Balmy day in NYC

It was really warm for much of the day today and I had a pretty packed agenda. I started in the morning at the Gaynor Minden showroom. I wear their pointe shoes, but wanted to see if they could help me tweak the fit. It turned out to be really quick, just needed softer shanks. I'm excited to try these shoes at home. Next was a visit to High Line Park. This is a new redevelopment of an old train track into a public garden and park. It's elevated and a really interesting way of reinventing something that was otherwise probably a bit of an eyesore. The track goes through or under a couple of buildings, including the Standard Hotel which has developed a reputation as a place for voyeurs (in the park at night) and exhibitionists (in a hotel room overlooking the park with the drapes open and the lights on). There are benches and wooden lounge chairs scattered throughout the park, and at one area, the designers have built in a theatre style seating area for park goers to watch the activity on 10th street, below. The plantings along the park appear to change from one end to the next, however I'm not much of a plant person so I'm not sure what the themes are. It being late fall, it was mostly in decay stage, although some hardy plants were still showing off.

My next stop was International Center of Photography, located in mid-town, not far from where Ming and Wilson used to live. They are presenting a show called 'Dress Codes' which seemed like it would be interesting. The area appears to be mostly a business district and was very quiet today. The show was a bit disappointing however. I was hoping for some interesting takes on fashion, clothing and photography however I found the pieces in the show to be too much about ideas and not enough about emotions. The one piece I found intriguing was a series of photos of an elderly Moroccan woman who showed how she smuggled clothing across borders by wearing them in layers under her clothes. There's nothing wrong with art meant to express ideas, but very few of the pieces brought out any kind of visceral reaction in me. The museum includes both still and video images in their shows.

My final stop of the day was at the New Museum of Contemporary Art. This museum is in the Bowery and the neighbourhood is really interesting. Lots of high fashion shops and smaller boutique-y places with street vendors all around. The museum is showing pieces by Urs Fischer who was profiled in the New Yorker, where I learned about it. I found this show much more appealing. The artist pretty much took over the museum (3 floors of large gallery spaces). Each floor had a different feeling. The art had a certain obsessive quality to it, which is something I am always drawn to. Each gallery had a very different feel from the others and it was amazing to consider it all came out of the brain of one guy. The museum offers free iPod tours, which is a nice way to give viewers additional information and helps in the appreciation of the pieces.

I was pretty pooped at this point and my feet were ready for a rest. One of the big problems with living in LA is that there are so few opportunities to walk. I had a couple of hours of relaxation at Wilson and Ming's. For dinner, we headed to Bar Breton, near their place. I had a nice ham and cheese crepe (with a sunny side up egg in the middle) and we shared a mousse with rice crisps and fleur de sel. The traditional beverage with crepes is cider and I tried a delicious pear version. By the time we were done and heading home, it started to rain pretty hard. I had been thinking of heading down to the Village Halloween parade but decided that I didn't care enough to get wet in it.

Speaking of Halloween, all day I saw people in interesting outfits. Half the time, I wasn't sure if it was their usual weird outfit or a costume for the holiday. Is that guy in camouflage for Halloween or is he really in the military? Was that guy a real doctor, or is he going to a costume party? I'm pretty sure the 3 zombie nurses and a few people with blood stains were for today only. The David Bowie standing outside the restaurant was pretty convincing, but the real guy is a lot older!

Boston Ballet and back to NYC

Yesterday started with another ballet class, different teacher and this time the intermediate/advanced class. It was much more intermediate than it was advanced, but a nice challenging and small class. The teachers here all are very aware if you are a new student. When I told him I was from LA, he immediately asked about LA Ballet. Before heading back, I stopped at Taste Coffee House for lunch and had a pretty good crepe. As I was getting bundled for the walk back, who comes walking down the street but The Flash! Grown man with full head-to-toe red outfit with the wings on the head and the fake muscles. Walking with a normally dressed man. Going to get something at the coffee shop. Very interesting.

