Last Week of July

Nothing too exciting happened this week except a few impromptu hang outs. I was supposed to go kayaking at Downtown Boathouse on Thursday, but the weather was cold and cloudy and not suitable for kayaking.

On Friday night, a few of us decided last minute to go to Brooklyn Bridge Park at around midnight since I drove to Lower East Side and Brooklyn was just across the river. We hung out there for a few hours talking, drinking and taking photos. The place is really peaceful at night and it's perfect for a chill kind of night. I would definitely go back some other time and just have a midnight picnic there.

Saturday was Living Social's 5K Dance Party at Citi Field. It wasn't as good as I had imagined, but still a pretty cool event nevertheless. We all wore black and had glow sticks around our necks, wrists, legs, and wherever we could hang glowsticks. We didn't actually run inside Citi Field, instead, we ran around Citi Field and made a bunch of zig zagging paths inside the parking lot. Along the course there were glowing structures like balloons, light tunnels, and stages. The 5K ended inside the stadium on the walkway that loops around the field. The field itself wasn't open, so everything happened on the walkway. We didn't stay for the after party but it didn't seem that cool anyway. Instead, we came back to my apartment, pregamed, and went bar hopping around the Lower East Side area.

Today, after everyone who crashed at my apartment woke up, we went to Ikea to get lunch. Our original plan was to go to Governor's Island, but it started drizzling and we rather have food than walk around. We stayed at Ikea for 2 hours or so, sitting on every couch and sleeping on every mattress. A lazy Sunday kind of day.

Shock Tops at Brooklyn Bridge Park.

5K Dance Party!

Chicken tenders from Ikea.

MOMA Rain Room

So in the past few months I've been seeing a lot of photos on Facebook of MOMA's Rain Room and I've been hearing about how cool it is. I've also heard it's overrated and over-hyped, but I still wanted to go. Today a bunch of us went there at 1 pm, hoping we would get there early enough to beat the crowd and wait a little less. When we got there, the guy at the gate said the waiting line has been over capacity. Since 9 am... The exhibit opened at 10:30 and it was already over capacity at 9.... We were only able to go to the viewing section where we walked around the rain area, and the wait was only 10 minutes. We didn't get to experience walking through it without getting wet, but we were able to see other people do it... The line outside was so long, but there were only about ten people under the rain area at a time. We got our share of pictures, doing whatever we could to make it look like we were actually under the water. After the Rain Room we went to the actual MOMA exhibits and then just bummed around Rockefeller Center and Bryant Park. It was a pretty chill and fun day!

There weren't even that many people on line, the line just moves very slowly...

We're inside!

Viewing from the side only. :(

But it looks like we were actually under the water.

The Rain Room's actually a pretty cool idea.

Inside MOMA!

The gang.

This reminded me of Ikea.

Andy Warhol paintings.

Minion buddies.

Playing with Photoshop.

Riverflick Movie, NY Philharmonic, Berlin Wall

This week has been pretty eventful. I went to Central Park on Monday to watch a free concert by the NY Philharmonic. It was a lot of people on the Great Lawn, so many that there were no cell phone reception for the entire two hours of the concert. I thought the concert was alright, but I don't have much to compare it to since I don't go to classical music concerts. It was extremely humid on the Great Lawn though, so it was a pretty uncomfortable two hours there.

On Thursday I went to the Riverflick Movies by Pier 63, right by the Hudson River. It was a lot less crowded than I thought and we were able to get a good patch of grass to sit on. The movie was Looper and I've seen it before, so midway through the movie I took a short nap. I didn't pay much attention to the movie, but it was nice relaxing and lying on the grass. The weather was not bad since the sun was down and the breeze from the Hudson was pretty chilly.

On Friday, I got out of work a little earlier and went to Midtown to see a piece of the Berlin Wall. It's near Madison and 53rd Street and it was in the courtyard of a building. I feel like most people who walk by it don't know that it's a piece of the Berlin Wall. There's no signs saying it, it seemed like any other piece of art.

Lots of people on the Great Lawn. 

Sunset right before the concert.

Riverflick Movie by Pier 63.

We found a nice piece of grass underneath a tree.

A piece of the Berlin Wall.

