Trip 5: Day 3 (Done with Walking; Amtrak)

The last day with NYC, it's almost as if the city had sensed my mood and decided to try its best to rectify the situation. Day 3 was sunny, warm in the afternoon, not windy at all, and just generally beautiful. I got coffee and a bagel and watched the ferries on the Hudson, forgetting my camera maybe subconsciously, as it gave me a chance to focus on the scene and not how I think the scene should be framed. It was quiet. There was an older Chinese woman with me at Pier 84, watching the water in between stretches and vague tai qi, while a man did push-ups in the grass next to his bicycle, both when I entered and when I left the front of the pier. If there's one thing I'll give New York, it's that their public parks, and even public spaces, are very well-done and well-maintained. There are so many places to just sit and watch things go by. There seemed to be few people utilizing the spaces, but that could be just because it wasn't particularly nice weather for being outdoors.

Times Square was less interesting in the morning than it had been later in the day. I came to watch the tourists take pictures of billboards with their silly devices (seriously, stop taking pictures with your iPad, because you look stupid) and push their families into sticking to their unreasonable itineraries. I got to see a line of theater-hopefuls as it slowly moved up and around the corner to the TKTS window, a tour of Taiwanese, and a whole lot of French people. In fact, if there's one particular nationality that I at least noticed most while in New York, it was the French. There were some in my hotel, but I would run across them on the street all the time. Though people in New York smoke way too much, the French never seemed to be smoking, just trying to move through traffic and follow their fold-out maps. One asked me (I get asked for directions a lot in tourist areas) where a pharmacy was as they crossed 8th Avenue with me. I looked up and saw a Duane Reed, and pointed them to it. You're never far from any particular way to spend money in New York. And that includes chain restaurants. Potbelly and Chipotle seemed to be everywhere, and I would see people with bags from these places constantly. Maybe it's just that those are the few places that actually brand their bags, so that's what I noticed when walking around. Or maybe that's really what people end up eating most of the time. That and ready-made food from those little markets that are everywhere. But that's not too bad of an option.

Soup dumplings at Shanghai Cafe on Mott Street

A better option though is soup dumplings. If you've never had the "xiao long bao" Shanghai specialty, then you should look it up the next time you're in a city with a large Chinese population, as there's sure to be some place that at least attempts it. New York only had a few, one of which was highly-rated on Yelp but sat in Chinatown, quite a subway ride from where I was. I got there right around noon, but the place was not very crowded, which surprised me, though I guess there are certainly enough places in Chinatown for them to absorb the crowds. The soup dumplings were not as good as those I've had in California and, of course, in Shanghai, but they were decent and relatively cheap: $5 for an order of 8. By the end of my Chinese lunch, it had gotten very warm. I walked down to the East River underneath the Manhattan Bridge and sat for a few minutes, though I had to keep my sweatshirt on for fear of sunburn.

Manhattan Bridge from Pike Street

As I started walking back through the Lower East Side housing projects, I realized that I was totally done with walking. I don't know how much I walked over these three days, but it had to be close to 20 miles. Maybe wearing new shoes wasn't a great idea. I probably should have worn them more before coming. The first day, something had been off with my socks, and I got a small blister. As I kept walking, the blister rubbed against the shoes and just got worse. Now, as I made my way back to the subway, it was awful. I was done with walking and, even though I discovered that the subway had stolen another $2.50 from me (I don't know how this happened), I couldn't have walked back uptown if I had wanted to.

Penn Station is a massive structure, housing Amtrak, the Long Island Railroad and New Jersey Transit. LIRR is separated out, and there are lots of signs for it, while NJT and Amtrak are toward the back. A downed wire near Baltimore had cut off service to DC, and a train to Boston was late (I only know because people were bitching so much), so the station was just overloaded, with no seating available. I bought an overpriced Coke and stumbled upon a spot by an escalator that led to a platform. As it so happened, this was the platform where my train would be.

What's funny with train service is that, even with the commuter service, they do not tell you very long beforehand the platform number on which your train will be. This leads to a horde of people standing at the front of the station and just staring at the monitors, waiting for the platform number to be shown. It's strange to see. Toronto's Union Station had the same thing. Once the platform is announced, people flat-out run. All this just to secure a slightly better seat. So I lucked out and got a window seat. Good thing too, because the train, possibly because of the cancellations to DC, was packed. The guy next to me was only a little obnoxious, but generally kept quiet and didn't smell bad. I wasn't prepared for a neighbor though, and had left my earphones in my bag above me. I had my laptop, but was so tired that I couldn't get any real work done, so I just laid on the window, half dozing and half watching the cold, dead wastes of New Jersey fly by.

In Philly, I had originally planned on taking the subway as close as I could get to the hotel. Philly has terrible transit though, for the most part. I mean, the train systems don't really connect, the main transit center is a mile from the center of the city, transfers are complicated, and the ticketing system changes all the time. The fare for anything is $2.25, but you either have to have exact change, tokens, or a ticket. No credit cards, unlike in every other major city. The problem is that you will never find a working change machine at any SEPTA station, even though most have them. I only had a $5, so I would have had to buy $5 in tokens for one ride. I tried to do this on my last visit to Philly, and it just spat out 5 Sacajawea coins, causing me to give up. So I just walked the 1.5 miles. It was rough. Luckily, you can see City Hall from the 30th Street Station, so it looked a lot closer than it was and kept me going.

But so happy to reunite with Heather and to have a nice, comfortable bed in which to sleep. I was in bed by 8pm and asleep before 10.