The City So Nice, They Named it Twice

This morning I got up and left right away to go to midtown. I walked all the way through central park from north to south. I saw the Trump Tower. I went to the top of the Empire State Building, but only found it by chance. I was walking south on 8th ave and saw the Madison Square Garden and knew that it was on the same street as the Empire State Building. It cost $18 to go up. There was no line at all, and the wait for the elevator was very short. Shorter than waiting for the elevator here at the hostel and there are only 4 floors here. The view is good, the ESB is much taller than anything else in the city. I took lots of pictures.

I bought some new shoes and almost lost them twice before I even made it back to the hostel. First when I was going through security at the emipire state building. Then I stopped at a Burger king with an internet cafe for 5 minutes and left them under the computer. I made it four blocks before I realised that I didn't have my shoes. I ran all the way back and luckily they were still there. I went to a camera super store called B&H Photo and looked at all their stuff. It was pretty interesting.

I caught a subway back to the hostel after lunch, two slices of cheese pizza and a coke for $3. What a deal. Pizza by the slice seems to be the way to go. I downloaded my pictures, but was so tired from the walk that I didn't even look at them all and had to take a nap.

I probably shouldn't have had the nap because I woke up at about 8:30pm. I got my stuff to go out and when I got to the lobby I was ushered into the commen room to see the comedy show. The comedians were hit and miss for the most part. Some were sort of funny but it was a tough crowd. I don't think the comedians were actual professionals, but were mostly working on their acts. The international crowd didn't help much. Some crazy chinese guy just wouldn't stop asking the comedians questions. I don't know if he thought he was helping them or what but it was really bugging them. He went on and on right from the start of the night. Not many people were laughing except for me and some girl from Seattle. I was really cracking up a few times, but I don't think anyone else was. Laughing really ingraciates you to the comedians and so they didn't talk to me much. Which was good. The last guy was really rude. Really rude, and not very funny. I don't think he even did much if any of his material. Half of the crowd left before his show was even 1/4 of the way done. It is too bad he had to be that way because it seemed that he could be really funny if he had half a chance. Overall, it was a tough crowd because half of them were ESL and I don't think that many of the native english speakers understood a lot of the jokes. I got the feeling that they were beginner comedians and were mostly looking for a crowd to practice their acts. I've been to worse shows, but only one.

New York is a lot like a cross between Sydney and Hong Kong. It seems like the people are always looking to make a buck, working hard or hustling like in Hong Kong, but the buildings seem more like Sydney. The main difference is that there is much more cultural diversity here in New York. As cosmopolitan as Hong Kong and Sydney are, they don't hold a candle to New York when it comes to variety of people. In fact, all of the major world cities that I have been to are fairly homogenous. Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Sydney all don't seem like they have any variety of people at all. I think Tracie would love living here because of that. It seems like you can get anything you want here. I am really enjoying it here, but it would be better if I was travelling with someone.