The Rock to the Big Apple

Yao!

Hello my friends (and family)! I made it back to the motherland! Lots of things to share so this email's gonna be a doozy -get your e-bookmarks ready!

Still experiencing some delirium: On account of the jetlag, and sheer disbelief of actually travelling so far on my own -yay me!

Yes, the journey was tumultuous (okay not really, but what a great word, no? sounds like tumbling, and munching on a whopper -not the BK kind, but more like the malty, chocolate kind that heather had on our NY trip... ANYWHO, moving on...)

In any case, it was a mixture of excitment and exhaustion! But it was definitely LOOOONG.

The idea of traveling so far, on my own, kinda made me nervous.. but hey, I did it! *scratch myself on the back* (far better than any pat, I'd say)

Here's what I had to do:

With an overstuffed suitcase and duffelbag, I...
1. Caught a train to Hakata: 2.5 hours.
2. Then lugged my crap down to the subway and rode the subtrain to Fukuoka airport.
3. When I reached the airport, I grabbed the shuttle to the international terminal... only to be told that I needed to go back to the terminal I came from :\
4. Once there, I checked in my luggage (what a load off!) and caught the plane to Narita (tokyo): 2.5 hr flight.
5. Then I had 7 hours to fry in Narita.Too paranoid to leave the airport, fearing I wouldnt be able to get back, I decided to stay inside. My strategy: Do everything EXTRA SLOW. First thing I decided to do was shop for some omiyage...that only took 30 minutes. *sigh* hooboy,.. this was going to be a LOOONG 7 hours!
That's when I decided to eat. Plus it would be nice to be able to put down my heavy, laptop-loaded backpack! I ordered an overpriced, "instant-tasting" curry. I took my time and savored each bite (even if it wasn't all that tasty). I took slow sips of the complimentary water... I stopped mid way and decided to try and prolong my meal by ordering a starbucks specialty drink. I stop eating to wait for my drink order to be ready -Dammit! such speedy service! It was ready in seconds flat. Oh well. I continue to eat tiny bites of my curry, sipping my mocha, till I finished both. I cautiously looked at my watch...Sunnuva B! only 30 minutes have passed!?!?! What the?! Waah.

I walk over the the shopping area to see if I mightve missed anything...nope.
Oooookay,.. now what?

Ah ha! let's see what daniel's doing!
*ring ring*
"Hi Daniel! whatcha doin?...Oh, you're ACTUALLY working?!...Whatcha doing after?...Oh that's right, the baseball game! ah okay, well, good luck on the game! bye poopie!"

elapsed time: 3 minutes...argh.

I know! I'll plug in my laptop and check my email and surf the net! Brilliant!
*roaming around the entire terminal*
boo. no phone jacks. But there ARE power outlets!

So I spend the remainder of time watching a couple of movies we had downloaded in the laptop: "Enchanted," some of "Bee Movie" and the final "Die Hard." not much of a selection.. but better than nothing!

[Now boarding flight blah-blah to Honolulu]

YES! Finally! ...I was the first in line.

I sat next to a really cool local guy on the plane. He looked a lot like what bruce lee would look like, had he lived to his late 40s-early 50s.
It almost seemed like we became good friends! We even switched ipods during the last 2 hours -turns out we have similar musical taste! ...But alas, we had finally landed, and it was like: "Hey man, have a nice life" We gave eachother a hug and that was that. It's so weird how that is yah? but hey, I wasn't about to tell the guy, "Eh yo, here's my number, call me sometime!" :\

Walking thru the HNL airport felt really weird. I felt like a tourist. Everything was so... Hawaiiesque! hehe.

My mom was trippin' when she saw me. She couldnt believe I was actually home. But that didn't stop her from trying to feed me every 2 hours!

It was great touching base with friends and family -it was a bummer that I didn't get a chance to see all my special peeps tho :(

...But I DID get to eat Big Kahuna pizza and LOTS and LOTS of poke and kalbi!!! mmm mmm!! heavenly!

