Day Two in New York - exploration was the order of the day. Oh wait, perhaps I should say that Ben is making me, Tish, write this entry. Breakfast was at a French place down the block from our studio. Ben would write a long entry on the food quality, quantity and ingredients, but suffice it to say that Paulo enjoyed his crepes, I ordered "Irish Oatmeal", which turned out to be licorice flavored oatmeal, and Benedict ordered the eggs Benedict. After breakie we took the subway to Battery Park where we boarded the ferry to Liberty and Ellis Islands. Ben attempted to instruct Paulo on the intricacies of how to operate his beloved camera (yes, this would be the same beloved camera that Ben dropped on the floor last night in our studio apartment), and we all generally froze our faces off in the stiff cold harbour wind.
Once back on the mainland, I demanded lunch (surprise!), so we set off to Chinatown after a brief sidetrip to Wall Street and the financial district. Ben took us to Noodle Village on the belief that it was recommeded in his beloved Michelin guide, but it turned out that that was actually Noodle House, not Noodle Village. Even so, we lucked out, and the food was amazingly good (and not just because we hadn't eaten for like five hours, and were freezing cold). Main dishes were beef and shrimp low mein, with Shanghai soup dumplings and chun fat (?) on the side. Overall we overate by far, which meant that it was fresh and oh so tasty. Apres lunch we boarded the subway again towards the Empire State Building, which is open until 1:15am apparently. Morale of this part of the story is that it took us approximately 1.5 hours to wind our way through the endless sectional lines, elevators and security to reach the observation deck, only to face the cold wind and clusters of people that we dealt with all day. If you like randomly making friends with the people in line around you, this is the ideal venue (Ben!!!!!), however, for the rest of us, it is a lot of standing, waiting, and being treating like cattle.
After the Empire State Building, we made the casual decision to take a rickshaw back the 20-something blocks towards our apartment. I should have known that this in itself would be an adventure. Keep in mind that rickshaws normally carry one or two people, and are pulled by one lone man on a modified bicycle. The lunch-laden three of us approach the unlucky candidate by the name of Sam, who cheerfully assures us that a) he can take the three of us at once and b) he can make it the 20 blocks. Now I, being from a smalle to mid-sized Canadian prairie city, did not know that rickshaw racing is actually a sport. I was quickly corrected in my belief when our poor Sam, (egged on by Ben in all his glory in his deranged, yet believable Cockney accent)did his best to not only keep up with other rickshaw drivers taking ONE or TWO people, but then also attempted to pass them (nevermind the freaking actual cars or anything!!!) at most intersections. Keep in mind that during our entire journey I was wedged between my two male companions, with one leg on Ben's lap (no comment), and was constantly assured that I was in the safest place in the whole setup.
Once Sam dropped us off at our destination (which turned out, no one actually knew, we just kinda stopped in front of an expensive restaurant when Sam got tired), we made our way to a lovely restaurant called Ben Ash. Here, we enjoyed the attitude of the servers (cute little girl who was bold enough to take even Ben on), the drinks, and the overall Jewish-influenced food. I am pretty sure that we talked philosophy, but have been instructed to keep silent on pain of death. As predicted, the Brazilian gets even louder and more emphatic when consuming alcohol.