New York is Glonous. And Cultual.

The tourist shopping/dining part of being in NYC doesn't do all that much for me after about an hour. I don't enjoy hanging out in Times Square or on Fifth Avenue where all the other people that are obviously not from New York are hanging out. (You can tell they're out-of-towners because even though these people are also half naked, they are also really fat, but don't have as many tattoos or piercings. And some of them are wearing sensible shoes.) I especially don't enjoy spending the amounts of money that New York seems to think I have. Yeah, it's fun to go into Tiffany's, and who doesn't get a kick out of taking pictures with Minnie Mouse dressed up like the Statue of Liberty at World of Disney? But mostly I just want to go somewhere else. Like here:


I stole this photo from someone else's blog, because I was too chicken to take my own. But this is what the inside of the fabric shops look like in the Garment District. The shops are about ten feet wide, fifty feet long, and have piles and piles of long bolts, strewn about--who knows what's behind all the ones in front. Lola and I went shopping for some cheap, summery fabrics to make cute skirts out of. We were not disappointed.

In one of the stores we went to, I was offered a proposition of . . . I'm not sure what. The proprietor (with his arm tightly around me) told Lola she could take all the fabric for free if she'd leave me with him. At which point Lola freaked out and told me we had to leave. That was a shame, because he had some really nice fabric. Cheap. I insisted on going back (by myself--Lola refused to step foot in the store again, even though she was almost equally afraid of letting me go back alone), and he repeated his offer as he rung me up, telling me to talk it over with my husband--he said he'd make daltonboy a really good deal. Typically, daltonboy refused to even consider it.

One of the stores was going out of business, and had fabric on sale for .50 a yard, .25 a yard, and free. Eat that, Bergdorf Goodman!

Excellent Pork Chop House is another place I'd rather be.


We had a hard time finding a restaurant with a menu that had English on it in this neighborhood. When we sat down, the server brought us an Engrish photo album with "Especially for You" on the cover, and pictures of all the food. I assume this was "Especially for Foreign" customers, who were in short supply.

The food was ever so delicious--probably because it was being blessed by the ancestors who had a shrine set up in their honor on the floor right next to our feet. Seriously, daltonboy almost kicked it over on his way to the bathroom. They had been served an apple and a bowl of Tootsie Rolls that day, so I pretty sure they were about as content as the dead can be.

I don't know first hand if the pork chops were excellent--I ordered Shanghai-style noodles soup--but the boy at the table next to us seemed to be eating his with great relish, so I'll take their word for it.

The paper chopsticks sheath read as follows:

Welcome to Chinese Restaurant. please try your Nice Chinese Food With Chopsticks the traditional and typical of Chinese glonous history. and cultual.

There were no fortune cookies served, because those aren't Chinese, but they did have a little bowl of Tootsie Rolls at the cash register, which apparently are Chinese. Who knew? I took one when I paid, and later gave it to daltonboy and told him I swiped it from the shrine. I think he may have been afraid to eat it. Hope I don't find it in the laundry after it's been through the wash.