Sylvester Stallone looms up on the screen on Larry King Live, mouth open, then suddenly closes it as the backup narration comes on, trying to look strong-jawed and steely-eyed. It doesn't work.

It's taken some time, but I now am quite fond of New York; it never stops surprising you. The main idea is to hold on tightly to your belongings and look mean, small-eyed mean if you must. We spent most of today jetting about town, alternating between buses and subways, taking our coats on and off as the temperature shifted drastically in and out of shade, in and out of buildings.

We ate breakfast at a Penn Station bakery-diner place again and I tried a black-and-white, which is a round cake striped half vanilla and half chocolate on top. You can tell it is a specialty because there is a cartoony figure of the Statue of Liberty depicted clutching a black-and-white instead of a torch on the takeaway paper bags. There was a heavy smell of cream cheese in the air, and customers flit in and out, shouting complicated coffee and bagel orders.

Han has somehow hurt her ankles walking too much, thus the waddling on Thursday and lots of limping today.

We dropped off at the United Nations headquarters first of all and took a long walk in, having our bags checked in a tent. Of course there is security scanning. It makes me wonder what the point was at Disney, when they simply shone torches inside our bags (what did expect to see? The glitter of guns?). We hit the courtyard with the 'Globe' and 'Twisted Gun' statues along with a smattering of other Asian tourists, and then an exhibition of bitingly moving photos from all over - women wrapped in colourful skirts, playing soccer in Peru, a little boy carrying his dead brother to the cremation site in Nagasaki, an Afghan girl lifting her veil for voting identification. How does this lead up to peace? From what I remember the UN is not only the peace-promoter, but also the one who sets the ideal way for things to be - only no one agrees on what that is.





A Madras female boxer - one of the stories

I saw a plaque commemerating Dag Hammarskjold and all the people who perished in the Congo crisis, the famous Secretary-General portraits, and the actual Nobel Prize award received by the Peacekeeping sector. It's amazing, too, that I remember all this, and that makes their achievements - and underlying flaws - alive. (Watch Hotel Rwanda, because pragmatism and self-survival are the only criteria used in the end.) But these are the ideals that must exist, first of all!







Lunch we had at a little Chinese eatery with a very multi-racial spread of customers. The one guy on duty had a shaved head, black nail polish, and terrible ABC accent, a cross between Allan Wu's and Wang Lee Hom's. He seemed very familiar with a big American family that burst in - the small girls slipped behind the counter and helped him deliver us our cutlery while the dad kept grabbing dishes straight from the kitchen. A Latino worker patted the son's cheeks in a very cute, offhand manner.


Irrelevant - tree-climbing cat

We took another bus downtown to Sixth Avenue in search of J Fields Gallery, and we find the address - and a cake shop! We storm around a bit, thinking we made a mistake, before the helpful film crew set up in front of the store for unknown reasons points out the fact that the gallery does exist - on the second floor. You need to buzz them on the intercom just to enter the building and take the elevators. We find Cinnatti Gallery instead, which is a bright, sizable studio with vintage posters from entertainment, food, even propaganda sectors. I particularly like the ones warning of the dangers of syphilis. The owners don't mind us wandering around, although the odd location makes me feel like we're on a business call.




Walking on to 16th Street on 5th Avenue, we find Anthropologie, which has the most seductively decorated interior ever. Meaning, all females will be sucked in by its sheer beauty and madly chic designs. Men linger uneasily by the doorway and outside dressing rooms. I am very upset that I was told to put away my camera. A 3D, wooden-shoe how-to-dance step-by-step diagram hangs behind the counter, there is an orange-patterned hammock in the store window, plush couches with fat cushions for shoppers to rest their weary feet, bejewelled lamps, gag books with titles like How to Discover Your Inner French Girl and Always Wear Your Pearls! (foreword by Helena Bonham Carter), and elaborate, Indian-inspired garments. Fortunately, there was a sale (see, you people are too expensive). We buy the "neatest" notebooks (common adjective).





Greenwich Village is not too far ahead, and with it, Washington Square and New York University. we slip through a noticeably higher-end district on Bleecker Street with diners, celebrity restaurants (or so they say), and... the Peculier Pub (no spelling mistake). A private smile makes its appearance - where are the fanon characters? Although there aren't any shortage of strange characters, it must be noted. The counter lady in Esprit has pink, snake-like hair. An Osbourne-like family strides past the NYU complex.

NYU is a strongly city campus i.e. you can get into it by crossing the road; the uni store is on the street itself. More students cram in a tree-shaded area at the entrance - I note a professor collapsed over her notes - while we examine our maps. Plan: see Washington Square Park, then walk through Soho to the Canal Street subway to get back.





As soon as we hit the crowded park, we see two hot dudes leaving it. They are holding hands. Okay. [I suddenly recall reading about Greenwich Village's thriving gay community in a travel guide. Seeing it with my own eyes is an entirely different matter. We see two more of such couples in the rest of the day, one being made up of two thuggish guys, beards and big muscles and all, and couldn't look more straight. It's kinda... beautifully surreal.] And there are several strange goings-on. A Falun Gong community carries out a traditional Chinese concert and meditating exercise. At the circle, two seriously ghetto-speaking guys are doing something I can't understand, which involves pumping up a big crowd by running around lining people up, collecting $$ and using State lingo i.e. jokes you and I would just not get about Atlanta and Iowa, etc. We enjoy the spectacle and leave.







Soho is a heavily clothing district, meaning we stop to go into DKNY, Miss Sixty, etc. and newly-opened stores try for themes, like separate turquoise, orange and pink sections. A guy at DKNY has very nice blue eyes. I have noticed, though, that you can't be too careful about gawking. E.g. I was checking out a stud at the Natural History Musuem yesterday and his girlfriend cast me Looks. Not death-stares, just the possessive I'm-with-him looks. And I'm like I know, I'm not stupid, but can't one enjoy the scenery while you bask? Man. Okay, ENOUGH SIDE STORY.

We hit a swanky sushi joint. Food is great - spicy salmon roll, tuna roll, fried tofu - blue lights and well -displayed sushi chefs make for an apt setting. I quickly conclude that every guy in that place is gay, including the boss in his pink shirt and long locks, telling me in a high voice to avoid the restroom as he exits till the cleaner mops up 'cos there's soap all over the floor, and I'm like, what were you doing, taking a bath? A couple at the bar have poisonous looking green drinks [and couldn't stop draping their arms around each others' chairs, and got up and left the bar twice, leaving their drinks and coats, and returning again, IF I REMEMBER CORRECTLY. Oh, how sordid...].

As we draw close to Canal Street, the 'hood gets seedier. I see a lot of DVD hawkers. Man shoves a green flier in my face, insisting I buy their diamonds "for more bling, don't be afraid of the paper now!" And that looks so bald when I put it down on paper, you gotta imagine it in a Brooklyn drawl. My mum is most unhappy and we hurry into the subway.

At Penn Station, we see a crowd at the same corner the one-man Latin dancing was grooving the last time we passed. Cool kids breakdancing and they are the REAL DEAL, like the boy who could spin on his hand, with their own radios providing the bouncy music. Onlookers cheer.

As we try to decide on the exit to the Empire State Building, which we eventually stop at for two seconds, a loiterer hanging around with cronies near the ticket counter tries to reach inside my mum's bag. Han catches him and glares - he chickens out and we quickly get out of there. Sheesh. We're not exactly supposed to see pickpockets are work, are we?