DAY 35-36 - NYC - 4-5th Jan 2008

Day 35 - 4th Jan

Went straight to Moma this morning. And although Moma had a fantastic collection especially the graphic design and product design sections one particular thing left a sour taste in my mouth. No eating in the museum, not in the foyer, not in the gardens, not ANYWHERE. But they only enforce the rule when you're on your last bite. But why have ubiquitous bins around in the statue garden if you're not allowed to eat? Do people discard a lot of paper in the statue garden? Am I not allowed to admire Henri Matisse whilst sitting on a chair in the middle of a pavement munching an apple?



Seriously, MOMA definitely wins on museum anal retentivity. I was so hungry I nearly managed to chomp down an exhibit.



Afterwards we met the rest of the Hau clan for a very late lunch at serendipity. Famous for its frozen hot chocolates and massive deserts. Writing this makes me insanely hungry. But not having had lunch I first woofed down a footlong hot dog, as massive as it sounds, it really wasn't all that filling. Then came the pinnacle of my time in the US. Peanut Butter Pie. I can't say I love it, but it was a definite memorable experience. I would liken it to eating a half jar of peanut butter along with 2 cookies. Absolutely sickening, yet a life experience.



I woke up today, and I was already tired and by Serendipity, I wanted nothing but a bed. So afterwards whilst the others all headed for MOMA's free friday night, I headed back to the hotel and ultimately crashed for about 4 hours. I've been running around NYC non-stop for about 8 days, and my body was just saying no.

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Day 36 - 5th Jan

Today was shopping and supplies day. I hit Century 21 first after sending off some postcards at the US postal office. Century 21 is NYC's answer to the factory outlet. It's a department store but has all the unwanted stuff from other department stores and top brands.

So essentially I went pretty crazy, well not that crazy cause I didn't have much room in my suitcase and I didn't want to be lugging extra shit around for the next 1.5 months. But I did leave with a red polo jumper and 2 pairs of nike sneakers. Oh if I had more room for sneakers I would have bought HEAPS. They were like 40 bucks for a pair which would go for around 160 in Aus. Note next time bring empty suitcase.

I hit Modells for some more thermals, and the pharmacy for some stuff. Then I settled down, ate a really shite burger meal and packed whilst watching Robin Hood - Prince of Thieves. Tonight was my last night in NYC and it was the only chance I'd get to see the Blue Man Group perform. I first heard of them through the Intel Ads and fell totally in love with the music they were making.

Going to NYC I definitely wanted to see 2 things, Avenue Q and Blue Man Group. So the first was done but the 2nd kept getting delayed longer and longer. So I rang them up to see if they had $26 student rush tickets on offer (they go on sale 1 hour before the show), the guy said very unlikely, so I asked if the 10pm show was possible (they had 3 shows a day on Friday but the 7pm didn't have student rush), he said yes definitely. I was elated because the original price of a ticket is $78. So it's a huge saving.

I get to the theatre at around 8:50. And it's a really small theatre. That's the thing with New York that really surprised me, most of the broadway theatres and this one (even though it's not actually on Broadway) are really quite small. The Avenue Q one is probably smaller than the Seymour and the BMG one was essentially a basement theatre.

So I got to the Ticket booth at 9pm, asked the chick. Are you selling student rush yet? She looks at me and goes, oh I dunno if we're selling student rush tonight. I looked at her like my soul has been crushed and went...but but...I phoned and the guy said you were. *pout*...she then looks at the guy across the room and he says something like yes and then she goes okay and i'm like OMFG< thank you for making my night. And yeah 26 bucks for front row. Sure it was right in the corner but still front row baby. To thank them I also bought a 25 buck t-shit, see when you're nice to students you actually end up earning money.

The show itself is just phenomenal. Part comedy, surrealism, music, music education, music humour and audience participation. And this is all done with the 3 blue guys never saying anything. I got sprayed with some banana gunk during the middle. Oh and did I mention the first 5 rows get ponchos? And on your ticket it actually says seating area...PONCHO...how friggin' awesome is that? In the end giant rolls of crepe paper were unravelled and passed down from the back of the theatre to the stage entangling the audience whilst strobe lighting cause you to see single frames of everything during a gigantic session of electronic. It was an experience, and bloody hell it was one of the best this entire trip. I came out and was like, omfg, I might have to go see them in Berlin, I don't care that I don't know any German. They are that good.

Funnily enough I got back to the hotel at about 12:30am and Megan's clan also arrived just as I was waiting for the lift, they'd just come back from Atlantic City and I was like...my night was so fricking awesome.