In the afternoon, I took the subway into downtown to meet Julie for dinner and the ballet. We chose a place called Teatro the night before, based on menu (Italian) and mosaic ceiling. It's located right off the Common and very close to the theatre. We had a very nice dinner (prosciutto and fig appetizer, linguine with crab meat, tiramisu) and I had a wonderful chance to catch up with Julie one-on-one, which is a rare treat! The ballet was performing a repertory of Paquita, 2 new pieces and Jorma Elo's version of Carmen. Paquita is a ballet I've always wanted to see because the variations come up a lot but it's rarely performed. It's really a combination of groups of dances, duets, trios, eights, just strung together for entertainment. The story is fairly unimportant (something about a gypsy girl discovering she's noble). The dancing is very nice. The two premiers are beautiful, very different. The first is much more balletic, very romantic and sensual, completely captivating. The second is much more modern but also engrossing, beautifully done. I enjoyed the Carmen, although they did not provide a complete synopsis and so I kept getting confused as to who was who. The men's costumes looked like pajamas to me, and did not differentiate the 2 main characters very well. The music helped (it's a modern version based on and using themes from the original). The principal ballerina, Lorna Feijoo, was amazing. Some parts of the ballet are so beautifully choreographed and the company really did a great job with it. All in all, a great way to end my Boston visit.

Today, D and I took a walk with Boo through the local woods in the morning and then headed downtown. We planned to have lunch in Chinatown before he dropped me off at the train station. We found a new dim sum place to try (Winsor) and had a great lunch (they do a nice xiao long bao, soup dumplings).

When I got to NY, I walked out onto the street and immediately was struck by the energy in this place. Wilson and Ming live a few blocks from Penn station. Walking down 7th Ave to their loft I'm struck by the variety of people and activity happening in such a small area. There really is no city like this. Ming wasn't feeling well, so I had a nice dinner with Wilson and a chance to catch up. We headed out afterwards to the Shake Shack where I got a frozen custard for dessert. I've got a jam packed weekend here. The past week in Boston was a really great, quiet and relaxing time. I'm ready to jolt myself back to explore NY this weekend.

Boston Ballet School

I'm going to be seeing a performance by the Boston Ballet on Thursday evening with Julie, however during the week, I discovered that they have open adult classes and there is a studio very near where D and Julie live! I went to an Elementary class today and thoroughly enjoyed it. The school has a separate series for true beginners so their elementary class is not as 'basic' as at some studios where all adult classes are open drop in. It was a small class and the level was great for focusing on perfecting technique. I'm going again on Thursday and will try their Intermediate/Advanced. Apparently it goes much faster so we'll see if I can keep up.

Fenway Park

Today I hopped on the subway and took a tour of Fenway Park. I've been to Dodger Stadium (tough to get in and out, beautiful view of hills, lots of visiting team fans), the old Yankee Stadium (great transit, great street life, no visiting team fans!) and Angel Stadium (fancy food, odd rock/fountain thing in the outfield). Fenway is tiny compared to those three! And because of the Green Monstah (the 'r' is silent), it's asymmetrical. But the history is pretty neat. There is Yankee bashing from start to finish by the corny old tour guide, but he has got a lot of information memorized, about the hand operated scoreboard and the men who run it, the retired numbers, the old jerseys, and about the great players who've made their name here. Past the outfield, where the bullpen used to be is a restaurant called The Bleacher Bar where you can sit and see the park from the center fielder's perspective. They have some nice sliders there (the mini burger, not the pitch).

