We're in Chicago on the ground now hanging out with our cool new friend Andrew, but here's a recap on yesterday I wrote earlier today...
New York has been a blast. Sitting here at the airport about to hop on a flight to Chicago, I almost don’t want to leave. We saw so much in our 4 days but if we’d had some more time, I think we could have seen so much more. New York is a city that bleeds so much culture that it’s hard to explain. You really don’t come to terms with how amazing of a place it is until you’ve been there on the ground and experienced it for yourself. There’s so much character in every street, everywhere you turn there is a cool building, a cool store, a cool person or a cool, unique situation going down. I’m not sure what it’s like to live there because the magic may wear off in time, but at least as a holiday location, it’s the coolest place in the world.
Here’s a recap of our last day in New York: (written on our flight from NY to Chicago)
The plan for today was to head over the Manhattan Bridge to Brooklyn, walk back over the Brooklyn Bridge, head to China Town for lunch, maybe get tattooed at NYHC tattoo and then eat at Red Bamboo again for dinner. Here’s how it all panned out…
Over the last couple of days my Vans pretty much shat themselves. The back half of the sole on my right foot was half hanging off. They felt fine to walk in, but I probably looked like an absolute idiot. I guess it serves me right for taking one of my oldest pairs of shoes as my only pair when I travel halfway across the world.
Anyway, our first port of call for the morning was a shoe store in Union Square so hopefully I could get myself some new kicks. We stopped at a café for breakfast on the way. I devoured some cool cake loaf thing, some chocolate soy milk that wasn’t that nice and a vegetable omelette wrap that also wasn’t too stunning. Oh well. We ate breakfast, Sean and Grono got massive coffees and we left. It was a pretty cold day today as well so I think they were glad for the warmth.
The 2 shoe stores in Union Square didn’t yield much success for me. They had a buy one get one for half price sale which worked out well for me because I was looking at getting 2 pairs (one for my younger sister back home and one for myself) but it all came crashing down when at one store I found a rad pair for my sister but nothing for myself and at the other store Sean was going to buy a pair of New Balance sneakers, but I couldn’t find a pair of myself or my sister. Gah.
We then hopped on the subway to head over to Brooklyn. We caught one of the subway lines that went over the Manhattan Bridge (as opposed to going through tunnels under the river) so we could get a rad view of the Brooklyn Bridge downstream as we went past. We hopped off the train at the first stop after the bridge so we could trek down to the river side so Sean could check out the famous BMX/skate spot known as the Brooklyn Banks. We only found out when we got down to the river that they’re actually on the Manhattan side of the river. (The name ‘Brooklyn Banks’ only relates to the fact that they’re under the Brooklyn Bridge) Oh well, it was cool to have a bit of a walk around. We saw some cool buildings and I saw a mini beach with a ‘Danger: No Swimming’ sign next to it haha.
The walk back over the Brooklyn Bridge was pretty rad. You get an amazing view of both Manhattan and Brooklyn and all the way out to Liberty Island and Jersey City. There’s some information about how they made the bridge along the way as well.
Upon returning to Manhattan, we found the Brooklyn Banks. Sean got pretty excited. I just thought about video games. Afterwards, we headed down to Chinatown to suss Vietnamese for lunch. Sean found another cool BMX spot on the way and then we got some food. I usually get noodles and make myself look like a retard when I eat Viet so I decided to forego noodles this time and just get rice. It turned out a lot better. The food was rad. We sussed a post office after to get some stamps for post cards (which I still haven’t sent, I’ll be home months before they even arrive and they’ll be postmarked Chicago. Oh well. I was planning to do it at night but we ended up staying out later than expected), looked at some cheap shit in some Chinatown stores (5 I heart NY shirts for $10US! ridiculous!) but didn’t buy anything.
We had nothing to do for a couple of hours before heading to NYHC to hopefully get tattooed around 5PM so we headed back to Union Square so I could once again try and get some vans. No luck. We headed home for a little while to dump some shit off and have a rest. I had plans to spend ages on the internet but then the wireless didn’t work. Oh well. Sat around for a bit, ate some chocolate, paid for some internet at the hostel and then we bailed to NYHC tattoo.
When Grant called the night before the lady working said she might have some time after 5PM tonight but it all worked out perfect when we got there because another tattooist happened to have turned up early for his appointment that night so he had some time to kill, meaning Grant, Sean and I were all able to get tattooed straight away. Grant got the unbroken lyric ‘my hands are open’ on his wrists (a phrase that will no doubt get 400000000000000000 comments like AHAHA WHAT ABOUT WHEN YOU CLOSE YOUR HANDS?!?!?!? From retards like me, but oh well), Sean got THE bars on his right leg I think and I got ‘hollow’ on my left wrist, a little tattoo I’d been wanting to get for a while but never had the time/money + I am a chicken. I thought my fear of needles would be an issue with tattooing but it wasn’t. It’s painful but I survived.
