Monday, February 18, 2013

Times Square & Chinatown

Today marks the first time I've had off of work on President's Day since high school, so while this weekend is three days long instead of the standard two, I'm just taking the extra day to relax. It's lovely.

Saturday I got more visitors from Michigan! My mom and stepdad stopped by and got to see my apartment. After breakfast (more bagels!) and the "grand tour," we headed down to Times Square for some tourist-y entertainment. We had lunch at the homage to Forrest Gump, Bubba Gump Shrimp Company.


We had tickets for both exhibitions just around the corner at Discovery Times Square - Harry Potter and Spy: The Secret World of Espionage. We'd just missed the Phelps brothers' autograph session, but it was probably for the best because it wasn't crowded. (They play the Weasley twins in the movies.) We first took in the spy exhibit, and while it was awesome, it was soooo long. We were in there for close to 3 hours. And, unfortunately, it was a no-photos-allowed exhibit, maybe because of all the "top secret" stuff we got to see.

The only picture I was able to sneak in, ironically
After an exhaustive (and exhausting) spy tour, it was time for Harry Potter. Primarily visual, there was a lot less reading and it took us less than an hour to get through. Of the two, this is the one I enjoyed the most. It was really cool to see the actual props and costumes that were used to make the movies. Having the opportunity to act in those movies or even be on set must have been quite an experience. Again, no pictures, but I took this in the gift shop (mostly for Nora).

Four Hedwigs, wearing hats from the four Hogwarts houses
On Sunday, with my mom and stepdad back on their way to Michigan, Steve and I took a trip to Chinatown to celebrate the Lunar New Year with the parade. It started at 1, but since we couldn't get there until after 12:30, we took position towards the end of the parade route. I'd worn layers but maybe not enough - it was freezing! The parade showed up sometime around 2.

Our spot


The parade wasn't everything I thought it would be, but perhaps that was due to our location. We were near a few people visiting from Virginia who said they come to NYC every year at this time just to see the parade. So, either they're very hard up for parade entertainment, or it's usually better or it's just better closer to Mott St. where it starts. The red dragons (above) were the highlight of the parade for me.

Then, wholly unprepared, Steve and I plunged headfirst into our first dim sum experience. We walked over to Jing Fong on Elizabeth and it was completely packed.

Lobby @ Jing Fong

We actually only ended up waiting for about 15 minutes before we got a table, which I thought was a minor miracle, but it just turns out the dining room upstairs is humungous. Not knowing anything about dim sum or any of the Chinese language, we were a bit out of our element. We were seated at a table with a party of 3 before our waiter came over with tea pots and cups for all. No sooner had he set down our empty plates than we were greeted by a server with a cart of unfamiliar-looking food whose names we didn't know and couldn't understand. We accepted a few different kinds of dumplings (I think they were seafood, pork and veggie) and dove in. On other rounds, we picked up shrimp noodles (basically just shrimp in noodles), an unknown kind of meat that we couldn't figure out how to eat (our best guess was frog legs), an egg-tasting roll-up of sorts, and then another mystery or two. I'd guess that the whole dim sum experience is probably better with someone who either knows what's going on or with servers who are able to communicate to you what it is that you're eating. I'm not in a rush to go back, but that's not to say I'll never take the plunge again. 

Year of the Snake here we come!

1 comment:

  1. The exhibits were really good, I have to agree that I wish the Harry Potter one would've been a bit longer lasting. It was really neat to see all the costumes and props that they had on display.

    At least they had small dragons in the parade - I was hoping that you would see one of the big ones as those are really neat.
    We have a dim sum restaurant about 45 mins away from home that we are wanting to try out. Maybe we can go on your next trip home.

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