Boston Book Festival

Today was a rainy day. In the morning, we headed to a local bookstore to get a book for a birthday party that the kids were going to later. Lunch was a combination of chicken noodle soup, chicken nuggets and grilled cheese sandwiches. All perfect for a rainy day lunch! After lunch, we dropped the kids off with Julie, and D and I headed to downtown to check out the Boston Book Festival. Now, LA has had a book fair for years and I've never been because you have to get tickets to the speaker sessions, fight traffic and parking to get to UCLA and I just know it's going to be crowds everywhere. Boston is a much smaller city and we are able to get into the two sessions we were interested in without much trouble. There are lines for book signings, but we pretty much skipped those. The first session was on the power of place in books. The format was a small speech by the 4 authors which made it less dynamic and interesting. Anita Shreve and Anita Diamant were the two authors I have read, and they both were very interesting. Anita Shreve's book is now on my list to look up. Elizabeth Nunez was an author I had not heard about, but she read an excerpt from her book which was enticing. The second session we went to was on thrillers and espionage books. This time, the format was a discussion and the 3 authors and the moderator all clearly had interacted before and were very practiced in this type of conversation. They talked not just about writing this genre of book but also about what writing does for them, why they write, how it affects them and how it affects their lives. They compared their own styles with each other. I now have Joseph Finder, Andre Dubus and Stephen Carter to look up. The festival included a few booths out in Copley Square with displays. Unfortunately, it was extremely windy and many books fell to an unfortunate soggy fate. So sad to see. We saw Ken Burns in one booth signing books, had some free Brigham's ice cream (Rocky Road, delish!) and checked out some e-readers (Sony has one you can take notes on). The final session was the keynote address by Orhan Pamuk. He spoke about his new book called "The Museum of Innocence". Recently the New Yorker published a short story by him and I realized today that it was an excerpt from this book. He read a few sections out of the book and then sat for a discussion. Unfortunately, his interviewer took a political tone to his questions which immediately irritated Pamuk. Even more unfortunately, the interviewer had nowhere else to go so each new question was more irritating. Finally, Pamuk suggested taking questions from the audience and here we were in luck. Mostly really good questions came out of this, including asking about how the first person narration restricts the viewpoint of the story, about the translator and that process and others mainly focusing on the writing process. [Update: Some videos are now online for various speakers from the Festival.] We skipped the signing line up and headed for a short stroll on Newbury Street. This place totally reminds me of Yorkville in Toronto, down to the architecture. Dinner was at Brasserie JO. The place was packed so we pulled up a couple of chairs at the bar. I had their mulled cider with brandy. We shared the onion tart (delish, good flavour but lovely light texture). I had the steak frite with a really delicious blue cheese butter, D had a pork tenderloin that he polished off. Dessert for me was chocolate mousse and for D the profiteroles. Both were exceptional, and they serve them in a nice showy way! We came out of the restaurant completely stuffed and for me, I felt the price of the meal was very reasonable (compared to what I think a similar place would be in LA). The best thing about the day was not having to fight crowds for everything, like I'm used to in LA. Plus we lucked out on $10 parking as well! It was a great way to start my week in Boston.

Getting to Boston

I flew out of LAX on Thursday night. The United flight to JFK is Economy Plus in all of coach, so with the extra 5 inches, I napped my way across the country. It does make the flight feel shorter. We landed in NYC at around 6:30a and the Airtrain/LIRR combination got me to Penn Station for about $13 bucks and in about an hour. By 8a I was sitting at the Tim Horton's having a donut and coffee with my printed ticket in hand. When I bought my train ticket, I wasn't sure how long it would take to get into the city. Clearly I gave myself way too much time, so I hung out for a few hours waiting for the train. About 20 minutes before it was scheduled to depart, I went to hang with the crowd staring at the board. I find this scene endlessly amusing, regardless of which train station I'm at. Crowds of people all standing and staring in the same direction. As soon as the track is listed, a big portion of the crowd heads towards it. The train ride is so civilized and relaxing. My only difficulty was that I decided not to attempt the overhead lift of my suitcase into the bin, so my legs shared the space with my bags. That extra 5 inches of leg room would've been very welcome. Even so, I find it very easy to nap on the train. The glimpses I got of the countryside showed that autumn was in full force. The colours of the forests we passed were beautiful, particularly against the backdrop of the overcast sky. I arrived in Boston at around 3:30p and easily found Julie's car waiting near the taxis. A quick drive out to the 'burbs and I'm at Julie and D's new house! The kids have grown SOOOO big since I last saw them (maybe 3 years ago?) and the house is really nice. It's much bigger, with a great big beautiful yard, a nice sun room, and a whole master bedroom suite for D and Julie, so now they don't need to share the bathroom with Mari and Austin! The kids are just as much fun as I remember. D made a wonderful dinner of turkey, baked potatoes, peas and an apple tart for dessert. I tried to stay up, but by 9:30p, bed was calling.

