Tuesday was Manhattanhenge, something that occurs only 2x a year. I was lucky enough to be around and take pictures of this awesome day! Let me just tell you, this is THE CRAZIEST photo taking experience I have ever been through, hands down. It made it totally worth it to ride that subway from 14th - 42nd street ($4.5 subway fare zzz).
Anyway I’ll start from the beginning, I looked up good places to take pictures of this day and everywhere pointed to Tudor City (42nd and 1st) bridge. So I was thinking of going 45 minutes early to grab a spot, not too early because I didn’t wanna be a loser and wait by myself. When I got there around 7:30pm (sunset is at 8:20pm), the bridge was PACKED. I have never seen so many people, tripods, expensive lenses + bodies (I’m talking $10,000+), all in one place. I can’t even describe how packed it was!! (Search tudor city manhattanhenge on Flickr). So that was obviously out of the question. I decided to go to 42nd and 2nd to take some pictures. Of course, people were already shooting away. The funny and most fun part was, you had to wait for a red light, step to the middle of the street (along with 30+ photographers), snap snap snap at different exposures/bracketing, get honked at by cars for blocking their way, clear the road because it’s a green light, do it all over again. This was the case for the first half hour, and it was just beginning to get fun. When the sun actually started to set (~8:15pm), there were too many of us at one intersection that every person kept stepping up a bit. For example, if someone is blocking me, I would go around them and take a spot ahead of them. If I’m blocking someone, they would walk ahead of me. Basically, we didn’t care about blocking cars at that point. Every single photographer (100+) were in the VERY middle of the street to take that perfect/symmetrical shot. We basically formed a single file line that probably goes across Manhattan. If this is JUST 42nd street, think about all the other ones as well.
Honestly though, photographer-fest and it was crazy awesome experience. I’m waiting for photos to be uploaded so I can find myself in some of them haha. I managed to take 300 photos in 30minutes, high score.
Wednesday I had dinner with Jane and Sining at Saigon Shack. Their sandwiches were ok, I liked Num Pang better. But this place was very cheap (my huge sandwich only $5, I ate half and was full lol)
Thursday I went to the Streb Human Fountain free performance at the World Finance Center after work today. However, we totally missed it and caught the ending Q&A…lol fail #1. It was very interesting to see where the World Trade Center used to be though. The event never effected me personally since I was so far away and knew no one close, but seeing this up close definitely brought back memories. Anyway, we decided to head to Wah Fung in China Town for their $2.50 (I think now it’s $3.00) cha shao rou over rice lol so Hong Kong. We got there around 8:30pm and it closed…fail #2. Jane wanted to go to a bubble tea place close by but…it was closed again fail #3. We then went to a tea place called Yum Yum, not really bubble tea, but their drinks were delicious. The place next door was still open for food, and we went there to eat. It was just ok. On the way back, I got off the wrong stop…fail #4 lol. Anyway, that’s the last of the fails.
At around 10pm, some SURPies and I started lining up for Harry Potter THE LAST ONE. I didn’t know how to feel because I don’t want it to end. After the movie finished, I was totally in shock. The ending was great, but the fact that I didn’t want it to end made it…very very sad. This is definitely the closing of a chapter in my life. Maybe after this I will finally feel grown up.
Saturday I went to Atlantic City with Manuel. We both love to poker, so thought…hey, why not? I woke up at 9am that day for the 10am bus, we both tiredly headed to the terminal and got on our 2.5 hour ride. We got off at Caesars which gave us a $25 voucher to play at a slot. However, you have to play everything. Basically, I won $55 from the slot, so $35 profit. I thought of this as getting my round trip bus ticket back. We then wandered around the boardwalk/beach, very upset that we didn’t realize AC actually had a beach and we weren’t dressed appropriate. We had a Nathan’s hotdog, which was delicious. Then…it was poker time. I was so excited, yet nervous because I was such a noob. We went to I think it was Tropicana and played 2/4/6 limit poker. We were both split up into different tables because there weren’t enough seats. I was so intimidated at first because everyone at my table was 50+ years old. The terms like ‘option’, etc, I have never heard in my life. But anyway, I got the hang of it after a while.
I always thought that playing poker wasn’t against the house, so I felt better with the losses. However, I quickly realized that the casino takes 10% of the pot PLUS you have to tip the dealer every time you win (about $1 for our table, which is about 5-10% of what we win). This is so dumb because when we cash out we could’ve been 15-20% richer, but I guess that’s how they gain money…why have I not thought about that. I played there from 2-5pm, bought in with $100, was as low as $35, and ended up cashing out with $95, with almost a heart attack. So basically, that was no profit, which was cool because I had fun.
I then went to the outlets before it closed, bought a $5 sub, window shopped until 8pm, $5 gelato and met up with Manuel again. We then played some random slots to get free drinks lol, after many slots played at 3 different casinos (win and loss sums up to 0 profit again), quick loss of $10 at blackjack, we were on our way to check out the night life. There was a beach party that costed $10 to get into, we were like…whatever, we’re here. So we went, danced to a couple of beachy songs, and left to play more poker.
This time was at Taj because the bus left from there at 4am. We started at around midnight. This time was more friendly/young people, but they definitely played different. It was 2/4 limit and I bought in with $80. At about 3am, I was going up and down staying around $30-$40, which was killing me since I planned to get out of AC without losing money. This was when I realized the value of money. I was willing to throw away $50 for food, but yet when I lose just $50 in poker, it felt like $300. Anyway, in the end, I got a 4 of a kind and managed to cash out with $125. We got back at 7am that day, almost 24 hours of gambling.
So in summary…I wrote a lot of money stuff here because I wanted to figure out how much I ACTUALLY earned in AC (just for fun of course). And I think with all the food/transportation/random slots/tips/blackjack, my profits comes to 0. Which basically means…a free vacation!
Sunday was the world cup final: Japan vs. USA. I woke up at 3pm just in time to watch it. USA was definitely the better team, more aggressive, better team work. Japan was more strategic and defensive, not to mention their team’s average height is a mere 5’4’’. In the end, Japan always managed to come back from defeat and it ended up at PKs. USA missed the first there shots and Japan took home the title of the championship. It was a good game, but I guess I still prefer the men’s world cup a lot more based on the aggressiveness. I guess athleticism just can’t compare? Kind of sad. For dinner I went to Zhou Jia Zhuang and it was delicious, very authentic Chinese food!
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