Monday, 21 Sep
New York is a fascinating place but to visit Walmart we had to travel New Jersey as NY refused to have the store in their area. Walmart's just a Coles/Target combined. I really enjoyed looking at a social makeup of the store and every other retail business that didn't try and sell clothes for $300+ per item. Not a single Caucasian. Latino, Asian, Indian, and African are all there but I can't recall a single white person.
Everytime we smell, taste or hear something new, we call it 'Freedom'. "What's that smell?" as we pass by a manhole. 'Freedom'. "What does that taste like?' when we're trying something new for a meal. 'Freedom'.
Apologies for any rant path I may go down here.
As I was slowly getting use to the new time zone, I was up early in the mornings using the hotels internet which is in reception. I had an interesting conversation with one of the shift workers. He's an Indian student doing a degree in computer crypto or something. I was able to ask him about work hours, rate of pay and rent costs. As a general rule, whatever is for sale for US$1 you can buy in Australia for $1.
Being paid $10/hour is the norm here. There has been a fair bit of push back from bosses but the norm is still the norm. Bosses will only work you 40 hours a week because they will have to pay overtime, so many people have 2 jobs to make ends meet.
Rent is at least $1,200 a month ($300/week) maybe as high as $3,500. Just doing the math for a minimum wage earner is just depressing, leaving only $100 a week for everything else if they have only one job.
After Walmart, the girls went home and visited the Morgan Library as I had an appointment in the reading room to view the Maciejowski Bible. Unfortunately, it wasn't the original as it was being prepped for a exhibition in Atlanta but the copy they had was amazing. It felt like the original with the pages being made of parchment and the use of gold leaf. I've handled a few reproductions of it before but not in this detail.
Afterwards, I roamed around Grand Central Station to enjoy the view. There were a few soldiers on duty there just watching everything. I asked one if this was special due to the Pope visiting this week but there has a been a military presence in many of the stations since 9/11. There probably is a general low-level threat but the military presence was poorly sited so I'm assuming it's more to reassure people that the Defence Force is here but also to be a bit scared because we have the Defence Force here.
Tuesday, 22 Sep
The morning took us around to the Statue of Liberty (or 'the big Green Lady' by the girls) and Ellis Island where 12 million people passed through to enter the US. You can't help but feel overwhelmed by the propaganda surrounding the islands. I lost track of how many times the words 'Liberty' and 'Freedom' were used. As a person not indoctrinated by this sort of patriotism, it makes you question what those words mean anymore when you compare them to the actual issues the US citizens face.
Strangely, there were 2 SWAT members walking around as individuals on Liberty Island. I thought the Statue of Liberty would have a greater security presence than a train station but obviously not.
Regardless, 2 beautiful islands. We were thinking about visiting something else but that seemed enough for the day.
Wednesday, 23 Sep
Coney Island! Apart from the famed amusement park the biggest attraction was due to 2 songs by The Drifters 'Under the Boardwalk' and 'Sand in my Shoes' (the sequel song). The boardwalk was very quite in the morning and none of the rides were going as it wasn't a holiday period and a weekday.
We then traveled back to Manhattan and visited the 9/11 Memorial which is 2 large pools where the building were. There was quite a lineup for the museum/memorial. You can still see the raw emotion on the people who visit.
Without being too harsh, 9/11 seems to culminating point of the US policy of world management. I don't believe the Taliban thought hard enough about the repercussions of their actions either.
We also visited Times Square which was just fantastic. Dee was overjoyed to see the Naked Cowboy singing.
Thursday, 24 Sep
To Harlem and the Bronx with the added objectives of finding a Chuck E Cheese for Gene and Lane Bryant for Dee.
Harlem was great. So much has been said about the place with such negative connotations. It may have been that was but not now. Dee was overjoyed to find shops that had reasonable prices.
Chuck E Cheese is a kid's amusement centre with many options of fat, sugar and carbs. Gene has been in love with a game called 'Five nights at Freddy's' (or more more to the point some cute guy who plays the game then you tubes him playing the game). The game is based on Chuck E Cheese apparently.
We had no idea about what to see in the Bronx, so we picked one station, got out and looked about. We saw a castle and a fire engine.
We did plan to go to a jazz club that night but Dee piked so we watched '2 Broke Girls' for a few hours instead.
Friday, 25 Sep
The day has come to go home. I would rather keep on travelling but we don't have the holidays or money to keep on going. I think the girls are really looking forward to getting back.
As a farewell at 6.30 this morning, the fire alarm went off as I writing this blog. One of the people burnt the toast and the building had to be evacuated. Of course Dee and Gene didn't come down. Dee rang reception and Gene just slept through it. I was accused of not coming up the stairs to save them but there wasn't a fire for me to save them from. If I had come up, it was because the place was on fire.
Anyway, our flight is at 6.30pm so we'll leave the hotel at 3.30pm. We have to check out at 11am, so that gives us a few hours for us to kill somewhere in NY. Dee wants to visit 'somewhere' to go 'someplace' that has cheap clothes. I can see that this will end badly.