"Where the Wild Things Are"

I went to a screening of this and I loved it. The movie is directed by Spike Jonze, who made 2 of my favourite movies ("Being John Malkovich" and "Adaptation"). I love his skewed but creative take on things and he brings a similar sensibility to the classic children's book. A bit of 'backstory' has been added to flesh out the original. The boy who plays Max is remarkable. The 'Wild Things' world is gorgeous and everything about it, the monsters, the landscape is a reflection of Max's real life but filtered through his imagination. You see echoes of Max's anxieties and emotions in the events that happen to him while he's there. And when he finally comes home, the beauty and quiet of the scene between the boy and Catherine Keener playing the mother is amazing.

Gustavo!

The LA Philharmonic got a new music director on Thursday night, Gustavo Dudamel. He's been the talk of the town for months now. There are pictures of him all over the city hanging off street lights, on billboards. He's the 28 year old Venezuelan who has taken the conducting world by storm. I don't know enough about symphonies or conducting to compare him to Esa-Pekka Salonen or the various other conductors I've seen, but I knew it would be a BIG deal, so when Amy told me tickets were available, we got a pair of cheap seats to watch the festivities. There was a big party after for the VIPs so part of Grand Ave was closed off. From what we could see as we walked into Disney Hall, it was going to be a major shindig!

The concert included a premier of a piece by John Adams called City Noir followed by Mahler's 1st Symphony. I knew the Mahler would be enjoyable (Dudamel has a bit of a reputation on it) and that we would take our chances a bit with the Adams. Turned out the Adams was a lot of fun. His program notes indicate a 40's era LA vibe which clearly came through in the music. It reminded me of the feeling you got from those great black & white noir movies. The Mahler was great, with a very celebratory ending. Dudamel conducted this from memory and covered the podium pacing and jumping around as he conducted. He will be fun to watch. The symphony seemed to be really energized-who knows if that's season-opener-energy or new-conductor energy-but there was an electricity in the air.

Frankly, Dudamel had us at his first entrance. A couple of people stood up for him just for entering the stage! After the Adams piece, the composer came on and received his acclaim. Dudamel stood aside and allowed him to take center stage. After the Mahler, Dudamel stood in amongst the musicians to take bows, every time. The applause went on for so long that he finally had to grab the Concertmaster and escort the orchestra off stage. After all, he had a party to go to!

All in all a great night for LA, as the Dodgers won their game in the bottom of the 9th inning, so there was celebration at the north end of Downtown as well!