DAY 13 - LA - Santa Monica - 13th Dec

Last day in LA before I fly to San Jose and meet up with my aunt in the San Francisco bay area. Spent the morning shopping at Norstrum Rack. Bought a pair of CK corduroy pants and Polo Jeans jumper. Not as cheap as I'd like but they were quite nice.

Megan's aunt (one of many, I just got their names down pat and now I'm leaving) took us to Santa Monica. It was a bit dirty and a bit smelly, but we were all glad about been at the beach. The chili cheese fries were kinda scary but the sunset was extremely pretty. And there's something about the beach, you just can't help taking weird wanky artistic album covers.



Looking forward to San Francisco. LA has been great, and although my first impressions weren't glowing I think I'm beginning to like this city more and more. Except for the traffic. Peak hour here is nuts, 12 lanes of chock-a-block automobiles. I think Arnie really needs to invest in some public transport infrastructure for this city.

Speaking about things been big in this country, because everything is. Even the seagullls here are majorly obese. Megan tried chasing 2 but they ran away from her...ahahahha

DAY 12 - LA & Walking - 12th Dec

Late start, got up at 10am and watched some ER, had a ham sandwich and then Since there was no one to drive us anywhere today and another day of Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency was a little too much to bear, we decided to walk to the nearest Shopping Centre (aka Mall). We checked up google maps and it was 4 miles (6.4km). We thought, oh well might as well work off all the crap we've eaten.

Walking in LA is weird because no one walks in this city. Therefore we got stared at a lot. 3 bogan asian females walking around the suburbia of LA with their jumpers tied their waists because they horribly misjudged the sunniness of the walk. Hispanics sat on roadside corners near petrol stations and leared at our insanity. We crossed bridged over manmade creek-bed thingys like in Grease and Terminator 2.

So we got to the mall and guess what? It was a Westfield. AHAHAHA halfway across the world and Frank Lowy has made it like home. Except of Myer however you get Macy's, and H & M. But we did find a Target, although it sold more than just clothes and electronics, it also had cereal and frozen goods. WTF??? when did Target ever have frozen goods?

Even the food court at Westfield is the same. Chinese, Sushi, Korean, Gelato, fusion Italian, etc etc. Except EVERY and I mean EVERY shop was manned by hispanics and had hispanics cooking the food. I don't know but I'm not entirely comfortable with Chinese food been cooked and served by Mexicans from a franchise Chinese food outlet called Panda Express. There's just something wrong with that. I settled for a foccacia which was quite awesome but possibly full of hydronated trans fats like everything else in this country.

Megan's very old cousin invited us out to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory with his very secret (hot) girlfriend and daughter. The portions at this place are HUGE, I couldn't even finish my $14.95 chicken fettuccini. People who know me, know that I'm a big eater and if I can't even finish something, it was be bloody big. Megan hardly made a dent in her angel hair spaghetti with chicken and mushrooms. Tracey almost died working her way through her salmon salad. For dessert we had 2 slices of cheesecake between 6 people and still left stuff on the plate. America is crazy. And the entire time we were been obnoxious Aussie bogans and there were like OMFG they're so cute, they are so full of energy, and take pictures of everything and laugh at everything and have really cute accents.. But I swear they didn't understand half of what we said and had no idea where we are coming from.

Lesson of the day. Australia is a really really worldly country. We are hyperaware of world geography, politics, languages and accents. Of course this could just be the fact that we're educated and smart. hehe.

DAY 11 - LA & lots of TV - 11th Dec

Didn't do much today. We watched lots of ER in the morning, John Stamos is hot and I totally don't know which season it was but Neela needs to get together with John Stamos cause they're sooooo cute together.

We also watched way too much, and by that I mean so much like 4 hours worth of the Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency show. It's so trashy it's completely fabulous. The woman is a true contradiction, she validates anorexia and botox yet has enough morals to reject 15 year old models like WTF?? but really my mind has been completely and utterly disturbed by her and her show. And the most frustrating thing is that last week when we went down to downtown LA, where were in the same building that her office is in, except of course we didn't know then.

US tv is interesting, if you're rich and lucky enough to get complete cable aka like 700 channels or something, you can spend the entire day watching TV. Because there is just so much on. Trash, movies, more trash and the golden stuff. Endless repeats of Full House, family matters, and of course there's BBCAmerica which is the BBC + ads, wonderful. Funny thing is I haven't managed to catch one primetime show here, perhaps they're on hiatus but other than the random bit of Grey's Anatomy I caught last week I haven't seen anything else. I've ended up watching the Amazing Race on Youtube.

