Things I learnt in New York

We've actually been back for four days but I've been sick for two and had a mid-term over the other two (don't ask- a 33-page report in 48 hours is not something I would wish on my worst enemy...). But it was a good trip. New York is *The City* afterall and it does give you a whole new perspective on things after being in this little town in the middle of nowhere.

So some things I learnt in those 84 short hours:
1) The Gates exhibition is over-rated. I guess it was meant to incalcate some kind of civic engagement between the city and her people but up close, they really do look like just pieces of well-sewn saffron cloth- *very* expensive pieces of cloth, but pieces of cloth nonetheless. In fact, the parody of it is much more interesting...

2) Eating is great! Ok, so I didn't have to go to New York to learn a fact I've pretty much known all my life, but truly, food in New York is phenomenal. Heedlessly, we had slurpalicious ramen (49th Street, between 6th and 7th), drop-dead out-of-this-world dessert at Serendipity 3, cheap but so very very good street food (shish kebab, gyro, etc.), tim sum and Asian pastries in Chinatown, Russian food in Brooklyn, Singaporean/ Malaysian food in Little Italy, I could go on... Ann Arbor has pretty good food too (if you know where to go, and depending on how deep your pockets are) but in NY, it's everywhere!

3) New Yorkers are rude. Unless you tip them. And even then they still behave like a cross between the Grinch and Ebeneezer Scrooge before he met the three ghosts. We're talking the lady at the subway station booth who couldn't spare me 20 seconds of her time to tell me how to get to the Upper West Side; a sales assistant at H & M who obviously thought that the color of her co-workers new sweater was more important than me getting a pair of pants in the right size; the man at MOMA who was barking orders at visitors on how to deposit their bags and coats- must have been a West Point reject; and some waitress in Chinatown whose service philosophy I'm convinced is informed by a tutelage under the soup Nazi. And these are just those I can remember. I'm sure there're rude people everywhere but there's got to be something in the water there...

4) I like Lower Manhattan. Soho was really nice and I wish I spent more time there. Jude was actually there on Saturday morning when the vendors were all out peddling their wares- craft, street art, hand-made jewellry. There's a wonderful bookstore, The Strand on Broadway where I just went bersek and bought more books than I think I'll be able to read in the next year. 18 miles of every book you can imagine- it was a bibliophile's heaven, my heaven :) Jude also got me a really cheery orange laptop case from Pylones on Lexington. It's one of those shops selling mundane everyday things made to look like anything but mundane everyday things- feather-dusters in the shape of peacocks, Mao-inspired bowls, nail-clippers masquerading as pretty lady-bugs, etc. Reminds me of some of the Alessi stuff, but more whimsical.

I don't know, at the end of the day, I'm not sure if I could live in New York though; yes, it's teeming with life, vibrant, diverse, rich in so many ways, has everything I love- books, food, shopping, art, music- it is Life encapsulated (good, bad, young old, struggling, successful) and then some more. But living in such a huge city can also be a very alienating experience I suspect, depressing even. It's the lonely crowd syndrome I guess. Well, I won't really know until we do but till then, I'm quite happy to be back in little Ann Arbor where I know where everything is and where I can get away with throwing a jacket over my PJs and going to the store for milk at 2am in the morning...