We ran into I guess the guy who runs NYHC promo company Black’n’Blue Productions at the parlour while we were there and he told us about a Murphy’s Law show in Soho tonight. Band on stage at 10PM. We saw the flier on B9 that arvo but decided to not bother so we could go out to dinner, but now that we found out we found go after dinner it seemed a bit more attractive so we decided to hit it up.
We headed back over to Greenwich Village, Sean dropped some zines off at Generation Records and we headed to Red Bamboo to have dinner. Grant and I both got the BBQ half ‘chicken’ and Sean got Mango ‘chicken’ with rice. It all looked amazing, tasted amazing and was generally just AMAZING. Probably the best restaurant in the world. I wish it was in Brisbane.
We then headed back toward NYHC tattoo to the trendy Soho district (where all the clothing stores we went to yesterday were) to see Murphy’s Law. It turns out they were playing at the release of a photo book that I guess chronicled the NY streets over the last however so many years. Pictures of guns, police, kids smoking etc. We rocked up at 9:30 and found out it was supposedly 21+ and their were a lot of kids sitting around outside who I don’t think were going to get in. Shitttttt. However, our new found Black’n’Blue Productions friend came to the rescue and we were allowed inside (and they didn’t check our IDs ^_^).
Murphy’s Law hit the stage just after 10PM. Stigma was in attendance and a lot of old NY moshing by old dudes was going down. I must confess that I have never really listened to Murphy’s Law and the idea of hardcore with a trumpet and a saxophone isn’t really my thing, but it was pretty cool. The band was loooooooose as, I don’t think they really gave a shit at all haha. A pretty cool send off to be seeing an old NYHC band in NY the night before we leave. We bailed just after they announced they had a couple of songs left and we got the subway home. I crashed out very soon after. Another massive day.
This morning was pretty boring so I won’t bother mentioning much. My bag is feeling pretty full, it wasn’t as cold as yesterday but it still wasn’t nice, Sean and I got angry at each other at the train station cause I’m a retard and lose my cool far too quickly, we got driven to the airport on a driverless train (a la Half-Life), ate Burger King chips for breakfast now here I am sitting on this plane. Hope Con, Indecision and Converge twice tonight. Crazy.
Chris GB listening to Morrissey and the Smiths on the mac on the plane in the 09. ‘Live at Earls Court’ is rad. I’m out.
will post pics soon I promise haha
New York has been a blast. Sitting here at the airport about to hop on a flight to Chicago, I almost don’t want to leave. We saw so much in our 4 days but if we’d had some more time, I think we could have seen so much more. New York is a city that bleeds so much culture that it’s hard to explain. You really don’t come to terms with how amazing of a place it is until you’ve been there on the ground and experienced it for yourself. There’s so much character in every street, everywhere you turn there is a cool building, a cool store, a cool person or a cool, unique situation going down. I’m not sure what it’s like to live there because the magic may wear off in time, but at least as a holiday location, it’s the coolest place in the world.
Here’s a recap of our last day in New York: (written on our flight from NY to Chicago)
The plan for today was to head over the Manhattan Bridge to Brooklyn, walk back over the Brooklyn Bridge, head to China Town for lunch, maybe get tattooed at NYHC tattoo and then eat at Red Bamboo again for dinner. Here’s how it all panned out…
Over the last couple of days my Vans pretty much shat themselves. The back half of the sole on my right foot was half hanging off. They felt fine to walk in, but I probably looked like an absolute idiot. I guess it serves me right for taking one of my oldest pairs of shoes as my only pair when I travel halfway across the world.
Anyway, our first port of call for the morning was a shoe store in Union Square so hopefully I could get myself some new kicks. We stopped at a café for breakfast on the way. I devoured some cool cake loaf thing, some chocolate soy milk that wasn’t that nice and a vegetable omelette wrap that also wasn’t too stunning. Oh well. We ate breakfast, Sean and Grono got massive coffees and we left. It was a pretty cold day today as well so I think they were glad for the warmth.
The 2 shoe stores in Union Square didn’t yield much success for me. They had a buy one get one for half price sale which worked out well for me because I was looking at getting 2 pairs (one for my younger sister back home and one for myself) but it all came crashing down when at one store I found a rad pair for my sister but nothing for myself and at the other store Sean was going to buy a pair of New Balance sneakers, but I couldn’t find a pair of myself or my sister. Gah.
We then hopped on the subway to head over to Brooklyn. We caught one of the subway lines that went over the Manhattan Bridge (as opposed to going through tunnels under the river) so we could get a rad view of the Brooklyn Bridge downstream as we went past. We hopped off the train at the first stop after the bridge so we could trek down to the river side so Sean could check out the famous BMX/skate spot known as the Brooklyn Banks. We only found out when we got down to the river that they’re actually on the Manhattan side of the river. (The name ‘Brooklyn Banks’ only relates to the fact that they’re under the Brooklyn Bridge) Oh well, it was cool to have a bit of a walk around. We saw some cool buildings and I saw a mini beach with a ‘Danger: No Swimming’ sign next to it haha.
