New York, New York
2/24/19 Sunny (this morning, I was listening to something about the Cancer research. I realized that people can have so much misunderstanding about very basic knowledge. A postdoc I knew once told me that a girl he had a date with does not believe the earth is round ?!?! so I decide to add this “1-min science” thing in front of my blog. Like going to a concert, it is common that there is an overture or prelude before the actual symphony, ha!)
1-min science. Human brain is not bigger than, e.g., the elephant’s brain, but we are smarter than elephants because the proportion of brain/body matters. Chimpanzees and humans have a similar size body and brain. But according to wiki, human beings have 86 billions of neurons and chimps have 28 billions of neurons. Running a brain consumes much energy, chewing raw food entire day cannot supply enough energy for human brain. It is the fire that makes cooking possible so we can more effectively absorb nutrition and keep our brain running.
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Lately, I malfunctioned a bit more than I supposed to. At some point, I have the illusions like “is this cold gonna stay forever?” “Am I taking the right pills (considering there are 5-6 bottles on my counter)” LOL—- totally, we should develop “Alexa” for personal medicine management: take instructions from pharmacist and dispense the right doses at the right time for you! My doctor said “I wish I can prescribe you a beach vacation”. “Ah, perfect!” I so quickly booked a ticket to NYC 🙂
Planning trips to NYC, the first thing is to check these wonderful theater venues. The Lincoln center is the home of the metropolitan opera, and the New York Philharmonic. Anytime you go, you can easily find good operas and classical music. The Met opera is just cool! I have not seen similar venues or qualities anywhere else (A violin player once told me that the operas in Vienna are much better. Man, I need to check that out). Each opera has beautiful costumes, wonderful voices, live classical music accompanies, and sometimes, interesting stories. It is often sung in different languages like Italian, but in the Lincoln center, there are screens on the back of your seats, and you can see live translations. The opera is long, typically starting at 7:30 pm and ending at10:30pm or after, and has two breaks. It is fun to go around during breaks., as the opera house is very nicely decorated and all the people are dressed up seriously. The opera house even offers dinners between the breaks. The ticket of each opera is very affordable, $30-40, if you don’t mind sitting far.
There are always interesting stories when I visit the Lincoln center. Last time, I sat besides a cute lady. She studied at the Columbia University long time ago and moved to San Juan to be a professor, Recently, she fell in love with tango after her husband died. She then came to NYC every year to dance Tango and watch opera. We had so much fun to talk. Then at the end, we both decided that “alright, let’s don’t leave our names and contacts to each other, see if we can meet again. Sort of romantic, lol. We also talked to a guy sat behind us, he lived in NYC many years and performed as very small characters at various shows, and he wrote poems when he is not acting. He was telling us about his book on Amazon during intermissions. NYC is never short of interesting persons!
Another top venue for classical music is Carnegie Hall. I think it is the home of the Julliard. I like their small concert halls for Piano recital, chamber music. There are top artists who perform this venue. For example, this year, there are Yujia Wang, Yoyo Ma and Mitsuko Uchida on the list.
Of course, when you come to NYC, you’ll need to visit the Broadway. It is less academic and I think everybody enjoys a broadshow. I like many of the dances in broadway shows. The stage and sing and live accompanies are also attractive to many people. There are many choices of broadway shows at any given time. TKTS located on the times square has the last minute tickets. It is typically cheaper (50+$) than you directly buy online or in the box office. But if there are popular shows you want to watch, you probably should not wait till TKTS. For example, if you look at tickets for Hamilton a month from today, it is 800$ with very limited choice of seats. It will be surely sold out when you arrive in NYC.
Beside shows, another important thing you’ll look into probably is “meals”. NYC has top Japanese food, mostly are located in the lower Manhattan and the east and west villages. “Cha’an” is the Japanese dessert place that you must visit because it is goodly “sweet” 😀 If you long for the Korean food, go to the Korean town located at 31-33 street. It has long waits, so please do not go at the normal dinner hours like noon or 6pm. The best Chinese food is not in Chinatown at Manhattan, but in Flushing. At Manhattan, I have been to “the Congee Village” which serves the authentic Cantonese food. I met my favorite comic drawing artist there, but i just peeked at her and did not disturb her, haha. There is also this famous restaurant called China Blue that serves the Shanghai food. I do not recommend it 🙂 In addition, Chelsea has some good casual seafood eats. Last but not least, don’t forget the famous katz deli, the New York piazza and many Michelin stars if you have more time at NYC!
+In terms of where to stay, I have lodged at different parts of Manhattan. If I go by myself, I typically stay at the lower Manhattan. It is near the Hudson river trail and the high line, you can do some fun runs there. There are many good restaurants and bars in the west and east villages. I like to go to the Small and the Duplex @ west village for live music at night (Columbus circle also has a very good jazz venue, but it costs 50+$). I also like this great Washington park so much. People sometimes perform piano there weekends.
If I go with the family, I typically live near the theater district, e.g., the Hell’s kitchen area, or near the museum mile and century park for easy accesses to the museums. Running in the central park is fun too, but I often get lost inside, lol. If it is Nov/Dec, you can also go to Saks at Fifth Avenue to see their Christmas Window shows at night. Unfortunately, a few independent book stores located near the museum miles are moved away. There is this beautiful book store called albertine. It is located right across the met, you shall visit. It sells mostly French books, but the bookstore is so beautiful and worths a visit.
Shopping — I like SOHO. In addition, I used to go to this Spanish brand Desigual, but my taste is moved to Uniqlo nowadays. When I first went to NYC in 2002, Brooklyn is nothing special, but I heard nowadays Williamsburg is cool. Hope to explore it sometime. BTW, walking over the Brooklyn bridge is fun too if you haven’t tried so!
