiona suggested the pumpkin spice one. It was good, but it wasn't no pistachio cupcake. I would suggest that if you want to try several cupcakes here, it's important that you eat the other ones BEFORE eating the pistachio. If you don't, the only thing you'll be having for your second and third helpings is extreme disappointment.
-Bonus: Cupcakes here were only 1.50 each!!!! I'm DEFINITELY coming back here.

3) Went to Katz Deli. Your typical deli, serving up pastrami sandwiches and the like.
-This was an apparently pretty popular deli. To say it was a madhouse is an understatement. Wanna know what it was like? Okay, take Valley Fair mall (or South Coast if you live down south), take the food court and reduce it down to one small deli. Okay, now make it Black Friday so that everyone and their mom is there. Okay, now make it so that every single one of those people are hungry. Okay now for the final touch. Only put out like 20 tables. That's Katz Deli.
-When you first go into the place, they give you a ticket. If you lose this ticket, they charge you 50 bucks. WTF. It's not even like they reuse the fucking things. Everyone needs to turn in their ticket when they leave the place. It screams tourist trap.
-Okay, real talk, the pastrami is HELLA good. Probably one of the best pastrami sandwiches I've had. But one sandwich with cheese costs 16.95!!!! WTF. It was good, but I feel like they're totally exploiting the tourist trap status hype they have. Plus the wait to find a table and dirtiness of the bathroom does not deem that price. I mean come on. Pat's in Philly isn't even that expensive and I can get my sandwich in half the time it took us to order the fucking thing!

4) Went to Jacques Torres chocolate. A chocolate place. They sell some fucking good hot chocolate from a counter in the back of the store.
-Really good almond chocolate, really good hot chocolate too!
-They let me use their bathroom! For that reason alone, this place was fucking awesome! This was the only clean bathroom in NYC, as far as I was concerned. Since you had go behind the counter to get to the bathroom, it didn't get much use.
-Jacques Torres was there. The man himself. After he had left the front, I suddenly realized that I had seen him before on TV! He was on the food network with a desert show. If he was still out on the store floor, I would have asked for a picture with him. Rats. Oh wells. Next time.

5) Rockefeller Plaza. This is a plaza which several buildings. You can go to the "Top of the Rock" in order to get a view that's better than the Empire State building because Central Park is not blocked.
-It costs 20 bucks to go to the Top of the Rock. Is it worth it? No. Why? There is WAY too many fucking people. It takes forever to get ANYWAY. Wanna go up? Takes forever. Wanna go down? Takes forever. Wanna use the bathroom? Takes forever. And to be perfectly honest, even though the view is great, it is NOT worth 20 bucks and the time wasted that could be spent doing non-touristy stuff. You'll be bored with the view in less than ten minutes, and you'll wonder why so many German tourists are there.
-There was some clothing shops here that we checked out, but there wasn't really much that I saw. However, there was a fucking SHITLOAD of people everywhere. It was IMPOSSIBLE to get anywhere without getting pushed around. Not a lot of fun I must say.

6) Tree in Rockefeller Plaza. It's a large tree with a bunch of lights. Everyone wants to see it. Everyone wants to take a picture with it in the background.
-As you can probably guess, there was a shitload of people in this area. Imagine people packed in like sardines trying to take pictures with a tree.
-Not worth your time or your sanity.

7) Dinner at some Japanese place (forget the name..it was good though)
-Met up with Alex, Annie, Andrew, Shirley for dinner here. Had some soba, and some Yebisu beer (so worth the 8 bucks a bottle)
-REALLY good conversation. It reminded me of the conversation back in SD. Even though at this point I was near DEATH due to how tired I was, I had a lot of fun.
-Annie and Andrew provided dessert, which was also a present for Fiona. Annie had bought cupcakes from a bunch of different places and we had Fiona close her eyes, taste them one at a time, and try to guess where they came from. She did a pretty damn good job considering. Afterwards, we ate the rest. I gotta say that I'm kinda glad we didn't go to Magnolia Bakery on this trip. That shit was hella dry. I would have been pissed if I had gotten a cupcake for like 3.25 from that place, only to find out that it was sub-par.