The walk back over the Brooklyn Bridge was pretty rad. You get an amazing view of both Manhattan and Brooklyn and all the way out to Liberty Island and Jersey City. There’s some information about how they made the bridge along the way as well.
Upon returning to Manhattan, we found the Brooklyn Banks. Sean got pretty excited. I just thought about video games. Afterwards, we headed down to Chinatown to suss Vietnamese for lunch. Sean found another cool BMX spot on the way and then we got some food. I usually get noodles and make myself look like a retard when I eat Viet so I decided to forego noodles this time and just get rice. It turned out a lot better. The food was rad. We sussed a post office after to get some stamps for post cards (which I still haven’t sent, I’ll be home months before they even arrive and they’ll be postmarked Chicago. Oh well. I was planning to do it at night but we ended up staying out later than expected), looked at some cheap shit in some Chinatown stores (5 I heart NY shirts for $10US! ridiculous!) but didn’t buy anything.
We had nothing to do for a couple of hours before heading to NYHC to hopefully get tattooed around 5PM so we headed back to Union Square so I could once again try and get some vans. No luck. We headed home for a little while to dump some shit off and have a rest. I had plans to spend ages on the internet but then the wireless didn’t work. Oh well. Sat around for a bit, ate some chocolate, paid for some internet at the hostel and then we bailed to NYHC tattoo.
When Grant called the night before the lady working said she might have some time after 5PM tonight but it all worked out perfect when we got there because another tattooist happened to have turned up early for his appointment that night so he had some time to kill, meaning Grant, Sean and I were all able to get tattooed straight away. Grant got the unbroken lyric ‘my hands are open’ on his wrists (a phrase that will no doubt get 400000000000000000 comments like AHAHA WHAT ABOUT WHEN YOU CLOSE YOUR HANDS?!?!?!? From retards like me, but oh well), Sean got THE bars on his right leg I think and I got ‘hollow’ on my left wrist, a little tattoo I’d been wanting to get for a while but never had the time/money + I am a chicken. I thought my fear of needles would be an issue with tattooing but it wasn’t. It’s painful but I survived.
We ran into I guess the guy who runs NYHC promo company Black’n’Blue Productions at the parlour while we were there and he told us about a Murphy’s Law show in Soho tonight. Band on stage at 10PM. We saw the flier on B9 that arvo but decided to not bother so we could go out to dinner, but now that we found out we found go after dinner it seemed a bit more attractive so we decided to hit it up.
We headed back over to Greenwich Village, Sean dropped some zines off at Generation Records and we headed to Red Bamboo to have dinner. Grant and I both got the BBQ half ‘chicken’ and Sean got Mango ‘chicken’ with rice. It all looked amazing, tasted amazing and was generally just AMAZING. Probably the best restaurant in the world. I wish it was in Brisbane.
We then headed back toward NYHC tattoo to the trendy Soho district (where all the clothing stores we went to yesterday were) to see Murphy’s Law. It turns out they were playing at the release of a photo book that I guess chronicled the NY streets over the last however so many years. Pictures of guns, police, kids smoking etc. We rocked up at 9:30 and found out it was supposedly 21+ and their were a lot of kids sitting around outside who I don’t think were going to get in. Shitttttt. However, our new found Black’n’Blue Productions friend came to the rescue and we were allowed inside (and they didn’t check our IDs ^_^).
Murphy’s Law hit the stage just after 10PM. Stigma was in attendance and a lot of old NY moshing by old dudes was going down. I must confess that I have never really listened to Murphy’s Law and the idea of hardcore with a trumpet and a saxophone isn’t really my thing, but it was pretty cool. The band was loooooooose as, I don’t think they really gave a shit at all haha. A pretty cool send off to be seeing an old NYHC band in NY the night before we leave. We bailed just after they announced they had a couple of songs left and we got the subway home. I crashed out very soon after. Another massive day.
This morning was pretty boring so I won’t bother mentioning much. My bag is feeling pretty full, it wasn’t as cold as yesterday but it still wasn’t nice, Sean and I got angry at each other at the train station cause I’m a retard and lose my cool far too quickly, we got driven to the airport on a driverless train (a la Half-Life), ate Burger King chips for breakfast now here I am sitting on this plane. Hope Con, Indecision and Converge twice tonight. Crazy.
Chris GB listening to Morrissey and the Smiths on the mac on the plane in the 09. ‘Live at Earls Court’ is rad. I’m out.
will post pics soon I promise haha
1 comment:
So jealous that you visited the Brooklyn banks. Send me a postcard!
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