New York Day (Part one - Black snot)

Now that I have your attention....

My morning started a bit frustratedly. The hostel had mucked up my booking, and have had to switch room mid-stay. It's not a huge problem, but there are better ways to spend a morning than packing and re-packing my bags (they won't give you the key to the new room until you completely leave the old one). This proved to be fine practice for my day, as all the tourist sites I visited meant my bags and I were searched quite thoroughly quite often....

First Stop: Empire State Building
There were masses of empty roped lines just waiting for tacky tourists like me. Fortunately, most of them were probably still having breakfast, as I breezed through in about ten minutes. It takes three elevator rides to get to the top, and then just after your ears pop, you're there. I had forked out for the audio tour, and I am glad I did - it was handy to know where one was looking.

The EBS is very impressive, not least because only five people died during its construction - the project managers had calculated on 100 or so fatalities. One person had their head chopped off when they looked in the elevator shaft to see when it would be there .... and it arrived. Ick.

After that I wandered to Little Korea to a restaurant called Kang Suh that I read about in the New York Times way back in May. I had come for a speciality called Naeng Myun - which is essentially cold thin noodles with hard boiled egg and sliced beef. I was also given kimchi, achar pickles, broth and choy to accompany. I either looked confused or was taking too long - as someone came over to chop it all up, add hot sauce and vinegar and show me how to eat it. It was pretty good - but there was about a litre of noodles, and there are only so many of them one can eat cold!

I lingered for a good forty minutes thinking how lucky I am to be alive and love my trip (etc), and then my nose started running from the heat of the food... That is when I discovered the pollution had made my nose run grey. Ick. But my mother won't want to read any more about that, so I'll change the subject...

Actually, I will have to leave the subject change for a completely new chapter. I am running out of minutes on my blog.....

Next: My afternoon at MoMA, Times Square and a New York Thunderstorm....