8) Bob Bar. This is a TINY bar that also has a DJ. Due to the size of the place, the entire place is pretty much the dance floor.
-Before the DJ started playing Reaggeton (*gag*), the music was REALLY good. I mean really really good. If I had room to dance and wasn't so tired, I would have been busting a fucking move.
-News flash: Apparently people in new york city cannot dance. To find this out was beyond disappointing. How bad was it? Even the black peoples up in the place couldn't dance. And you KNOW it's bad when that happens!
-Since it was so crowded, this place fucking sucked. Sorry Bob Bar, but if you're gonna stay in nyc, you need a fucking COAT CHECK, and a bigger establishment. Keep the DJ, but tell him if he plays Reaggeton ever again while I'm there, I'm gonna puke on his turntables.
-At this point it started snowing a little.

9) The White Rabbit. After finally deciding to leave Bob Bar, we headed down the street to The White Rabbit, another club.
-This place was much larger, and had a coat check. However, we just made a large pile of coats on the sofa in the back, which we pretty much took over.
-Good music, until the DJ started playing 80's rock. Not as bad as Raggaeton though.
-Lots of room to dance..and I REALLY wanted to, but I was just too tired. I was so fucking tired at this point that I couldn't do even one dance step. To say I was running on fumes is an understatement.
-Andrew cracked me and Daco up. When Daco would ask him if he wanted to drink, he wouldn't hesistate AT ALL. He would clap his hands and yell "Let's fuckin do it!", and head towards the bar. And then when "Eye of the Tiger" came on..well..that was just fucking hilarious. "....I'D PUNCH HER IN THE NECK!" "ANNIE!!!!!"
-It was really cool catching up with Annie, btw. She's damn fun to talk to. I'm definitely going to want to meet up with her and Andrew when they're up here for xmas.

10) Artichoke pizza. This is a tiny (suprised?) pizza place that we went to after leaving the White Rabbit.
-This place was REALLY good. My stomach was killing me and I was a dead man walking, but I gotta say that I'd definitely go back here. I had a slice of the crab pizza, while daco and fiona got the artichoke, and the sicilian. Both were really good as well. We were so hungry we straight ate it while chilling on the street. Annie and Andrew joined us again, and we had some good conversation again.
-BTW, on the cab ride over here, I fell asleep in mid conversation. Daco must have thought "WTF..."
-After finishing the pizza, we went back to Diana's and after a relaxing shower, I finally got to lie down and sleep. OMFG, I had been up pretty much for over 24 hours. I had been walking all over. I had gone clubbing. Twice. I was SO tired. When I lied down I think I fell asleep in like a minute. I then slept until 1pm. I missed brunch, but I was totally fine with that. I needed my damn sleep.

Sunday
-Let me first say that this day was MUCH better. I was much more rested and my stomach felt better. As a result, I had much more fun this day and ate a ton more. I really wish we had gone clubbing this night as well, because I would have drank and danced my ass off. Oh wells, next time.
1) Shopping in SOHO. It's kind of like union square area in SF. Tons of stores.
-There is no tax on clothes if it's under like $110 bucks (the cost of the item). One word: AWESOME. Add to that the fact that all these places had sales because NO ONE is buying shit due to the shitty economy. WORD.
-We hit up a bunch of places. Got clothes from Macy's, Uniqlo, Ben Sherman, J. Crew. Got some stuff from Kid Robot as well.

2) Cafe Habana. Cuban restaurant known apparently for their mexican-style corn.
-Again, another small restaurant. There was room for maybe 14 people, and 20 wanted to eat. You could hear everyone's conversations. This was not a place to talk shit about your neighbors the next table over because they're pretty much eating with you.
-The corn, which was blasted with a torch, then dipped in a cojita cheese, mayo blend, then covered in cayenne pepper and lime, was pretty fucking scrumptious, I must say. I also ordered a cuban sandwich that had pork and ham and other stuff in it. Very good as well.