After just a couple of days on the rock, me and my girlies hopped the plane to the big apple!! Omigawd we were so excited!
Since our flight was at 10-something at night, we donned our brand-new bright, patterny, sateen PJs, and boarded the plane. So comfy! The girls were prepared, Sarah had an ipod full of music and video, and some activity books to keep her occupied. Heather had a HEAP of current magazines. Alls I had was a dying ipod shuffle :( (I used it a lot during the train ride and flight to da aina). Heather was kind enough to share her mags with me and I made do with the plane's crappy radio stations. But hey, crappy music is better than listening to a screaming baby! (We had one sitting right behind us.) After clearing thru heather's library of magazines, I felt very "in-the-loop" on hollywood and fashion! ;)

We reached the big apple around 4-something in the affernoon.... all of a sudden our PJs seems a tad out of place ;D But no matter, we were in freakin' New York! EEEEE!!!

We reached our hotel, the Hampton Inn in Times Square. We were excited to meet our fourth, Leslie -who was waiting for us in our room. Then, there she was, our unit was complete. She was wearing her PJs too! The resulting scream of excitement shook the walls! ;)

It almost felt like we hit the ground running -there was no time to waste! Each of us quickly clamied a corner of the room to throw all our things. Then we got ready and went out to our first night on the town! Joined by a couple of Leslie's friends -who were staying for just a couple more days- we hit up a fancy place called The View. It was a rotating restaurant/lounge at the top of a hotel. It was quite lovely.. But EXPENSIVE!! The specialty drinks were about 18 clams EACH! Compelled by curiosity, we each ordered one. It MUST be really tasty right? By reaction, it seemed the one I ordered tasted the best. I forget what it was called, but it was like a smooth creamy milkshake.. but even then, NOT worth 18! I couldnt help but hear the sound "cha-ching" everytime I took a sip! But hey, the view was killer, and the company was fab -so I suppose it was worth it. But then, when we got our bill, we were shocked to see that on top of the expensive drink, each of us were charged an additional $7 for cover! hu-whutt?! dayuuummm. That's the last time we're coming here!

So here's a break down of some of the stuff we did up in the Big Apple...

[Warning: The following activities will not be in chronological order,.. as that would require organizing my thoughts.. and all y'all know maggie stories are always a big mess!...kinda like a quentin tarantino movie...except without the "making-sense in the end... :\ ]

Okay here goes:

The Whitney Museum. First some background: At the airport whiles we were waiting for our taxi to wisk us away into the magical land of Times Square, our FABULOUS PJs caught the eye of the guy in front of us. He seemed to appreciate our spirit. Turns out he is an artist! (go figure)... More precisely, a painter. He then told us about The Whitney Museum. He said we came at a great time. The Whitney Museum was having their special Biennial event. And so Sarah and I decided to check it out while Heather and Lele went to the Little Mermaid broadway show. [side note: Many of you know, that I am a HUGE fan of the Little Mermaid, and may be wondering WHY I didn't go to the show! After some thought, I can only conclude that perhaps seeing a live-action rendition of a beloved classic didn't do it for me? anywho, continuing on...] Sarah and I caught a taxi to "uptown" and walked in, not knowing what to expect. The place was wonderful! We started at the very top and "oohed," "ahhed," and "what-the'd?" our way to the bottom. I was really glad we went. Unfortunately, when we were pau, the little gift shop on the bottom closed. They had a lot of really cool stuff! :( that's okay, there was still MoMA! When we got back, Lele and Heather were raving about the show. I felt a little bit of regret not going to see it, but felt really good to have gone to the Whitney!

MoMA. (Museum of Modern Art) I just gotta say: Holy S#!t. This place was amazing. Here I was, expecting something similar to the Whitney...only to get slapped in the face with a reality check. It was like the Whitney on crack! Or for those of you who don't do drugs, (drugs are bad kids, don't do it.) It was like the Whitney on...um...Red Bull? A few notables about the place: Once you step off the elevator onto the 3rd floor, you are consuming by a yellow light. It was so yellow that you'd swear the walls were painted bright yellow too! But that's not the cool part. The yellow light turns EVERYONE innit to grayscale! It was so cool. We tried to take a picture of the gray people but they looked yellow on our screens! So does it have something to do with the way our eyes percieve? Then with my gray arm, I took my cell phone out of my bag and looked at the screen -the screen was still in color! whaaaat?! Is it because of the LCD/LEDs in my phone? Woah, duuuude, Science!

