The Bodies

Friday morning I woke up with plans to see a few things. After turning on my computer to check email, work email, and get an idea of what subways to take to which stops I was out the door. The only thing that screwed me up is that my laptop's time clock is 1 hour behind so when I thought I was leaving the apartment at 9:04 it was really 10:04 and about half a block down the road I realized that this meant I wouldn't be making the 10am boat tour. There was another at noon so I settled on that one and figured I would go to the Empire State Building first.
I made my way downtown, stopped and had an omelette breakfast at some strange deli as well as one of these Black and White Cake cookies that I see everywhere. They're tasty! I found the empire state building by using my handy little NYC folding map but the line was HUGE and the wait was over an 1 hour. I decided instead to go down to pier 78 to catch my New York City Harbor Tour. $22 for a 90 min boat ride in the harbor with a guide and plenty of photo opportunities. Our guide was an older man in his 60s who had a few jokes that had been tried out on many boat patrons before me. The facts he offered as we scooted down the river were interesting though. I saw the empty air filled gaps where the twin WTC towers once stood, I saw pier 59 which is not much of a pier at all but it's significance being that it stood there waiting for the Titanic which of course never made it across the Atlantic.
We crossed under the Brooklyn Bridge, with the financial district on our port side and Queens on our Starboard we went a bit up the river crossing under the Manhattan Bridge and the Williamsburg Bridge. There were interesting views down the valleys which are lined with the tall buildings of downtown Manhattan. Through one of the valleys you could see all the way to New Jersey.
After the boat ride I decided to walk up the pedestrian path on the Brooklyn Bridge and look around. There were a lot of people walking, jogging and riding bikes up and down. I walked about 1/3 of the way across which was enough to get to one of the two arched pillars of the bridge. While up there I got a couple to take a picture of me with the financial district in the background. Talking to them a bit I found out they were Miss St fans from Starkville. I hung out with them for a bit and we went over to the Rockefeller Center to go to the Top of the Rock. There was not wait to get to the look out platforms on the roof and although not as high as the Empire State Building the view is very similar. You get a great feel for how large Central Park is in comparison to the city surrounding it.
I took the elevator back down to the ground level and said good-bye to my Mississippi friends. I headed a few blocks over to O'Casey's to meet up with Rafi and his work friends. We had drinks there before heading back up to Rafi's and changing and then back downtown. Of course it rained on us as we made it to the subway. We tried to get in to some club but it was sketchy so we changed plans. I found a good pizza spot on the way home and then a cab and the night was done.
Saturday morning we headed down to South Street Seaport to see The Bodies Exhibit. We had lunch at Katz's Deli along the way. I had a huge pastrami sandwich which was great. The have a sign hanging in the place that denotes the table where the famous faked orgasm scene from When Harry Met Sally took place. After lunch we walked down to the seaport. We met up with Ally and entered the exhibit.
The Bodies was an amazing exhibit of The Body! All of the bodies were of chinese men or women and were dissected in a lot of different ways. They had bodies that showed the skeletal muscle systems and how they attach to our skeletons. There were bodies that had been sliced perfectly in half leaving either a left and right side or a front and back side. Some bodies had been sliced into 3, 4 or more equal parts showing cross sections of our organs and bones. The coolest part of the exhibit that I thought was definitely the section on our circulatory system. They had a process by which they replaced the blood in the veins with a red liquid that hardens. Then using chemicals they were able to remove all other parts of the body leaving a life size web of veins! They had several pieces that were localized such as the hand or the heart or the lungs but the coolest of all was the one that was completely intact. I thought that I would be grossed out by some of the stuff we say but it was done in a very scientific way. If you have a chance to see The Bodies, I highly recommend it!
Saturday night I went down to the Village to meet up with An. We had a few drinks on the rooftop of Samba Sushi and then met up with some more friends around the corner at a small bar with live music. Kind of a cheesey cover band but they had a good sound and added a little touch of their own to the songs. We had fun there, danced a little and then headed home.
Brunch in the morning and a big steak for dinner tomorrow!