Las Vegas

Today we wake up to winds. Very strong, gusty and kind of cold. We decide to head back to Vegas instead of more park sightseeing. We have our last breakfast at the hotel (delicious make your own waffles, eggs, sausages, cereal, quite good for a free meal) and hit the road. After driving through some dramatic canyons, we are back to grey, dusty and desolate. It's incredibly windy today so on top of everything, there's a dusty haze in the air. When we finally hit Vegas, it's a bit jarring. After seeing the kind of natural extravagance that's in Zion and Bryce, Vegas seems rather gaudy, blousy, trying too hard. We are staying at the Imperial Palace, which is a bit of a dump but is clean and really cheap! It's also well located, being across the street from Caesars in the middle of the strip. We start our afternoon at the Palazzo, which is connected to the Venetian. Lunch is at the Grand Lux Cafe, which serves us a good hearty meal. Ma loves the soup. The Venetian is a pleasant place to stroll, with the gondoliers singing their Italian songs. We save $16 a head watching them instead of taking a ride. Our next stop is Caesars, however they replaced their talking statues with a large aquarium. We were kind of looking forward to some talking statue entertainment. After a little time at the penny slots, we head for the Bellagio. We find out that the winds may prevent the dancing fountains but we take our chance and get a spot along the railing. Luckily, the fountains go as planned, to Elton John. This just never gets old for me, I love the dancing fountains. We decide to walk over to where the main lobby is to see the Chihuly glass flowers and the conservatory. Since we are walking rather slowly, we decide to stay for another round of dancing fountains, this time from the other side. The next performance is to "All That Jazz". The programmers seem to feel the wind is dying down because this performance goes higher than the previous. The conservatory is decked out for fall, with some gigantic pumpkins (over 800 lbs). They've also added animatronics! There's giant fake Venus Flytraps, a talking tree. Kind of weird. After the Bellagio, we decide it's safe to check into the hotel and then figure out which buffet we will hit. The goal is crab legs. The buffet at the Imperial Palace has them but they are cold. We try Harrah's next door. Hit the jackpot! Not only are the crab legs warmed, but they have a little sampling of just about all the major cuisines: American barbecue, Asian sushi rolls and noodles, Italian pastas, Mexican taco salads. Plus the desserts look really good and they are dishing out very generous portions of ice cream. Ma and Ba have an all crab leg meal. I do plenty of damage to the legs but add a few other items as well. We all save room for dessert, although the chocolate fountain was probably the way to go-strawberries, rice krispies, marshmallows to dip. Before we leave, we grab a banana for breakfast tomorrow. I am catching a plane early in the morning so I leave Ma and Ba to stroll the streets and head to bed early. It's only been a few days away, but I feel like I've gone very far, which is I think the sun of a good vacation.

Bryce Canyon

Today we drive East through Zion heading towards Bryce Canyon. We will gain another 2000 ft in elevation. We learned yesterday that Bryce, Zion and the Grand Canyon form the Grand Staircase of the southwest. The lowest layer of Bryce Canyon is the highest layer of Zion and the lowest layer of Zion is the highest layer of the Grand Canyon. It's actually possible on a more extended stay to see all 3 national parks, since the north rim of the Grand Canyon is only about 4 hours from Bryce Canyon. The drive through Zion is incredible, one amazing view after another. We also drive through a very long and very narrow tunnel in order to get to the other side of the mountains that form Zion. Once on the other side, the land immediately becomes flat as a pancake. I remember this from my trip to Wilson and Ming's wedding in Salt Lake City. Where there was no mountain, the land is very flat. As we head northeast and higher up, the deciduous trees are starting to turn colour. Also, there are more coniferous forests. Eventually it's all pine and the like, very few leafy trees. Eventually we get to Red Canyon and the landscape changes dramatically. On one side, it's shades of grey dotted with green trees, flat with an occasional mountain or hill. Turn 180 degrees and the rocks have turned red-orange and rise in front of us dramatically. It's like in the Wizard of Oz, but instead of a tornado, you drive from B&W Kansas to Technicolour Oz! Bryce is about 2 hours from Zion so we get there at lunch. Outside the park gates is a little cluster of businesses catering to the tourist crowd. There is no real town here. We have lunch at Ruby's Inn which seems to be the place to go. Large tour buses stop here. Strangely, there's a strong French presence; I'm not sure what they make of this food, it's only so-so. We finally get to the park and head to the Visitor Center again. Today the weather is very overcast. Bryce Canyon is supposed to be one of the darkest places in the US at night so has an astronomy program for visitors, but we're not sure if the weather will hold. This is a park you drive through. The scenic points are all slightly off the main road. We are on the top of what seems like a plateau. The primary highlight of Bryce is the hoodoos that are formed in the eroded landscape to the east of the road. Hoodoos are formed by erosion of softer rock under a hard cap forming these eerie looking pinnacles. The erosion also forms natural bridges and arches. Bryce Amphitheatre is the largest in the park and it's phenomenal. Because of the weather conditions, the sky was very dramatic with patches of clouds and occasional sunlight bursting out from behind. As at Zion, the quality of the rock changes depending on the light. It seems being able to hike down into the amphitheatre would be the best way to see the park. We're not equipped to take on the climb down and back up, but it appears that once you are down into the bottom, it's relatively flat. We watch from the viewpoint the little clusters of people down on the trails. You can also take horses down into the amphitheatre. Both Zion and Bryce are small parks and are easily viewable in about 1/2 day if you are not hiking. Of course if you are able to hike, I imagine you are able to get an even deeper appreciation for the places. By late afternoon, we had decided that the weather would not be amenable to skywatching that night so decided to drive back to Springdale. On the road back, wild animals were starting to come out for their evening meal. Wild turkeys attempted to cross the street in front of us (one made it, the other two decided to turn back). Deer were jumping over fences and across the street to get to the rest of their group. It's a rather remarkable thing to see this happening right next to your car!! Dinner in Springdale was at Pioneer Inn, which was okay, nothing remarkable. Because of the cloudy night sky, another attempt was made to photograph the moon before turning in.

