Virginia is for LOVERS...

23rd May 07 - New York City Day 3

Our first stop was the Museum of Natural History. I'm not a very museum-y kinda person. trust me, i get easily bored when in places like museums which is kinda surprising coz i love History.

Anyway you can never miss out on museums when touring, it's like an unsaid rule for tourists, juz like how u've to bring ur camera everywhere u go when touring. haha...

Museum of Natural History

this is the place where they filmed some parts of "Night at Museum". but dun get ur hopes up, coz we actually didnt see alot of things here, that was shown in the movie.

hugeass dino at the entrance to the museum

entrance fee was abt $14, but we had a student pass so we paid only $11. our student pass is actually the VCU (Virginia Commonwealth University) pass that Kings Dominion issued to us to enable us to enter our hostel anytime we want. so theoretically we shdnt be allowed to get any student discounts. but apparently no one knows abt that, so we've been getting discounted prices when booking greyhound and getting into places. haha...

River Valley rox!

and the animal exhibits that look so real, sometimes you forget that they're static.

and there was this lady at the entrance that was giving a talk about the different kind of skulls of the different animals...

me with the pig skull :: les with i-forgot-wat-animal skull

uncanny resemblance

the dinosaur exhibits were next, which occupied the largest amt of space in the museum...

at the dinosaur exhibits

instruments they used to observe the fossils

nothing much interesting abt it, exactly what you see on tv... the flying dinosaur is les's fav by the way.

we went into the souvenir shop near the exhibits. in US, the souvenirs are really expensive, as in REALLY expensive, no matter where you go. it's like one small little keychain that has the words "New York City" or its likes, will cost abt USD3.99. which is totally crazy.

and yet it feels so wrong not to buy any souvenirs home.

with the cute little dino in the shop

next is the primates section, which is the most interesting of all, coz they actually show things like the difference in brain size during evolution of homosapiens etc...

acting dumb tgt :: with the chimp

evolution of mankind

there was tons of artefacts and really weird looking exhibits lying all ard the museum. it's mostly abt the times before civilization of mankind.

and this is by far, my fav exhibits. everything made here is so intricate and tiny and detailed. totally reminds of Polly Pocket. haha...

okay well, not exactly like Polly Pocket, but u get the gist.

and more exhibits (lazy to describe them)...

after abt more than half a day at the museum, we juz walked along the streets of New York to Rockefeller Centre. it was seriously a long walk, but along the way we saw many interesting shops, that you'll nvr see in spore...

in the NBC shop

and we saw this on our way to the subway.

we eventually ended up at this really colourful shop, that was filled with candies and chocolates. it's kinda hard not to enter the shop, becoz every single thing inside screamed temptation.

on a side note, may i add that i can never understand how some girls can swear off chocolates totally just becoz they're on a diet. i think chocolates are by far, the best snacks ever invented in this world, with REESE's topping the list. wahahah...

so there u haf it, an M&Ms machine filled with M&Ms of all colours possible, and the most ginormous lollipops ever. i think they're bigger than my palm.

we reached Rockefeller Centre after a while. there was this brochure guide which you're supposed to follow while walking thru Rockefeller so that you wouldnt miss any interesting sights. but we gave up halfway on that coz it was kinda cumbersome.

it was kinda free and easy aft tat. haha...

John D. Rockefeller Jr and his words

At the center of Rockefeller Centre lies these really beautiful statues...

and one very distinct difference btw spore and US of A (or at least New York) is in New York, the America flags are everywhere! seriously, everywhere...

not only in central district like this, but even in small towns, you can see the america flags hanging from the restaurants and shops.

spore flag right next to the america flag :: full of 'em!

we passed by this really huge 2-storey nintendo shop, which made les so excited it was kinda cute to see him walking ard the shop with this stoopid grin on his face. wahhaha...

fooling ard in the shop

anyway les bought tat green yoshi for me!!!! haha, he's now sitting comfortably in les's dorm room.

the couple

other sights at Rockefeller

and an example of the freedom of speech in america.

try doin this in spore, i think they'll ban you from entering the country ever again. haaz.

the guy who owned the booth started to preach to us abt his anti-Bush sentiments, before we sort of rush away coz we were scared of getting into trouble.

and den somehow, we managed to find our way to this 'porn' street tucked snuggily at a corner of Manhattan. it was a street full of shops with peek booths, which are basically booths where you pay a certain amount of money and u juz sit inside and watched porn.

we entered out of curiosity, and trust me, there were much weird noises in the shop. and there was this shopkeeper who'll constantly go around checking the seats in the booths, for stains according to les.

one of the 'porn' shops

at nite was Yankees game. we took a huge risk taking the subway down to the Yankees stadium becoz we didnt manage to buy tickets at all. the game that nite was the last match btw the Yankees and the Red Sox, which were arch-rivals in the world of baseball.

Yankees is the New York team, and Red Sox is the Boston team by the way.

so all tickets were sold out, which made me supa upset. we were kinda desperate so we were juz hoping to get down to the stadium to buy fr the black market. and there were tons of ppl stationed outside the stadium looking really suspicious and holding pieces of papers in their hands that look like the Yankees tickets.

Subway station at Yankee Stadium

tickets fr the black market

as wat chang says, we must always do something illegal in every country wahhaha...

chang, ching, me :: before the match starts

the really interesting thing abt baseball matches in america, is they play really hip music during the game, so that even tho the game is kinda slow, you'll still be kept entertained constantly. and during breaks, there would actually be performances at the pitch. sounds kinda crazy, but it's true...

Derek Jeter, best player in the Yankees :: national athem during the game

and who the hell will give their son this name?!?!?!

Derek Jeter in action

he's terrific by the way. it's not hard to tell who's good and who's not in baseball, even tho i dun play the game and i've definitely nvr watched a proper baseball match before.

but if the person's able to bat far, and run thru more bases, then he's definitely good. and Derek Jeter is as good as the fans make him out to be.

Home Run!!! :: home run in japanese

the match ended on a good note, with Yankees winning the game by a leg. ambience in the stadium was on a high coz 90% of the spectators are Yankees fans.

the americans seriously love their baseball alot, the atmosphere during the game was really crazy, and you can see girls dancing to the music, and guys holding up their booze and yelling at the top of the voice.

the scoreboard at the end of the game!

before the game :: after the game