random day trip
I had a nice day out today. Got up, went into Manhattan, had a bowl of pho for lunch at Pho 32, went across the river to Brooklyn (after rather more hilarity than I expected; I always forget how much maintenance the MTA does on the weekends and doesn't really go out of its way to tell you about), and visited the Transit Museum, which was much more fun than I expected, even being the gigantic train nerd that I am.
The highlight of the museum was, of course, the old subway cars on the lower level (the museum is a converted subway station and is still live and tied into the rest of the system) - I need to upload the photos of the old ads in the cars that I took, which range from hilarious ("Protect your country from the forces of International Communism! Join the Civil Defense Corps!") to slightly disturbing ("Every Woman Will Eventually Vote - For Gold Dust"). And apparently eighty-four out of a hundred women prefer a man who wears a hat.
Other neat bits from the museum: at the end of the lower-level platform, there's a control tower that's still hooked into the system, with a board that you can watch trains moving around on. I realize that I'm being a five-year-old here, but it was cool. The normal exhibits were interesting, including one on the workers who built the system in the first place that touched on race and labor issues more than I thought it would.
After the museum, I stopped into a bookstore to have a coffee and replenish my stock of reading material, as I'll be damned if I spend an hour getting somewhere to only do one thing once getting there. Shared a table at the cafe with a gentleman who turned out to be a math teacher at a local school; the two of us ended up helping a young mother at another table with her algebra homework while her friend at her table calmed her over-excited child. It was a bit of a touching moment.
I had dinner (mmm, yaki ika) and a beer at the izakaya (named "Yakitori Taisho", I believe) on St. Mark's Place that pvx0 has raved to me about before; it was as good as he promised. Said place (well, a photo of it) was featured in the New York Times recently as part of a story on a subculture of Japanese expats who frequent the area; strange coincidence.
I haven't been looking at craigslist for places to live hard enough. I think I need to set some deadline for me to be moved out by that's closer than "the end of the year"; I'm really missing out by not living in New York proper.
The highlight of the museum was, of course, the old subway cars on the lower level (the museum is a converted subway station and is still live and tied into the rest of the system) - I need to upload the photos of the old ads in the cars that I took, which range from hilarious ("Protect your country from the forces of International Communism! Join the Civil Defense Corps!") to slightly disturbing ("Every Woman Will Eventually Vote - For Gold Dust"). And apparently eighty-four out of a hundred women prefer a man who wears a hat.
Other neat bits from the museum: at the end of the lower-level platform, there's a control tower that's still hooked into the system, with a board that you can watch trains moving around on. I realize that I'm being a five-year-old here, but it was cool. The normal exhibits were interesting, including one on the workers who built the system in the first place that touched on race and labor issues more than I thought it would.
After the museum, I stopped into a bookstore to have a coffee and replenish my stock of reading material, as I'll be damned if I spend an hour getting somewhere to only do one thing once getting there. Shared a table at the cafe with a gentleman who turned out to be a math teacher at a local school; the two of us ended up helping a young mother at another table with her algebra homework while her friend at her table calmed her over-excited child. It was a bit of a touching moment.
I had dinner (mmm, yaki ika) and a beer at the izakaya (named "Yakitori Taisho", I believe) on St. Mark's Place that pvx0 has raved to me about before; it was as good as he promised. Said place (well, a photo of it) was featured in the New York Times recently as part of a story on a subculture of Japanese expats who frequent the area; strange coincidence.
I haven't been looking at craigslist for places to live hard enough. I think I need to set some deadline for me to be moved out by that's closer than "the end of the year"; I'm really missing out by not living in New York proper.