New York!: Part 2

Wow. My mind has been inundated with so much stuff over the last couple days that it doesn't quite know how to comprehend it all. I'm going to try, though. I took over 150 pictures with my iPhone. I'm not gonna put them all up here obviously, but I've been really impressed with the iPhone's camera. There's only been a couple of times where it wasn't quite good enough for the shot I wanted, but overall, I got a lot of fantastic photos, and I think you'll agree. So without further ado, here's my second day in the Empire State.

We got up at around 8, got ready, and headed into the city around 9. I got a better look at the Statue of Liberty and the New York skyline on the ferry over, and I gotta say, we couldn't have had better weather. It was incredible. Sunny, warm; just great.

We took a couple more trains 'till we arrived at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. There were some cool street vendors outside, one of which was selling this really neat fork artwork, where he'd taken different shaped and colored forks and bent them into different shapes (there was a frog, a rocketship, and other things). We moved on inside.

The first exhibit we went to was the ancient Egypt exhibit, which was great. There were hundreds of artifacts and sculptures and pieces of tombs, mainly from the Old Kingdom of Egypt. They even had an entire tomb surrounded by a little moat in one room. After that we moved onto the ancient Japanese art, which was also really cool. Scrolls and tapestries, a few sculptures, and lots of paintings.

Those being the two exhibits we really wanted to see, as well as being pressed for time, we poked around a little bit more then moved on to none other than the Empire State Building. And yeah, it's huge. You can't really get a sense of how big it is without actually seeing it in person. And of course, we went inside.

It's kind of a rip because you have to pay $20 to get to the 86th floor Observatory. To get to the 102nd, you have to pay an additional $15. We decided that 86 stories up was good enough for us. And it really was. It was a really cool and interesting phenomenon to be so high above everything, especially in such a dense city. I got some great photos (and even a little video).

Next on the agenda was a little lunch a la Wendy's (it was quick and cheap), then on to 30 Rockefeller Plaza for Jimmy Fallon. On the way, in the subway, we ran into some street performers, including a Michael Jackson impersonator. He had a boombox blaring MJ tunes, backup dancers, and he was wearing the iconic red leather jacket. It was actually quitge impressive how good the guy was. Even did a great moonwalk. When the show ended, we caught our train to Fallon.

They were actually really professional about it. We got there around 3:15, they processed us in about 10 minutes (if that), then told us to be back there at 4 (not a minute before). Also, while there, we randomly saw Kristen Schaal (you probably know her as Mel from the "Flight of the Conchords" TV show on HBO). With about half an hour too kill we figured we'd visit Nintendo World, which was a 3-minute walk from 30 Rock.

We got a little shopping done and killed some time before heading back at 4 for the show. We'd gotten there pretty early before (we were letter J), so we were guaranteed that position. They has us all line up in order (A-Z, then numbers), where we stood for about half an hour or so. At around 5 (our phones were off so my sense of time was a little fuzzy) they ushered us down the stairs, through metal detectors, up elevators, and into the studio. On our way in a woman handed us little cards with numbers on them, telling us some lucky audience member would win some big prize. My number was 30, Chelsea got 31 and Peter got 33. You'll see that significance in a minute.

We got our seats, and we actually had fantastic ones. We were the front row in the middle column, and I was all the way on the right side of it, right next to the aisle. Chelsea was next to me, then Peter next to her. After the audience was situated, a guy came out and started warming us up by cracking jokes and having fun with us. After about 20 minutes of that, the Roots (Fallon's show band) came out and started jamming something fierce. Their tuba player and bassist decided to race up and down the stairs, and the tuba player jumped to the ground. With his tuba. While playing it. Didn't even drop a note.

Then Fallon came out and the show started. He did his monologue then moved into a segment where he elected a President of the Audience by "randomly" selecting a numbered card. The number was 32. Yes, it should have been Peter. Yes, it was rigged. We saw them pull the guy out of line earlier, made him sign some forms, then whisk him away. Oh well, we weren't bitter.

The show continued on with the first guest being Chelsea Handler (of Chelsea Lately) who was kind of interesting. The best part about it was the fact that they did a 'martini race' game, where both Fallon and Handler had 60 seconds to make 3 martinis, run them around the audience, then pour whatever's left into a measuring cup. Whoever had the most left won. Well, on the home stretch, Jimmy slipped on a vodka spot and crashed into the little cart feet-first, cutting his hand in 5 places. It was surprising and (since he was fine) it was pretty funny. They kept harping on it, too, and the fact that they wrapped his hand in like five rolls of gauze helped add to the comedy.

The second guest was Matt Walsh (The Hangover), promoting his new show, "Players". He was a pretty funny, interesting guest, but the best part was the musical guests: none other than the Allman Brothers Band. They played "Whipping Post". And they completely rocked it. It was spectacular. They also played another song afterward for the audience. It was great.

After Fallon, we had reservations at a local restaurant called NINJA. It's pretty fancy, but completely worth it. First, they take you down (it's underground) in an elevator. A ninja pops out and tries to scare you when the doors open, but our guy wasn't extremely convincing. From there, you can either take the shortcut to your table, or take the 'Ninja Path', which is just a narrow, winding corridor where ninjas are supposed to jump out at you, although we didn't get any of that.

The tables are in their own little private rooms, basically, with carved wooden panels for doors. You're never completely closed off, but it's enough to have privacy. It's dark, everything's very Japanese and mysterious. Your ninja then comes and takes out a scroll, which she opens to reveal your menus. Now, the menu here is not exactly cheap, but you have the option of getting things a la carte, or getting one of the meal plans. Never having been there before, I went with a 5-course plan.

The first course were these shrimp rolls. They had some type of meat shell, with a shrimp puree inside, served with some fresh veggies, and the whole thing was lit on fire. It was good. Second course were basically California rolls, but they were better than your average rolls. There were a couple that had this delicious ginger sauce in them, and those were great. Third course was grilled salmon in a type of tomato-y sauce with a baked potato and cauliflower. This was excellent. Fourth course was a brisket cooked inside of an onion, served with some leafy greens and some interesting little red berries that were actually quite good. I didn't really eat the onion, but the dish was good. And finally, dessert. I got this ninja star dessert, which was a chocolate mousse-type cake in the shape of a ninja star, covered in a chocolate shell, with some edible gold flakes on top. It was delicious.

There was also a magician that came around near the end of the meal and performed a couple tricks for us, and he was really good. He also had an incredibly curly, Shakespearian mustache; so impressive that it deserved to be written about.

After NINJA, we decided to walk around Times Square, which certainly is a sight, especially at night. All the lights, the noise, the volume of people, the amount of things going on; it's a very cool place to walk around. There's also different types of street performers. We ran into Spiderman, who was running around taking pictures with people.

Then we went home and watched ourselves on Jimmy Fallon (the episode for March 9th, 2010). I was visible 5 times, Chelsea 4, and Peter 3. Go on and watch it on Hulu (it disappears in a couple weeks or so) to see if you can spot us.

All in all, it was a huge day, completely jam-packed, exhausting, and amazing. Such an incredible experience to be walking around in such a richly cultured area, so small yet so much going on everywhere. We spent almost 14 hours in the city that day, and we managed to get everything done that was on our to-do list.

Again, thank you for reading (I know it's long), look for the third and final post about my experiences in New York in the next day or two. Leave a comment.

-Micah