Another really great installation was a big room filled with colorful light. In the middle of this room was a rotating device surrounded by panes of glass in a variety of colors. It filled each wall with bands of ever-changing color. The best part was the interaction of the viewers with this piece. People were taking pictures of their sillouettes. Some were even making shadow puppets. I tried to get a shot of Sarah's sillouette -taking a picture of a couple- who were taking a picture of their sillouette... it didn't really work out. But it was fun seeing people of all ages playing in this room :)

We only had a few hours to spend there so we had to pick the exhibits we most wanted to see. We chose the illustration floor, the architectural floor and the special exhibits. We also made a special trip to check out the painting floor. Every floor was spectacular in it's own way. We joked about how awesome it would be if we accidentally got locked into this place overnight. Then we started saying stuff like, "yah, but they should leave on their lights..." and "oh yah, it would be good if they had food too..." the whole conversation got pretty silly ;D

The whole experince reminded me why I got into the design field -and how much I missed it! Even still, I felt a sense of renewal. We even got to see some classic paintings by Van Gogh, Monet and a heap of other painters that I remembered learning about in Art 101!

Needless to say, I wish I spent more time there, and I'd definitely like to go back one day! When I got back to HI, I proudly sported my MoMA shirt. To my surprise, I got a couple of positive comments, and got into 2 full blown conversations with random strangers about the place! I guess MoMA has inspired more than just lil' ol me ;)

City Tour. This was a lot cooler than I thought it would be. We got to ride on the top of a double decker bus. The guy "narrating" it was a NY grown guy. As informative as he was, he wasn't stuffy or boring. Too bad long bus rides, subways rides and car rides make me sleepy! I dozed off for a couple minutes in between.. But then we hit the Brooklyn bridge -WOW. I was wide awake. The sun had just come down, so the sky was a really cool soft gray-purple. We all stood up -on the moving bus- and took pictures. Just standing so high off the ground and flying across that bridge made me feel kinda like a superhero. By the time we got to our mid-point stop, it was totally dark. It was perfect. The place we stopped at was this huge pier where we could see the whole city skyline all up in lights. *sigh* Even with all the excitement, on the way back, I dozed off again :\ terrible.

NBC Studio. We got to see the Conan Obrien studio and the SNL studio! Both were a whole lot smaller than what they portray on the t.v. screen!

Maddam Tussaud. This is the place to unlease ur inner model. It's fun, hamming it up with people you are never going to meet -or would actually LET you pose that way with them ;D
My favorites have to be: Lele & Tina Turner (or Lenny Kravitz -I'd say it's a tie), Sarah & Biggie Smalls, and Heather & Johnny Cash :)

Ripleys Believe it or Not. Lots of bizarro, silly things in here. But the one thing that got me baffled was the shrunken heads exhibit... how do they get them so small?

The Daily Show. We waited in line for about an hour or so, anxious, hoping we'd be able to get in. The line was pretty long. The building was old and TINY... and not to mention, in middle of nowheresville. But it didn't matter, this was the Daily Show!! Then a staffer came out and passed out tickets to the chosen 100-200 people. Lemme tell you, there was a sizable level of "stoke" when we got handed ours! But that's nothing compared to when we actually got in! We were somewhere in the back-end of the line, but when we loaded up in the studio, we ended up in the 2nd row! Talk about luck! Before the show, a comedian that came out to entertain us. He was particularly fond of Lele -it was hilarious! They went back and forth, ending with Lele giving an audience member a hair consultation! (long story) And then the man himself, Jon Stewart came out. He is AWESOME. Such a witty Mofo! (sorry, I got excited) He took some questions from the audience before the show.

It went something like...

