Central Park, June 10

I have been in the United States for three weeks now, staying with my aunt and uncle in the relatively peaceful Columbia, Maryland. The community is a prime example of a planned neighbourhood - its entire layout designed before its area was populated - and is seamlessly landscaped into its surrounding nature. With my weekday explorations in the lab, trying to express and purify quantities of mMYH, my weekends allow me to venture out a bit more. Last weekend, my cousin offered to bring me to New York City for a few days. I happily accepted.

I was to stay at her fiance's home in New Jersey for two nights, while spending two days roaming the streets (and subways) of the city. Everyone was very kind and welcoming, as I offered a taste of Canada and perhaps a glimpse into the characters among my cousin's family. I shall see them again when I my family returns to Columbia for the wedding later this year.

After the three and a half hour trip Northbound to New Jersey, brief introductions, and lunch, I was on the NJ Transit train to Pennsylvania Station, New York City. It's a rather massive station, covering essentially two subway stops and linking several train, and subways services. Of course, it was rather massive until I saw Grand Central Station. I bought a MetroCard (unfortunately, New York MTA has discontinued its "Fun Pass", akin to Toronto's Day Pass that allow a day's worth of unlimited transit use) and loaded it up with $20, which comes with a bonus $1.40. I swiped myself into the system (for $2.25) and tried to find the subway I needed to take.

The convenient thing about transit in Manhattan is that it's everywhere. There are several subway lines, and there seems to be a stop every block. Each "line" also has several alternate routes, to cover a whole lot of area, and there are also express and local trains. On the downside, it's a bit complicated, and it took a few minutes to figure out the four-lane subway system. Luckily, I was able to figure it out soon enough, and took the uptown C-train on the blue line to 81st street - the American Museum of Natural History.

The museum entrance (the Central Park West entrance, to be exact) is also a memorial hall to Theodore Roosevelt, featuring his statue by the outside doors, and four passages engraved on the interior wall dedicated to Nature (see left), Manhood, Youth, and the State. The atrium also featured full dinosaur fossils (above), wrapped around by the lines of visitors about to enter the museum's massive, world class collection, as the Internet and relatives tell me. With the sun out, and only a few hours, I decided to cross the street to Central Park instead, saving the bulk of the museum for a later visit (though it was my rain-day option).

Everything in New York feels like a super-sized version of an average city's counterparts, and Central Park sits at the centre of it all. Wikipedia tells me the park is 843 acres (3.41 square kilometres), or in standard American measurements, 637.88 football fields. For my records and perhaps your amusement, I mapped my 2-hour path as I spidered my way through the south side of the park (in eight legs?). The park features so many statues, fields, and paths, and with only a simple map on my phone. I set out in a southeast direction, not sure exactly where I wanted to go. I knew I wanted to visit Strawberry Fields, and I knew there was a statue of Beethoven somewhere, and with a vague impression of the park, I set out.

After some initial awe of the size and nature of the park (it's easy to forget you're in the biggest city in the United States), I stumbled upon the Shakespeare Garden. Not to any surprise, there were plenty of flowers; making the garden special were several plaques that featured lines from Shakespearean plays involving plants and flowers.

 

Next I headed south towards the lake, appropriately named "The Lake". I choose the left side of the fork and travelled along the lake's east edge, which had several small forest-like trails. Walking along paths near the centre of the park, surrounded on both sides by trees and water, the only hints of New York City were the glimpses of skyline that seemed so far away. The Lake was relatively quiet, though there were more people around Bow Bridge, a popular area for canoeists (yes, it's a word).  A little further to the south was Cherry Hill Fountain, before coming to "The Mall".

Left: Westward view of the lake. Right: Bow Bridge

Cherry Hill Fountain

Breakdancers at the north side of The Mall

There seemed to be more and more people towards the south end of the park. "The Mall", one of Central Park's most well known sights, features a wide path surrounded by Elm trees with several artists and musicians lining the walkway (left). The north end had a crowd watching a few breakdancers (above), as well as the Naumberg Bandshell (right) with a band just setting up.

