Seen so much: Day 1, New York

As I'm walking down Broadway, I notice that up ahead stands the Rockafella centre, it's the third tallest building in Manhattan, and man it is huge and coated in Limestone. I've never seen a building this tall before and I stood to admire it. It's part of a complex of buildings which make up the Rockafella plaza, and inside it houses NBC studios and Radio City Music Hall. Both are available to tour, so I thought I'll see NBC studios, home of Tom Brokov, I remember his news reports when they'd come on when I was home during the day as a TAFE student at around 19 - 20 years old. So inside is this magnificent grand marble in the foyer of the building, it oozes money, all of it is saying "We're loaded and we know it, so bout time you recognised it too." I went and purchased a tour ricket and hung around the candy store there. You're up a story or two and you can look down on the street of 5th avenue and it's amazing to watch the traffic go by from about 3 stories up, you can see St Stephen's church across the street. I notice a plastic cabinet which contains lots of candy and on the outside there are carved designs of New York icons, like the Empire State building, Met-life building (previously Panam building) and the Twin Towers, so it became very apparent (this was the first time) that New Yorkers were still very attached to the towers and did not want to let the memory of them go, as I travelled on I began to notice this more and more through posters and bus and truck signs etc. So the tour began and they took us through the studios, so I'm feeling very jetlagged right now and my tiredness is really starting to set in. But I shall resist! I know that if I give in and to to sleep now which is about 1:30pm, I'll sleep through to 3am or so and it will screw up my entire sleeping pattern, never give in to the jet lag, let that be a warning for all! As they walk us through, we go into a studio which is dark, and my brain now thinks "Hmmm, time to go to sleep...Zzz" and then, I wakeup still standing, out of a micro sleep! I knew I had to work really hard to fight this. So our guide is cute, I'm feeling delerious, she has a nice rack and has got my attention and I'm thought process right now is something like me thinking whilst looking at her "Hey cutie, I'm in New York for the next few days if you wanna swing by room number....oi! just concentrate on the tour!" So cutie marches her tight little butt into the elevator and takes us up to level 5 and shows us the memorial to "Those lost in the field" and there's everything there from boom microphones, clothes, camera's heaps of stuff that was used or owned by journalists and NBC staff killed on the job and a photo of what happened next to the item. People were lost in Thailand all the way through to 9/11 where they lost 3 people if I remember right. I found that pretty confronting but I was glad to have seen it. Then she moves us onto the "History of NBC" and I'm like oh no here we go, I'm gonna die in here, get the blankets cutie, cos you and I are having a snuggle. Sure enough she puts on the TV which talks about how NBC has it's roots in radio and then moved into the new media which was TV and they cleverly correlate this over to how the new move is the internet, suitably wooing us, and here I am nodding off. I woke up looking at my tour sheet just as thelights came back on and I was ready to go. Then she moves us into this theatre which is the only projection theatre in the world which projects onto a spherical surface and wraps about 160 degrees around you, with this mammoth sound system. I sat there and slept through most of it but enjoyed the gimmick of the sound and the whole "Emmerse yourself in real news!" theme they were promoting. We also had a photo taken of us behind the news desk as all tours tend to offer something the adds a personal element to what you are visiting (just imagine your roaring face on King Kong climbing up the Empire State building when you're visiting the Empire State building - get me?), but for $40USD, I didn't see much value in it. All in all it was a good tour, I just wish I was a bit more awake to enjoy it and thus not so synical at the time, as one can get after hardly any sleep.

The key to staying awake when suffering bad jet lag is to keep moving. Make no mistake about this! Sitting, kneeling, laying down, standing on your head or anything that stops you moving will send you off to sleep when you are this tired. So the goal was to keep moving and that's exactly what I did. On I went past radio city and I hit Avenue of the America's otherwise known as 6th avenue and this place is amazing! There are 4 buildings in a row which look like mini world trade centres along this street with American flags flying off buildings all around you, it's hard to believe how much patriotism is about. One building is the headquarters of Time Magazine, another is that of Fox, it's a mind fuck to be standing there and seeing everything happening around you and then to look back and see a truck getting checked for bombs and it goes to enter the Rockafella centre. I kept walking, hardly stopping except to take pictures, god knows how many I've taken by now. Then I hit Times Square. This place one of the amazing places you'll ever see. You look around and electronic signboards cover the front the skyscrapers here, ever seen a 5 storey animated add for Coke? How about a 20 storey ad for Rueters. The Nasdaq is scrolling the latest share prices and Toys R Us has the outside of the building constantly changing colour and designs. There's a 50 foot TV broadcasting the latest news about some guy who's shot someone. It's glam, glittery, loud, bright, in your face in every possible way, because it's Times Square in New York City. There's a beat boxer on the street corner wearing a huge top hat rapping away "Yo I'm from Detroit, cos that's my hometown homeboooiiiiiii!". There are people everywhere shuffling by to get to the place they need to be, but they're not rude and bash past you like Brisbane. They apologise when they so much as touch you, I was noticing that New Yorkers are the most accommodating and considerate people I've met. Over the street is a news stand with magazines of all types jammed into each and every shelf with tabloids plastered across the front talking about the latest scandle involving Britney Spears, Michael Jackson or Nicole Kidman, but this had it all. I stumbled across a picture shop which sold all sorts of shots and paintings of New York, and there I found a fantastic drawing of the city and all of it's buildings both past and present, cso I like that stuff. This is were I learnt the age old travel lesson. if you see something and you like it, buy it! Buy it then and there! Because if you do what I did and think "I'll come back for it" you NEVER will. I've always been an advocate for learning from your mistakes and treating it as a lesson, thus having no regrets in life, but that is one of the few regrets I have (aside from not getting the number of that Canadian Chiropracter at Alan's going away that Friday night, so hot right now!) because once you leave, there is NO GOING BACK, well for a while anyhow. This also goes for post cards, I didn't get ANY in New York and dammit I should've, but hey, it's something for me to come back for!