We also went shopping a lot. Discount centres like Marshall's which is where all the department stores dump the crap they can't sell. Last week I got an awesome Burton snowboarding jacket for $50 (originally $190) and in Australia it would have been $300 or something. But the problem with these stores is that there is so much crap you have sift through before you find anything good. So it becomes a highly tiring and time consuming effort. You exchange time for discounts.

from the forthcoming series of photos - LJ in silly hats

Clothes in America are cheap, but only if you know the intricacies of every rewards system, discount outlets, and sale timetables. I'm lucky enough that Megan's aunts know everything otherwise clothes are the same price as Australia. The one major difference is that discount outlets are as ubiquitous as Target and Kmart in Australia and it's kinda both a little hillbilly and cool at the same time. Although if you were a guy and purchased all your clothes from these stores you'd come out a skatey hispanic homie wearing DC shirt, Volcom hoodie, Nike trackie dacks, and Puma shoes.

Ended up at Taco Bell for dinner and it was a very interesting experience. For 5 people the total was about $17. It's insane, and the drink cups they give you for the combos are the size of those jumbo cokes you get at Hoyts if you're looking for a sugar overdose. And you know what? it's free refills too. Although I can't say I'm too much a fan of the pseudo Mexican gunk that comes out of there.

Again tracey's head as a measurement device, this time against a taco bell cup

DAY 7 - LA more shopping - 7th Dec

Slow day, lots of ice cream consumed and lots of rubbish TV watched. Went shopping for all of Megan's electronic stuff for the next year.

Fry's electronics is like 3x Bunnings warehouses. And it sells electronics...and water. Megan finally bought a laptop after a year of whining =p, and also a camera and other accessories.



Costco, is like a warehouse supermarket where everything is BIG. We bought groceries and laughed at everything.



In & Out Burger is a Californian Institution, although we didn't have burgers, we had the awesome shakes which tasted like churned neapolitan flavours of icecream. We also had the animal fries which although not listed on the menu is something I read about online. It's fries with 1 slice of melted cheese, relish, chopped grilled onions and thousand island dressing on top. Completely sickening but also FANTASTIC.

Day 2 - Los Angeles - 2nd Dec

A yellow fire hydrant, from the valley into the ranges and a yellow schoolbus

The jet lag really hit about 4am this morning. I work up underneath the thinest blanket shivering and unable to go to sleep. Why I didn't ask for another blanket I don't know but damn I was really freezing. LA is bone dry, drier than Sydney, if such a thing is possible. We passed hills and mountain ranges just covered in small Cacti. It's a formidable and harsh environment and it's a wonder why this region was once referred to as the "wild west"

Went for a walk around the streets this morning, marveled at the gigantic cars and jogged with Tracy whilst trying to breathe in the dry air and wondering why Americans got so fat cause no one was walking or running on the streets. All we saw were cars, cars and more cars.

That's a MONSTER TRUCK, in someone's driveway

Quite slow day today, went shopping at the LA version of DFO at Camrillo. It's insanely big, just like everything else in this city. All the major brands and non-brands have factory outlets in an area the size of a small suburb. I think it probably has it's own postcode. I bought a pair of Timberland hiking boots which I'm extremely happy about for $60, which is insanely cheap for good quality brand name hiking boots.

This is one small section of the complex. It's set up randomly in the desert and very big.

The funny thing is that clothes in the US is possibly cheaper than China, if that is possible, without the need to actually worry if the clothes you are buying are fake or not. Levi Jeans are $25, jackets are the same and T-Shirts are about $10. But since I can't be bothered lugging crap around Europe for a month I can't really buy much, only what I need.

Megan's family is crazily funny. I often love being around big families cause the social dynamics of such families are just brilliant (since I only have quite a small extended family). I had a similar experience with Connie's family in Hong Kong in 2005. Except in Hong Kong I half understood the language, I can't understand a lick of Vietnamese but it's still funny.

Megan's aunt was driving us back from the DFO at night, doing 110km/h on an 12 lane freeway. This is the following exchange in the car.

*we hear a cracking noise from the driver's seat*
Megan (To Tracy, her sister): Hey Tracy can you help Aunt with whatever she's doing?
Tracy: How? She's cracking nuts.

Yes indeed, her aunt was cracking and eating watermelon seeds whilst driving her giant SUV Jeep on an 12 eight freeway at 110km/h with 4 passengers. Did I also mention that like every other American she plays with her mobile whilst on the freeway. And occasionally she'll ask if we'd like some chocolate which she'll rummage for behind her. Tracy, Megan and I collectively gasp and ask her to concentrate on driving.

It's a crazy crazy town.

At the DFO there was a shop dedicated to just apple on a stick covered with different flavourings.