[Lady in audience:] "Jon, what do you write down on your paper during the show?"

[Jon:] "I just scribble,.. okay, I'm actually writting a letter to oprah.. no really tho, I just scribble..mostly just squares because I can't draw...I draw a square within a square...within a square...then I write 'I suck' underneath..."

[Guy in audience:] "Jon, my friends and I have had this ongoing debate for years, maybe you can help clear this up. Which one? Oreo Double Stuff or Regualer Oreos?"

[Jon:] "Personally, I think Double Stuff is rather hedonistic, so I'd have to go with the original..."

Pongsri and Blue Chili. Two restaurants worth mentioning. I am now a TOTAL fan of Thai food. Both Thai restaurants. Pongsri was more traditional thai. I had the Panang Curry -it was SO spicy! -but I couldnt stop eating! Blue Chili was more of a swanky, modern Thai-fusion place. The place served Thai food AND sushi. Each of us ordered a different Thai dish -and everyone of them tasted fantastic!

Booze and Booty Shakin'. After our costly experience at The View, we decided it'd be wisest to get some drinks in our system BEFORE we headed out. On some nights, we even snuck in a flask! Classy! With that said, we ended up checking out several bars/clubs ranging from upper-crust, bourgeois to casual pubs. The neat thing about all of these places is that we never had to pay cover! At some places, people were lined up outside, and after chatting it up with the bodyguard, we were let in! That's enough to inflate any girl's ego! Okay, there was ONE place that charged us cover. They gave us entry for half price. That place was the worst. The crowd was not very friendly,.. and the guys who WERE friendly -were TOO friendly -ewww. Not to mention the overload of spinning lights and seizure inducing strobe lights! It didn't even seem like the lights were moving at the beat of the music! -it might as well have been speed metal playing in there :\ Trying to make the best of things, I went over to the DJ booth to see if I could make any requests -only to find myself standing in the front row of a quickly escalating fight between 2 DJs! I shoulda been worried or something, but I was fascinated! I stood there, with my eyes glued on the situation like I was watching reality TV. Not until a security guard had to push me aside to break it up, did I actually snap out of it! We left shortly after. Of all the clubs/bar we went to, I'd have to say that my favorite was the G Lounge. This was the place that seemed the most pretentious upon first glance, but the bodyguards there were the most friendly and made us feel really welcome. One in particular even came upstairs to buy us a double order of drinks! The main club was up on the top floor, but the smaller, more intimate lounge on the lower level was better. Better vibe, better music. The weirdest thing we noticed in there was the little hot tub in the middle -woohoo sexay! We went out nearly every night. Each one a different experience. But like Vegas, what happens in NY, stays in NY! So as courtesy to my girls, I think I'll have to leave it at that. ;) (oh stop, I'm a married woman!)

Ray's Pizza. This was our last stop nearly every night. Lele (Leslie), lovingly nicknamed it Ray-Ray's. They had tasty pizzas and fantastic garlic balls (perfect for a late-night snack!). The fellas running the place were an odd bunch -but fun nevertheless. There was one young fella in particular we adored. A charismatic, "barely legal" (teehee) boy named Kimi. This place became our regular late-night stop. I think we had him trained pretty well too. He is known to be totally stingy with the ranch sauce (many people who visited that place probably never even KNEW they had ranch sauce!) but by the 2nd visit, as soon as we came in, he would quickly scurry to the back and grab us TWO ranch dippers! Haha good times.. and delicious ranch-dipped garlic balls! (ahhh yes, it's the little things in life...)

Favoritest part of the trip. With all the great, exciting things we did on this trip, it's tempting to try to decide which one was my favorite. I would seem obvious to say MoMA or maybe the Daily Show, but as I sit here, finishing up this "novel," I have come to realize that the best parts never left the hotel room. Just the four of us, eating, boozing, and joking around -while getting ready for a night on the town, to the rythmn of whatever was on the radio- were hands down, the best parts of the entire trip.

Well, that's a wrap for this episode!

Thank you guys for keeping up with my silly life by reading these gramatical nightmares!

Much love,
em