Ithaca Weekend

This past weekend I went up to Ithaca for the Finger Lakes Dragonboat Festival and just to hang out at Cornell. The festival was pretty fun and the water on Cayuga Lake was clean. The Ithaca race is the most I've paddled at a dragonboat festival but it felt good, and both our boats placed in our division. I was the pacer for my boat and it was the first time I've paced in a race. It was a good experience and it felt good being the pacer and winning. We had three 500meter races and a 2000meter race, and overall Wall Street Dragons got 2 gold, 1 silver, and 1 bronze. I really enjoyed racing the 2k, even though it was 11 minutes of hell, but it was fun fending off the other boats and stay ahead of everyone else.

Besides the dragonboat festival, I also went gorge jumping at Second Dam. The place was much nicer than the gorges by Beebe Lake because the water was much cleaner so it felt pretty good swimming around in the lake. There were several 15-foot jumps, which were all doable, and then there was a 50-foot or so jump. I stayed on the lower jumps because they were easier and weren't as scary. I've jumped the tall one at Beebe Lake freshman year so I didn't want to do it again.

It was a good weekend spent away from the city. The weather was perfect for all the outdoor water activities I did too.

Gold and bronze for my boat!

Gorge jumping!

Hudson River Park

Last night I took a stroll from the Lower East Side to Stuy and discovered Hudson River Park, or Pier 25. I've been there before but not at night, so it wasn't as nice. There's a skate park, mini golf, sand volleyball courts, and an open area for people to sit. From the park you get a great view down West Highway and the Freedom Tower. Last night, however, I didn't expect to walk that far so I didn't bring my camera, so today I went there after dragonboat practice to take photos. It's a really nice place to hang out, day or night, and just enjoy the breeze and the view.

Freedom Tower and Goldman Sachs Building.

Stuy!

Battery Park and Downtown Manhattan behind it.

Jersey side.

Smorgasburg

Yesterday I went to Smorgasburg for the food festival. On Saturdays it took place in Williamsburg and on Sundays at Brooklyn Heights. Weekend train took forever to get there and by the time we got there the sun was blazing hot. There were a good amount of food stands there, but not that many of them seemed to particularly stand out to me. I got two small tacos and it was pretty disappointing. The tortilla didn't taste that good because it was corn tortilla, and the meat and toppings weren't that good either. We hung out around Williamsburg afterwards and then headed back to the city.

Smorgasburg food festival.

Pork and chicken taco.

Good view of midtown and downtown.

Williamsburg. 

Fourth of July Adventures

Yesterday evening I made a last minute decision to join a few friends for the Macy's Fourth of July fireworks and it turned out to be a really fun night. It started out by rushing to get onto West Highway to get a good spot for the fireworks. We got an area by 26th Street with a pretty clear view of the sky except for a few trees blocking part of the fireworks. The firework show was not bad, but it wasn't particularly interesting since all fireworks are more or less the same. 

Afterwards, we walked to Ktown to get some food. Outside the food court we spun this wheel and got 1 hour free karaoke at the karaoke bar upstairs. So the 15-20 of us went karaoking for an hour or so; it was pretty fun since we just all screamed out the lyrics we knew. When the hour was over, some people left to go home, but a few of us still wanted to stay out and chill somewhere. We took the train to Brooklyn Bridge and walked across it at 1:30 in the morning. We actually never got to the other side; we just stopped in the middle taking pictures and sat there chatting. A few people went home at around 3, and then there were just 4 of us left sitting in the middle of the bridge. We decided to stay up and wait for the sunrise, partially because we were right in the middle of the bridge and were too lazy to walk to either ends. During those few hours before the sun rose we got to know each other pretty well. All of us just met last night except for two people, so there were a lot to talk about and a lot to learn about each other. The sun rose at around 5:30 and it was really beautiful. It came up from behind the Manhattan Bridge and made the whole sky layered with different colors. By 6:00, it was already pretty dark and we headed towards Manhattan to find a breakfast area. 

It was definitely worth pulling an all nighter for. A lot of fun hanging out with people I just met and watching the sunrise from the bridge.

Getting onto West Highway.

Lots of people waiting for the sun to go down.

Happy Fourth of July!

Some swiggly firework.

Chilling on the railings of the Brooklyn Bridge.

No one on the bridge at 3 in the morning.

Lights.

The four that stayed up the entire night. 

The sunrise behind the Manhattan Bridge.