The Events of Tuesday, November 16, 2010

          Today we woke up bright and early and very tired, but also excited for our first day in New York City, the Big Apple, the fashion capital, the financial capital, the advertising capital, “Capital of the World” – isn’t that New York? Anyway, we were excited. So we rushed through a breakfast in Oma Janssen’s wonderfully spacious dining room table, locked up the RV, walked to the nearest bus stop, and climbed aboard a short line coach bus. It reminded us of airplanes and the buses we take for long-distance school field trips. But it was so quiet! On the way there, Mom and Dad were the only ones talking on the entire bus. At one point, Daddy chided us jokingly, “Quiet down up there! You’re talking too loud!” We didn’t talk at all. We just read and made friendship bracelets and solved Rubik’s cubes and gazed out at the land whizzing past us.

          After a few long minutes in the Lincoln Tunnel, which goes from New Jersey to Manhattan under the Hudson River, we emerged into NYC. Daddy announced, quietly, “This is it!” The bus did a crazy little dance about the city involving U-turns and several overhead bridges (hence, we were very glad we weren’t driving the RV), before pulling into Port Authority Bus Terminal. Here, we left our bus and entered into the craziness of “The City”. We knew that we wanted to buy more tickets for bus rides, but it took us a while to find the ticket booth. Then we bought another very helpful tool for our New York City adventure: a plastic foldable map. After that little adventure, we walked outside and were promptly swallowed up by the crowd of pedestrians.

          We walked through Times Square (talk about advertising!) and some of us got headaches from all the smokers. After kind of getting lost (but not really…), we found our way to the SONY building, where we were to partake in our first adventure of the day at Sony Wonder Technology Lab. The friendly and welcoming staff gave us FeliCa cards to serve as our passport to the Lab and activate the exhibits that follow, “exciting exhibits in a dynamic, state-of the art facility that brings technology and creativity together to make learning experiential, entertaining and fun”.

          First, we proceeded to the Log In, where we typed in our first names, chose our favorite colors and music genres, took our pictures, and recorded our voices to create a Digital Profile used to personalize the exhibit experiences that follow. Then we watched as our digital information was transmitted into the Lab through a dynamic lighting effect. That was my favorite part of the whole experience. Other highlight exhibits featured virtual heart surgery, designing and activating a robot, sending signals to other visitors, nanotechnology, an animation studio, a dance capture station, an interactive dance floor, a Production Studio, a game builder, a music wonders exhibit, and a movie maker.

          One of the highlights, the Production Studio involved all of us exploring the various roles associated with television. Working as a team, we became Directors, Cameramen, Reporters, Hosts, Technical Directors and Field Producers to create an HD broadcast with an environmental theme. After we made it, we watched ourselves on the TV screen outside the studio. Another family favorite, Moviemaker taught us about some of the key concepts of motion picture production and digital editing. Through experimenting with sounds and images to create a movie trailer, we learned the interpretive and emotional impact of sound and music in a movie. We created our own movie trailers by choosing from a series of short video clips from a selection of popular Sony Pictures films, and putting them into a sequence. We then added background sounds and sound effects to hear how each selection changes the tone and feeling of the scene. Finally, we added the musical score, titled our pieces, and then watched our completed trailer “premiere” on screen. After our wonderful SONY experience, we ate lunch in the Sony Public Plaza and then headed out to see more of this great city.

          We walked a very long while to the New York Public Library and made it just in time to join a very large free tour of the library. Our tour guide was talking very quietly and not at all audibly at first. We were all exhausted from our practical sprint on the way there, so all we really wanted to do was sit down. We did NOT want to stand for a long time and strain our ears to hear a practically whispering librarian tell us about the library. It was not very enjoyable at first. However, it got better and better bit by bit as we went along. On our third or fourth stop, our tour guide (whose name we never did catch) looked at Abby and said sympathetically, “You’ve been walking all day, haven’t you?” – (a weary nod from Abby) – “I can tell!” The most interesting thing we learned about the library was that it doesn’t use the Dewey Decimal System like most other libraries. It uses a very different and complex system that, according to our nameless tour guide, “works for the New York Public Library”. They also have a unique system for requesting research books. One’s request is written on a slip of paper and attached to a Ferris-wheel-like mechanism which goes to the floor below. Within a half an hour, one’s assigned number lights up overhead and one’s research material is there and ready for one’s perusal.

