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Jul. 29th, 2007 08:59 am
touristy vs. not
I am back in my home sweet home of California. I had a great time in New York City, and was sad that I could not stay long enough to make all the stops that people recommended to me. So sorry, Angie, no Uniqlo for me, sorry Dave, no BBQ, but I had some excellent times and even grabbed myself a Marc Jacobs wallet that was on sale!
I had a friend who's staying in NYC for her law internship, and her advice really helped us out a lot. Without her, we couldn't have navigated the subway system as well as we did (ohmygod it's so cheap too and it goes in more than two directions!), wouldn't have tried out some cool places to drink and eat, or walk around the East Village. It was a lot of fun. We also had another friend come with his girlfriend and we went to Coney Island with them and walked around Brighton Beach a bit, which is apparently, a Russian enclave in which nobody speaks English. It was pretty awesome.
So there are two modes of traveling - the touristy and the not-touristy. Mark and I actually fall into both camps; we like to do stuff like see the Empire State Building (which, by the way, I would advise doing early in the morning to avoid the long waits) and Statue of Liberty, and have our friends show us the places that tourists wouldn't necessarily know about. Some of our friends are aggressively anti-touristy stuff, though, and they sort of scoff at us when we want to do those things. I am old enough not to let it bug me too much, but I don't really get all the hate for touristy stuff. Some stuff is touristy because it's cool, you know? Don't tell me the Statue of Liberty isn't awesome. Ellis Island has an excellent exhibit on immigration, and for a bit I was walking around thinking, dude, when are they going to talk about the Chinese Exclusion Act and stuff like that? And then I walked right in front of a caricature of a Chinese person made to look like an ape. It was very sobering, actually.
Although I have to admit I was a bit miffed when we went into Chinatown and all we saw were vendors selling crappy fake designer stuff. I couldn't find the authentic Chinatown that my friend swore existed, and it turns out we were on the wrong street anyway.
I had a friend who's staying in NYC for her law internship, and her advice really helped us out a lot. Without her, we couldn't have navigated the subway system as well as we did (ohmygod it's so cheap too and it goes in more than two directions!), wouldn't have tried out some cool places to drink and eat, or walk around the East Village. It was a lot of fun. We also had another friend come with his girlfriend and we went to Coney Island with them and walked around Brighton Beach a bit, which is apparently, a Russian enclave in which nobody speaks English. It was pretty awesome.
So there are two modes of traveling - the touristy and the not-touristy. Mark and I actually fall into both camps; we like to do stuff like see the Empire State Building (which, by the way, I would advise doing early in the morning to avoid the long waits) and Statue of Liberty, and have our friends show us the places that tourists wouldn't necessarily know about. Some of our friends are aggressively anti-touristy stuff, though, and they sort of scoff at us when we want to do those things. I am old enough not to let it bug me too much, but I don't really get all the hate for touristy stuff. Some stuff is touristy because it's cool, you know? Don't tell me the Statue of Liberty isn't awesome. Ellis Island has an excellent exhibit on immigration, and for a bit I was walking around thinking, dude, when are they going to talk about the Chinese Exclusion Act and stuff like that? And then I walked right in front of a caricature of a Chinese person made to look like an ape. It was very sobering, actually.
Although I have to admit I was a bit miffed when we went into Chinatown and all we saw were vendors selling crappy fake designer stuff. I couldn't find the authentic Chinatown that my friend swore existed, and it turns out we were on the wrong street anyway.
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