Tile on Bleeker Street, part of a Sept. 11 memorial [nyc] 

June 4, 2004 [Friday]......Vertex of the Universe
On the way home, I stopped in at Toy Tokyo on 2nd Avenue on the Lower East Side. Along with the Kid Robot store in SoHo, Toy Tokyo is one of a couple of stores in New York that sells imported Japanese vinyl action figures.
Before going back home, I detoured via 1st Avenue to the corner of 1st Street, which Kramer once referred to as the vertex of the universe on Seinfeld.

May 31, 2004 [Monday]......A Teany Day
Today is the Memorial Day holiday. Weather not so nice out, we went down to the East Village despite some light drizzle out. From 8th street, we went toward Astor Place, then down St Marks Place and onto Tompkins Square Park. The dog run in the park isn't too bad so we stopped there for a break.

Walking further south, we discovered a funky little store called "It's a Mod World".

Lastly we continued on to Rivington Street in the Lower East Side for our destination, Teany, a small vegetarian cafe / tea house co-owned by the music artist Moby. They serve 96 types of tea, I had Oolong while Anh went for a Snowglobe (expresso, coconut, mint). An Australian girl works there and she told us she had only ever had people from Adelaide in there once before.

Fleet Week in New York City aboard the USS IWO JIMA aircraft carrier [nyc] 

May 30, 2004 [Sunday]......Fleet Week in New York
This week is the 17th annual Fleet Week where a parade of navy ships come to New York for a week of celebrations, and where you can't go anywhere in the city without seeing sailors in their white uniforms.

Over at Pier 88 on the Hudson River near West 48th Street were 4 navy ships docked including one huge aircraft carrier, the USS IWO JIMA. Each day the ships are open to the public to go onboard. Like anything in the US, long lines awaited. When I arrived it was a 2 hour line to get onboard. I didn't bother with the smaller ships, I went straight to the aircraft carrier. Below deck there were tanks, trucks, missile launchers and these huge hovercraft type vehicles. Up on deck, several floors up I got up close to some of the choppers carrying bombs and machine guns. Other larger styles had the opening at the back for paratroopers to jump out from. Those were open to sit inside as the pilots answered questions.

Once done, I decided to go over to the east side to the Buttercup bakeshop, one of the 3 top old-fashioned bakeries known primarily for their cupcakes. I didn't bother with the cross-town bus, instead just walking from 12th avenue on the west side all the way back to 2nd avenue, almost the width of Manhattan...for cupcakes.

Later in the evening we saw Shrek 2 over at Kipps Bay cinema.

Chelsea street fair [nyc] 

May 29, 2004 [Saturday]......Summer Street Fairs
Street fairs have begun around the city for a few weeks and today one was down on 6th Avenue near our apartment. We walked down the blocked off area between 14th - 23rd streets lookings at the stalls and sampling the food on offer.

Later we went downtown to SoHo where we stopped in at the new Bloomingdales store.