3) Went back to the Sugar Sweet Sunshine bakery.
-Since my stomach was not hurting, since I did not feel like I was going to pass out, since I was actually thinking with a clear mind, I was able to appreciate the full power that is the pistachio cupcake. You're probably thinking "wtf dude. This is like the fourth time you've written the word pistachio". Just go. Try one. Then after you change your undershorts, you'll understand.

4) Dinner at another japanese place.
-Later on we meet up with Fiona again (she went to a friend's improv show) and we went to this other Japanese place. Too bad this place sucked. Why? Well...(in order of biggest reason of suck to least reason of suck)
a) NO ALCOHOL. Are you fucking kidding me??? What kind of Japanese place does NOT have any alcohol???? Japanese people LOVE alcohol, especially with their sushi. Beer, sake. These are MUST HAVES at a japanese place, unless you're running an americanized bento box bullshit palace. I had to ask three times just to be clear.
b) Chinese waitress who apparently just started learning english. You may be saying, hey hold up you racist twat, how do you know she was Chinese? Well, upon being seated, I was asked if I was Chinese. "no" Korean? "No" Vietnamese? "No". ohhh..Japanese? "Yes." Only two asian races will ask another asian what their nationality is. Chinese and Vietnamese. Anyways, she kept coming back because she wouldn't understand what we were ordering. We would repeat our orders a bunch of times and she wouldn't get it. Now don't get me wrong. Fuck I'm a minority myself, but goddamn. Why would you work in a restaurant business if you can't understand the language that the majority of people are going to be speaking when they order their food, which is, mind you, the very reason why they are going to your establishment!??
c) Weird tasting sushi. Shit was gross.
d) All staff staring at us. All the time. Good service is one thing. Being watched and interrupted incessantly is another.
-Yeah, this place sucked balls. I guess every city needs their version of any Yummy Maki Yummy Box. I'll put mad money down that the place was chinese-owned korean-run.

5) Went back to Diana's
-We went out and tried to find beer, which was surprisingly hard. All these ghetto bodegas advertised beer and then when we went in, we found that they had none! Then we finally got to a place that had Brooklyn Ale and YUENGLING ( =*D) and so we bought them. For NINE BUCKS a six pack. Can you believe that shit?
-We watched TV, drank beer, and talked. Got a chance to catch up with Diana too. Fiona fell asleep (she had been up forever). It was a nice chill end to an eventful day.

MONDAY
1) Went to Wall street
-Went to Fiona's friends place to drop off our luggage. The place was NICE.

2) Got some empandas for breakfast.
-Got the breakfast one. FAIL. Bland and empty. Got another one: spicy chicken. SUCCESS. Filled with flavorful meat. Good shit.
-We actually had ROOM TO MOVE AROUND AND SHIT. This place wasn't huge, but it was much larger than the other "pick up" food places we'd been to on this trip.

3) Went with Daco to Century 21. This place is like a much nicer Ross.
-Where was fiona? She went to..you guessed it: SUGAR SWEET MOTHER FUCKIN' SUNSHINE BAKERY!!
-Got a nice new pair of gloves for only 14.60! No tax. Thanks NY!
-Not really worth the return trip unless you're looking for something cheap and not super fashionable.
-Way too damn crowded. Too many broke ass people due to the economy looking for cheap ass xmas gifts.

4) Macy's. This macy's is fucking huge. Not only does this place have like 7 stories, but they are HALF floor stories. So there's like a 1.5 floor, and a 2.5 floor. It makes any other macys look like a stupid kid kicking a rock down the street.
-SALES SALES SALES. Everything was on damn sale! And then using the Macy's card would knock it down another 15%! WORD!!
-Met up with Fiona here. See funny story below.

5) Fat Witch Brownies @ Chelsea Market. Brownie bakery, and soup place. Duh.
-Okay, you know how I said that the cupcakes above (I'm not going to type it again, I promise) were the best cupcakes I've had? Well, Fat Witch was one of the best goddamn brownies I've ever had! Light, not too sweet. Yum. Order some from their website. You won't be disappointed.