Zion

I flew into Las Vegas last night to meet up with my parents. We plan to drive to Zion and Bryce National Parks in the next couple of days. It's a 3 hour drive to Springdale, which is the small Utah town that caters to the Park tourism community. The land between the two places is rather desolate. It's all very grey, flat and dusty. We will gain about 4000 ft elevation between Vegas and Zion. (LAX is pretty close to sea level and Las Vegas is about 2000 ft elevation.) We drive through 3 states on this short drive: Nevada, a sliver of Arizona and finally Utah. As we get closer to Zion the land changes. It gets very dramatic. It also gets redder. We finally reach Springdale around lunch time. The hotel staff at the Quality Inn Montclair Suites recommends a burger place up the street. Everything that a tourist crowd needs is on this street. There is also a shuttle that stops off at various places in town and takes people to the Visitor Center at the Park. There is an East/West street through Zion that is driveable, however the street going north into the Canyon is closed to private vehicles during peak season. It's actually kind of nice to leave the car at the hotel. Our lunch was at Blondie's Diner, which is a little house converted to a restaurant. There are domesticated elk in a pen in back. We learn that the elk will become lunch when we see elk burgers on the menu. The food is quite good, even my mom thinks so, and she's rather particular. Their berry pie is warm and goes well with the vanilla ice cream. After lunch and settling our stuff in our hotel room, we grab a shuttle to check out the park. I remember from visiting national parks as a kid that the staff are really helpful, and this remains the case. We ask for guidance on seeing the park in the short time we have and the ranger suggests places we should definitely stop. We hop on the canyon shuttle and spend the afternoon getting on and off at various beautiful spots to look at the dramatic rock formations and take pictures. The weather is beautiful, and the higher elevations make the sky just look incredibly clear and blue. The lodge at Zion is not one of the great lodges such as at Yosemite or Yellowstone, however there is a nice easy trail that takes you to a few waterfalls. We head out and spot a flock of wild turkeys hanging out in the creek. This is not the last we will see of wild turkeys. Ma and Ba both drop out after awhile, but I continue to the lowest waterfall, which is a small one falling off an overhang. The pool underneath is not much to look at but the water spray adds a pleasant, cool feeling to the place. After I get back to the lodge, we continue up the canyon. Along the way, we spot a couple of rock climbers on the cliffs. One of them had set up his sleep sling on the cliff. Zion has a multitude of trails of varying degrees of difficulty which of course we didn't explore, but there is so much to see just from the shuttle. And as the afternoon wears on and the sun starts to set, the rock changes colour and texture at every change in the light. It's really rather remarkable. After we completed the canyon circuit, we headed back to the hotel to rest a little before heading back to town for dinner. There are many options and it looked like Pizza & Noodle was a popular choice so we headed there. Indeed their pizzas were delicious, really good dough. It's a very casual restaurant and we are surrounded by families with lots of young, blond kids. The crowd in the area in general seems very diverse: foreign tourists, families with young kids, older people, young hikers. The full moon is on Sunday so before going to bed I try and take some pictures of the full moon. I need better equipment! The hotel has free WiFi so a little surfing gets us back in touch with the real world.