US Trip ‘07: NYC Downtown Loop Tour
May 27, 2007. We weren’t in New York City for very long. Just a day and a half, actually, to do the tourist essentials. It was quite surreal to be in New York for the first time. You know how one has never set foot in the place and yet his subconscious is saturated with its images from all the American entertainment and other such products he has consumed– from Spider-man to Superman to FRIENDS to many many other American sitcoms, films and literature. It can make one feel artificially enthralled and fulfilled.
After having a hearty Italian fast food lunch at Sbarro’s in Times Square, we crossed the street and lined up for the quintessential double decker bus tours.
We took the downtown loop tour which took us on a few-hour tour around Manhattan’s famed downtown from Times Square to The Empire State Building to the Flatiron building and Union Square shopping districts, to Soho, to Chinatown, to Lower East Side, to East Village, to Greenwich Village to Rockefeller Center, boy I don’t remember everything.
You know that weird feeling of artificial fulfillment persists. You’ve never been here before but you’ve seen and read these places so many times in your books, in your TV, in your theaters that they have long become familiar before you set foot and they become surreal once you do. It’s like your whole entertainment world has conspired to saturate you with images of New York City to make you feel special when you actually get there–when really, if not for all the mention in thousands of literature, what makes New York City that much different from other world megacities?
Oh, geez. I can’t help but to comment coz I’ve been there last vacation. At talagang puro pictures ang ginawa ko. Yes, it’s a fulfillment since I get to see the place I’ve read and seen on movies for REAL.
:d Nice pics.
oww..*envy*
i love the photos of the NY cabs..have u spotted any celeb in NY??
|May Harry Potter book ka na ba?
It’s fun exploring the Big Apple! Movies/TV indeed make a difference as to how you see the place. I took a stroll around Central Park too when I was there. Haha!
sabi na nga eh…. batang new york na!
[...] US Trip ‘07: NYC Downtown Loop Tour [...]
Legally Blonde: the Musical!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If you’ve seen that I’d kill you.
You won’t feel New York unless you:
1. Watch a Broadway Musical
2. (window)Shopped at 5th Avenue
3. Visited for a prolonged period of time your favourite “literature-drowned” New York City place (Empire State Building from Sleepless in Seattle, The Plaza for Eloise at the Plaza, Tiffany from Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Wall Street of … The Wall Street Journal? LoL… and my personal selection, The United Nations HQ from The Interpreter)
For me, NYC is iconic precisely because it’s a manifestation of popular urbanity. And Frank Sinatra is right “And if I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere…”