So after that, we got our bags from Fiona's friend's place and hailed a tax to go to the airport. And heres' where the real fun begins.
-Taxi gets stuck in traffic. We run late.
-Delta puts the TERMINAL THAT WE ARE FLYING INTO (NOT OUT OF), BUT INTO, ONTO THE BOARDING PASSES. This is beyond idiotic. Why the hell would you put the terminal that the airplane is flying into in BOLD on the FRONT of the boarding pass??? So, of course, we tell the taxi guy the wrong terminal.
-Taxi guy jacks us. Tells us the ride is 60 bucks.
-We are forced to take a shuttle to the other terminal.
-We can't check in on the kiosks. We have to wait in line. They have two people serving a line of about 25. Also, it's almost as if the Delta employees were trying to be absolute assholes. Fuck Delta. I'm never flying on their shitty ass planes again. I would strongly suggest that no one else fly on Delta either.
-We miss our flight and have to pay 50 bucks to get on the next one. I'm sweating bullets because I HAVE to be back that next day because of important meetings at work that I cannot miss. Luckily, Daco unknowingly paid for my share of the charges. Thanks man!
-We now have three hours to kill. Some fat guy asks to use our phones. Daco lets him. Dude sweats so much on Daco's phone that Daco has to go the bathroom to wash his phone off.
-I pay 4 bucks for a fucking powerbar because I do'nt feel like paying 750 for a small sandwich or wait in line for 45 minutes at Burger King.
-The flight is beyond horrible. The seats suck, it's hot as hell, I can't get confortable and there is a guy snoring so loud behind me that you would have thought someone was jabbing a dick down his throat.
-Finally get home after 7 fucking hours of pure uncomfortable hell. After an experience like that, it was good to be home, back where things made sense.

A few funny things:
1) "FUCK PIZZA!"
While waiting in line at the pizza place, this guy walks past the line. He then turns around and says "Man, FUCK PIZZA!". His friend laughs. He turns around again while walking away "FUCK PIZZA!!". This shit is hilarious! What did pizza do to deserve this man's discontent? I mean it would be one thing if he was like "Man, fuck these long lines!" or "Man, fuck Artichokes!", but to chastise a whole food item like that. That sucks.

2) "What the hell is this lady doing?"
When we were in Macy's, Fiona had already met up with Daco, but I didn't know that. Fiona was wearing this tack..I mean unique jacket that was all poofy, and a white hat, so I didn't know it was her. I saw Daco and was walking toward him and all of a sudden I see this lady who's like trying to get in this way, cut him off as he's trying to get around her. So I started walking toward him, puzzled, thinking, "What the fuck is this short asian lady trying to do to Daco"? Okay you had to be there, punk.

3) "If annie was here, i'd punch her in the neck!!!"
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Sorry, just wanted to write it again. hahahahahaha.

4) "'Xie xie", "Arigato", WTF.
So as we're getting out of the taxi this one time,the dude says to me "XIE XIE" ("thank you" in mandarin...thanks rush story! ::thumbs up::) and then goes "yeah??? yeah???" and I'm like "yeah". Then he turns to Daco and says "ARRI-GAAA-TO! Yeah??? yeah?????" and Daco is like "Sure?". WTF. I'm more insulted that he thought Daco was japanese!!!!

5) Saw a white dude with a cute striaight from Japan girl. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Different aspects (WILL FINISH THIS PART TONIGHT DAMMIT)
-New yorkers are assholes!

-Where the hell are your toilet seat covers?

-Taxi drivers don't give a fuck

-Socializing to the fullest. Tons of culture. Tons of places to eat and see.

-No car. Holding all your bags. you will pay to have a car.

-New york is dirty? You don't say.

Closing thoughts
-cool.
-want to go back (show people how to dance. lolz)
-can see how people would want to live there, but..
-small temptation to move there for a while, especially since I'm too comfy here.

okay, I apologize. The blog will have to wait till tomorrow. Don't worry, it'll be fucking long.

I fell asleep at like 8pm and slept till 1am. Am now going to bed again. Hopefully I'll have dreams about unicorns and hot naked chicks. Oh and yuengling beer. Rivers of it.

http://m.assetbar.com/achewood/uua8L11Ws
Last four panels - awesome.