NYC and Emiko Crazypants

When your Japanese friend from college ends up back stateside for a reunion, you go dammit. And you tell her you can't just to keep it interesting. So Conor and I headed late Tuesday night to NYC. Halfway across the state we ran into a crazy thunderstorm that lit up the clouds. It all seemed to be cloud to cloud strikes and they were happening with a rapidness that neither of us had seen before. I tried taking video and pictures, both only moderately successful given it was night and in a moving car. It was stunningly beautiful. When we finally got into the city it was dark and foggy. This is the picture I took of the Empire State Building as we drove through to get to Kew Gardens.
The next day we went to pick up and surprise Emiko. It was brilliant as, she stood mouth agape at the door. Very satisfying. After parking in Union Square we went down to Battery Park and looked for the Staten Island Ferry. Seemed like a good way to see New York with a different perspective for free. That actually isn't the ferry we took but Emiko seemed to compulsively taking pictures so there it is.Views from the ferry. I have been in NYC many times, but this was a new experience, and the fact it was free was almost astounding. You get so close to the Statue of Liberty to see the line that snakes around it and helps you appreciate the fact you are not IN it. This was from the second level deck on the bow. It was an excellent spot to stand and take pictures. The Coast Guard even came by and escorted us for a little bit.On the return trip we saw this schooner. We never got close enough to read the name but it was beautiful to watch is sail past downtown. These are busy shipping lanes and it struck me just how dangerous it would be to kayak in these waters.We walked a lot around SoHo and Downtown and some point getting lost looking for good New York style pizza we came across this building with a wall of blue and these strange I-beams sticking out of it.We finally found pizza at Two Boots. It was quite good, mine was called "The Bird" and involved Buffalo chicken and cheese. Conor noticed my unsubtle picture-taking. We tried to go see the Intrepid and all the cool planes it carries but we got there just as it was closing its doors for the day. This was after getting of the Subway a stop too early necessitating a 10 block walk. We took the taxi to the next stop.Just a cool building in SoHo. It looked like apartments to either side, or perhaps that was me wanting them to be.

After all of this we went to see Fuerza Bruta at Union Square. It was a stunning show, a mix of theater, dance, and crazy. I am not going to even try to explain it, but suffice to say that when I walked out I called one of my friends and told him to buy tickets. That moment. No questions. And sell his car and kill the cat and sell it as "street tuna" if that was necessary to pay for the tickets. Maybe even if it wasn't. I wrote some thoughts about it later on at the bar, but in truth I will just say it was the most unique theater experience I have ever had and I will go see any show this company produces because of that. And I walked out of the theater at the end of the hour performance soaked and smiling ear to ear.