20th July 2016

By this point we’d pretty much done all the planned touristy things, and we wanted a few days to just wander and explore NYC (aka pretending to be a local).

I’m sure you all know how over-planned and scheduled we both like to be, so when we don’t have an actual plan we definitly wander off to aimless land. Which is kinda what happened today.

Knowing we were starting to run out of time in NYC, we tried to do an early start. We kinda woke up earlier, but then we just fluffed around, and by the time we got to Soho for breakfast it was flirting with midday.

We’d done some research on where to get yummy egg-related breakfasts (I know, we’re obsessed with egg/breakfast foods…but it’s our THING) and found a cute cafe called Jack’s Wife Freda.

When we got there, it was heaving and had a line out the door and a 20 minute waiting list. Bear in mind it was a Wednesday, late morning…what do all these people do for jobs?! Are they students? Non-office workers? Trustafarians? It wasn’t a tourist spot, and it was just packed with local Sohoettes.

Anyway, Juju went off to Ricky’s next door to look at makeup (she’s very ‘committed’ to finding some particular items) and I waited outside for our table to come up.

The table came up, Juju was gone, and they wouldn’t seat us until we we’re both there.

Kay, so full disclaimer here : I was really tired and hadn’t had a coffee, so I was in full thunder face mode. Poor Ju walked out of Ricky’s to a frosty and slightly dramatic ‘we’ve missed our table because they need us both there and you were gone’.  Even at the time I was fully aware of how petulant I sounded. Shame!

Luckily the food was DELICIOUS, and the coffee helped to kickstart me back to normal. 

From there we took a beat and wandered around Soho. We had done some research and wanted to check out a nice/cool sex shop in NY, and we found Babeland in Soho. It was really nice/cool.

From here we decided to head uptown and do Central Park again (on foot), but first, we swung by the Public Library to check out Carrie’s doomed wedding location.

Guys, the Public Library is ah-mazing. Definitly one of the coolest buildings we’ve seen. And peeking into the research rooms where some hold early editions of the heavyweights Shakespeare, Dickens and Chaucer (handled very carefully by gloved researchers) to the maps room which has original cartographical records of the New World discovered by Christopher Columbus, and the media rooms which have original prints and photographs, and the first printed edition of the New York Times.

It’s crazy, and looks exactly like a library should. And we are in love with Patience and Fortitude, the two guardian lions out the front…named by the NY mayor during The Great Depression.

They also have free wifi…and considering it’s just around the corner from our hotel, we could have easily been doing all our blogging there. Did we mention how shite our hotel wifi was…argh?!

So…from here we headed uptown to Centeal Park, and literally the second we walked in we got approached by a story.

We were sitting in a ledge, minding our own business when suddenly beside us appears a monk. The fact that we don’t know what denomination this monk was, is probably a warning bell to your guys.

All of a sudden Ju is getting a golden bookmarky card thing and a bead bracelet being slid on her wrist (it came out of nowhere and I’m not awesome with confrontation so bear that in mind! – Ju).

We heard murmurs of ‘peace peace peace’ and a booklet with names written in it, and a photo oof a temple being built. So Ju agrees to sign the petition with a helpless mumble of ‘I want peace’ and then the monk was pointing at the second penciled column which held numbers.

Oh right…we’re being asked for money.

At this point he got really insistent and cowered Ju into full participation. And unfortunately for her, she had no dollar bills and her lowest note was a fiver. So a fiver it was, accompanied by more mumbles of peace.

With this transaction compete he sighted his next target, me.

I’m clearly Team Juita, because I figured if Ju was into it, I may as well be too.

So he quickly pushed the golden ticket into my hand, popped the bracelet on (initiation ceremony?) and passed me the notebook to sign my life away.

Unlucky for him, I was Thunder-face Tashy that day, and would only part with two dollar bills. We then had a silent argument between him wanting $20 and me only giving $2. He was jabbing his finger at the other names that had given $20, then the temple photo, then a peace mutter, and wouldn’t take my $2. After a couple minutes of this (probably only 30seconds but you know…) he must have felt the tides turn as I was about to shove his golden ticket and wooden beads up his ass and keep my $2 (fuck peace/yolo) and he quickly grabbed the money and literally melted away into the trees. I have no idea where he went.

At this point we were like stunned fish, and knew something akin to sinister had gone down.

Two seconds later a photographer approached us and told us we shouldn’t have given money to him, he’s just a pan-handler. He was the NY equivalent of a Piha stereotype…and then gave us a politically slanted lecture/rant about how we got duped. I mean, dude…we know we got fucked over…just let us keep our dignity and pretend like nothing happened. Also, we’ve heard the stories about photographers making friendly with foreign females…we also didn’t want to be invited back to his studio for weird kinky things.

It was time to move on.

So we spent a few hours wandering Central Park, and it was a quentissential experience. There was a TV production being filmed, kids on a carousel, people picnicking and playing frisbee, loads of cyclists and runners, and couples sitting on rocks reading and making out.

We joined the rock dwellers and spent a pleasant hour basking in the sunset reading and (Juju) drawing.

From here we wanted to check out the Uptown Century 21 (Ju was still looking for her birthday handbag) and we ended up spending a couple hours (until closing time) wandering around and trying stuff on. I did find some cool Rick Owens dresses, but they were still $400 to $600 US, so it was sayonara cute things.

We made our way home and crashed out tired…another huge day in NY. This holiday is really tiring. FUN! But tiring.

Tashy. xx