By the time I finished walking The Mall, I realized that I had overshot Strawberry Fields, so I turned northwest and cut through Sheep Meadows. Central Park also features a whole lot of sports fields, including 20 or so baseball/softball diamonds, tennis courts, a pool, two skating rinks (in the wintertime), and croquet fields. But in case all that isn't enough, there's Sheep Meadows, an incredibly wide field almost as large as the lake. The field was filled with people sunbathing and others playing soccer, football, and frisbee.

Sheep Meadows

Not too far north of Sheep Meadows at the west side of the park was Strawberry Fields! It's a memorial to John Lennon, nearby his New York apartment and the place of his death. The memorial is a stone mosaic with the word "imagine" in its centre. If you click and see the full picture, you'll see a tribute to John Lennon at the top right corner, and five Beatles symbols in the middle: a green apple with a sketch of John, a yellow submarine, a strawberry with "JL", a walrus, and a green apple with a headband that says "Let it Be". The memorial was surrounded with a circle of people - sketching, listening to music, or just meditating. Gary dos Santos, as Wikipedia tells me, was dressed up in 60's gear, and added to the mood at the memorial; he can credited with laying the flower arrangements each day.

I headed back eastward, not exactly sure where to go, so I followed the sound of music. Soon, I noticed a familiar silhouette... Beethoven! His statue is just to the west of the Mall's Bandshell but unfortunately blocked with a tree. Luckily, through circling back to Strawberry Fields, I was find my way to my favourite composer and return to the Mall where the band that was previously setting up was now playing a cover of the Beatles' Paperback Writer.

I headed through the Mall again, before heading further east, opposite of Sheep Meadows and entering the southeast corner of Central Park, also known as the Central Park Zoo.  The North Gate featured the Delacorte Clock and a statue I thought looked like a dog, but turned out to be a "honey bear". I walked through the "zoo bypass path" that gave me a few glimpses of the zoo without paying fare (I didn't have much time to explore a zoo anyways) and headed back out the North exit.

Left: The Honey Bear; Right: I took a picture because it reminded me of the McMaster Marauder. 

Left: Seals! Right: The Delacorte Clock

Heading back out of the zoo, I stumbled upon Shakespeare, who apparently isn't enjoying his own gardens but much further south. Near the end of my walk, I finally reached the visitor centre, though there wasn't much there except a gift shop. Nearby was a checkers and chess area, where a handful of people were playing games in the nice outdoors.

Lastly, I ended my journey in Central Park at Columbus Circle at its southeast corner, passing by several playgrounds. Columbus Circle featured a monument to the USS Maine (below) and a fountain in its centre. I descended down the subway steps across the street from the Trump International Hotel and Tower and headed south to Times Square.


Later in the day, I would stop by Times Square (but I will detail this more in my post for June 11 when I revisited Times Square along with Broadway) and met with my cousin at Astor's Place, known for its "Alamo" sculpture, also known as "The Cube".

Picture courtesy of Wikicommons; I forgot to take one.

We had dinner at a Japanese ramen restaurant called Ippudo, which reminded me of a upscale, busier, and more modern version of one of the noodle shops (Du Xiao Yue) I visited in Tainan last year (can be seen at this post, near the bottom). Both menus featured a nice cultural touch, while the cooks preparing the food were in plain sight. Besides the awesome noodles and its accompanying soup, the servers and chefs yelling out Japanese phrases was a nice touch.

Very tasty, though Ippudo's website features everything in better lighting. 

We would end the night by "people watching" at the stairs of Union Square and having dessert/cupcake at Crumbs, before making it back to Jersey to see the last three minutes of the Canuck's final victory of the season. New York is a very exciting and busy city: there are always things to do, people to meet, places to see or go. It's definitely a wonderful place to visit, but I'm not sure if I would be up to living the life of a New Yorker on a daily basis. Instead, you'd probably find me wandering Central Park (warning: incredibly hi-res photo) for most of the time. =).

Tune in for Broadway, June 11th, to be posted soon!