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?

We aren't in the city anymore (for this part of the story, anyway). Weird. That's because we visited Central Park today. We got off the subway - and walked right into Strawberry Fields. The park is huge, with twisty routes that run all over, ending with unexpected exits at surprise-spots all over town. A bouquet of white roses rests on the 'Imagine' memorial. The labelling plaque proclaims Strawberry Fields as a "Garden of Peace", endorsed by an extensive number of countries like Ghana, Cyprus, Samoa, Afghanistan, alongside the expected. A tour group was gathered around the sign, tour guide explaining in a completely unrecognizable language, which is only fitting.





The Bethesda Fountain and Terrace is elaborate to the point that it brings tears to my eyes - can you imagine anything so ancient and beautiful? It is brilliantly unbalanced that New York should possess both the grit and razor-sharp edge of modern culture, as well as some of the world's oldest wonders. The carvings on the stairways, the fountain framed by a glassy lake, Manhattan-high buildings reflected on its surface. As we wander through this outdoor splendour, smooth saxaphone notes float through the air. The player is camera-shy and stops playing once we draw near with those in tow. An older couple cuddle Simlishly on a bench nearby, giggling, the lady in her man's lap.







Conservatory Water - Stepmom, anyone? An elderly man guides his intricately fashioned sailboat along its surface, and dog-walkers are everywhere. Did I mention that Central Park is most definitely a gathering place for the dogs of NY? One of them, a big, shaggy fellow, either falls or jumps into the water and is rescued and scolded by its owner. It shakes itself dry unabashedly.







The Hans Christian Andersen statue is situated nearby, and shoving, screaming schoolkids are crawling all over his head, covering his eyes, sitting on the graven book he holds on his lap, etc., making it impossible to take a picture of the poor guy as he is absolutely unrecognisable. Their teacher arrives to shoo them off after we stand watching, pointedly. Alice and Friends are his neighbours, where an Asian girl with bleached hair and her guy friend hang out on.









We emerge at one of the exits, where are there school buses lined up along the road. Maybe Friday is Excursion Day for the kids here. Brownstones along the road bring to mind many bad music videos. There are more temporary stalls set up here. One sells movie scripts, another forks twisted into fascinating figurines and chunky bracelets. There is a lovely one - a stag, with fork tines for antlers. We buy a golfer dude for Daddy.





We hit our first Internet-researched store of the day - E.A.T., a unique gift shop some blocks down. It's colourful and quirky and perfect - Tintin cups, plates and postcards, a Batman Guide, self-effacing notepads, mini pianos, toy ovens, gum that claims to give the consumer things like Confidence and Irish Accents, and other cyoot items.



Then it's off to the Metropolitan Musuem of Art, which we have not stopped talking about since arriving in New York. We have to have our bags and shopping checked for dangerous objects before entering. Here there are historical artefacts from Ancient Greece ranging back from B.C., - marble statues, jewellery, inscriptions, carefully restored where necessary. There are more galleries taking on Egypt, China, the medieval churches. The cafeteria, however, is far from ancient. The food is horribly expensive but delicious. Especially the dessert spread - strawberry cream and Oreo cupcakes, assorted cookies, s'mores. etc. They do dessert WELL here.

After lunch, we spend more time at the Medieval exhibit - tapestries, religious paintings that are unflinchingly violent, and old wealth. We see a four-poster bed with peacock-blue pillows and over-scalloped hangings - my mum says sleeping in it would give one nightmares and I have to agree, even if the dread we feel, looking at it, is indescribable. We see more remnants of that life - a mouldy pair of gloves with fancy cuffs, Bibles with elaborate woven covers.



I realise these photos don't capture anything at all and I am horribly sorry. I now recall a curator frowning at me horribly for holding a camera in his presence. It was his fault.

We leave the musuem and take another complicated route to find Cleopatra's Needle back in Central Park. It's a massive obelisk which was first erected in Egypt around 1600 B.C., taken by the Romans around 13 B.C. and later passed on to New York - why do ancient nations keep passing rare gifts of history to Manhattan? It is a strange thing, engravings rubbed and fading by time, crab claws at its base. An elderly fellow suntans and exercises nearby, and another dog appears, its head a little too small for its body, which my mum is quick to point out in Chinese. "Lovely dog!" she offers to the owner in English, as an excuse for staring, almost, as if she needed one.


Transcribed: "This obelisk was first erected at Heliopolis, Egypt, in 1600 B.C.. It was removed to Alexandria in 13 B.C. by the Romans. Presented by the Khedive of Egypt to the City of New York, it was erected here on February 22, 1881 through the generosity of William H. Vanderbilt."



The dog special






At Belvedere Castle, we have a view of most of the park - a baseball diamond, people lying face-down in the sun. The interior is cool and dark, the stairs narrow, the man at the counter tranquil and friendly. Among the items in his observatory, there is a carefully preserved bat skeleton.







Another detour out for the Musuem of Natural History, and we are freaking excited about the dinosaur bones. (Why? Why?! Do you need to ask that question??) There are very, very detailed displays of animals and cultures around the world - birds in various habitats, carefully labelled, background painted intricately to match the scene - forest, marsh, mountain. The China exhibit hall is stuffy and strange, and we had to run through it several times, getting lost. In the hall of biodiversity, a model of a giant squid looms over our heads, and evolution studies peppers the windows - is that an actual skeleton of a DODO?

Hall of ocean life, then. Amazing despite Ning's hydrophobia. The giant squid was nothing, because a life-sized blue whale model graces the ceiling; you can nearly touch his underbelly when you walk up the stairs. The world beneath the sea is as horrifying and fascinating as we always imagined. Take the 'cookie-cutter shark', which is a mini but nonetheless lethal shark that cuts holes in its preys' flesh, spider-crabs, the giant squid that has never be sighted alive in its natural habitat, eel with a python-sized mouth, and the tripod fish, which really stands on a tripod - or three spindly legs.

The human biology and evolution exhibit is next, with bones from real-life excavations - actual Neatherdal skulls and half-ribcages. And you just read this in the last issue of National Geographic. Our tiny ancestors, right here in New York! It is outrageous. And funny, too.





We are starving after that, especially mum, who isn't that fond of musuems, and string down the street, searching for grub. At a traffic-light junction we see two guys and a girl who appear to be walking to some kind of dance/party/rave/whatever. The girl is really striking looking, with masses of red hair, in a gorgeous pink dress and wrist corsage. Both the guys were dressed Formal!Nellyishly. Reminds me of the prom, where all the guys had the same hairstyle.

Dinner was at this ostentatious restaurant we were Most Uncomfortable at but had no choice but to enter cos all the places nearby were the same (or maybe only mum, who insisted that they would expect us to order wine but we flatly refused). I mean, come on. Ning the never-full could barely finish her asparagus-stuffed chicken [and I never want to eat asparagus again]. On the train back, a white, cornrowed dude and a black girl sit across from us, in comfortable partial silence. They are clearly not a couple (see Rule earlier in journey).