          The library was beautiful and huge and full of wonderful art and artifacts. At the end of our tour, we received a copy of Thomas Jefferson’s first draft of the Declaration of Independence printed next to the final copy of it revised and edited by the first Continental Congress. It appears that Jefferson was more than a little upset over how his initial draft was “edited”. So he went home and copied out five copies of his original work (utilizing his copying invention) and distributed them to friends. So this document was a rare find, one of the numerous rarities in the New York Public Library. However the tour was exhausting – not the best tour we’ve ever done. So we headed to the Children’s Reading Room, sat down in comfortable chairs for the first time in hours, and read kiddie lit while Mom and Dad planned.

          Then we walked through Times Square to the Empire State Building. We bought our tickets, but the audio tours were quite expensive, twenty dollars each. Daddy asked an employee at the bottom how many audio players he would recommend for our family of six. This gentleman, quickly keying in on our Stanford sweatshirts, congratulated us on “our” successful football season. It turns out he was from USC, but didn’t hold that against us and is looking forward to a better season next year. Then he told us to purchase one audio ticket and to tell the employees at the audio desk that “Area 1 said to hook you up.” We did as he said and received three audio tour players for the price of one. Then we rode the escalator up eighty flights, and then up six more flights to reach the observation deck. The elevator rides took only about one minute! Then we relaxed and let “Tony”, a very realistic Little Italy New Yorker show us around, via the audio tour. Even though it was only about five in the afternoon, the sky was dark and the city was all lit up like the Fourth of July. It was so pretty. We were 1,050 feet above the City’s bustling streets, taking in panoramic views both from within a heated glass-enclosed pavilion, and from the surrounding open-air promenade, enjoying limitless vistas far into the distance. In the audio tour, Tony showed us the sights and told us amusing stories about the city and entertained us in a way that only a New Yorker can – blunt, colorful, and fun to hear.

          But the fact that we were up there at night made it even more enjoyable! It was one of the most breath-taking spectacles of a lifetime. We were simply mesmerized by the sparkling array of stars and flickering lights scattered across the sky like a galaxy of diamonds on black velvet. From all over the city and far beyond, the buildings were a light show unto themselves. From every possible angle, the Empire State Building offered an unparalleled feast for the eyes! We even saw the light from the Statue of Liberty’s torch.

          When we had all finished the audio tour and taken in the fantastic light show, we headed inside and met King Kong himself! It appears that this costumed King Kong had been hired to scare ladies. We took pictures and then headed down what was once the world’s tallest building to find some dinner. We were particularly looking forward to a bit of New York style thin-crust pizza. Hailed by a pizza store manager standing outside his restaurant, we found ourselves in a truly Italian/New York pizza place. The manager gave us fifteen percent off and took us under his wing because he was also from San Francisco. We got two whole pizzas, one Philly Cheese Steak specialty stuffed pizza (layers of seasoned beef, mozzarella cheese, sautéed onions, fresh green peppers and marinated red peppers baked inside hand-tossed pizza dough and sprinkled with sesame seeds) and one New York style thin-crust pepperoni pizza (loaded with lots of zesty pepperoni, melted mozzarella and savory tomato pizza sauce — perfect for the pepperoni purist). They were absolutely delicious and filling!

          Then we meandered back to Port Authority Bus Terminal, found our gate and learned that the next bus wasn’t going to arrive for another forty-five minutes or so. So we sat down to read, relax, and plan some more, and boarded our bus when it came. On the bus ride back to Oma Janssen’s house, I fell asleep and woke up to Mom poking my shoulder – hard, because apparently, the first time she had tapped me on the shoulder, I hadn’t budged. We were almost to our stop and it was raining hard outside, so we bustled into all our waterproofs, dug through our backpacks for our umbrellas and stepped out sleepily into a heavy rain. We hurried back to Oma Janssen’s house, dried off as best we could, and headed to bed, tired after an overwhelming, but awesome day in New York City.