:)
New York is a fascinating place but to visit Walmart we had to travel New Jersey as NY refused to have the store in their area. Walmart's just a Coles/Target combined. I really enjoyed looking at a social makeup of the store and every other retail business that didn't try and sell clothes for $300+ per item. Not a single Caucasian. Latino, Asian, Indian, and African are all there but I can't recall a single white person.
Everytime we smell, taste or hear something new, we call it 'Freedom'. "What's that smell?" as we pass by a manhole. 'Freedom'. "What does that taste like?' when we're trying something new for a meal. 'Freedom'.
Apologies for any rant path I may go down here.
As I was slowly getting use to the new time zone, I was up early in the mornings using the hotels internet which is in reception. I had an interesting conversation with one of the shift workers. He's an Indian student doing a degree in computer crypto or something. I was able to ask him about work hours, rate of pay and rent costs. As a general rule, whatever is for sale for US$1 you can buy in Australia for $1.
Being paid $10/hour is the norm here. There has been a fair bit of push back from bosses but the norm is still the norm. Bosses will only work you 40 hours a week because they will have to pay overtime, so many people have 2 jobs to make ends meet.
Rent is at least $1,200 a month ($300/week) maybe as high as $3,500. Just doing the math for a minimum wage earner is just depressing, leaving only $100 a week for everything else if they have only one job.
After Walmart, the girls went home and visited the Morgan Library as I had an appointment in the reading room to view the Maciejowski Bible. Unfortunately, it wasn't the original as it was being prepped for a exhibition in Atlanta but the copy they had was amazing. It felt like the original with the pages being made of parchment and the use of gold leaf. I've handled a few reproductions of it before but not in this detail.
Afterwards, I roamed around Grand Central Station to enjoy the view. There were a few soldiers on duty there just watching everything. I asked one if this was special due to the Pope visiting this week but there has a been a military presence in many of the stations since 9/11. There probably is a general low-level threat but the military presence was poorly sited so I'm assuming it's more to reassure people that the Defence Force is here but also to be a bit scared because we have the Defence Force here.
Tuesday, 22 Sep
The morning took us around to the Statue of Liberty (or 'the big Green Lady' by the girls) and Ellis Island where 12 million people passed through to enter the US. You can't help but feel overwhelmed by the propaganda surrounding the islands. I lost track of how many times the words 'Liberty' and 'Freedom' were used. As a person not indoctrinated by this sort of patriotism, it makes you question what those words mean anymore when you compare them to the actual issues the US citizens face.
Strangely, there were 2 SWAT members walking around as individuals on Liberty Island. I thought the Statue of Liberty would have a greater security presence than a train station but obviously not.
Regardless, 2 beautiful islands. We were thinking about visiting something else but that seemed enough for the day.
Wednesday, 23 Sep
Coney Island! Apart from the famed amusement park the biggest attraction was due to 2 songs by The Drifters 'Under the Boardwalk' and 'Sand in my Shoes' (the sequel song). The boardwalk was very quite in the morning and none of the rides were going as it wasn't a holiday period and a weekday.
We then traveled back to Manhattan and visited the 9/11 Memorial which is 2 large pools where the building were. There was quite a lineup for the museum/memorial. You can still see the raw emotion on the people who visit.
Without being too harsh, 9/11 seems to culminating point of the US policy of world management. I don't believe the Taliban thought hard enough about the repercussions of their actions either.
We also visited Times Square which was just fantastic. Dee was overjoyed to see the Naked Cowboy singing.
Thursday, 24 Sep
To Harlem and the Bronx with the added objectives of finding a Chuck E Cheese for Gene and Lane Bryant for Dee.
Harlem was great. So much has been said about the place with such negative connotations. It may have been that was but not now. Dee was overjoyed to find shops that had reasonable prices.
Chuck E Cheese is a kid's amusement centre with many options of fat, sugar and carbs. Gene has been in love with a game called 'Five nights at Freddy's' (or more more to the point some cute guy who plays the game then you tubes him playing the game). The game is based on Chuck E Cheese apparently.
We had no idea about what to see in the Bronx, so we picked one station, got out and looked about. We saw a castle and a fire engine.
We did plan to go to a jazz club that night but Dee piked so we watched '2 Broke Girls' for a few hours instead.
Friday, 25 Sep
The day has come to go home. I would rather keep on travelling but we don't have the holidays or money to keep on going. I think the girls are really looking forward to getting back.
As a farewell at 6.30 this morning, the fire alarm went off as I writing this blog. One of the people burnt the toast and the building had to be evacuated. Of course Dee and Gene didn't come down. Dee rang reception and Gene just slept through it. I was accused of not coming up the stairs to save them but there wasn't a fire for me to save them from. If I had come up, it was because the place was on fire.
Anyway, our flight is at 6.30pm so we'll leave the hotel at 3.30pm. We have to check out at 11am, so that gives us a few hours for us to kill somewhere in NY. Dee wants to visit 'somewhere' to go 'someplace' that has cheap clothes. I can see that this will end badly.
:)
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