January Fun Times

It's actually April now at the time I'm typing this entry, so I'm going way back to January to just briefly tell you about the other fun things I did during winter break after coming home from Tucson. There's not really an excuse for my going so long without updating my bloggity, except that I fail at time management.

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Sunday, January 17:

I was finally able to get out of bed and go to church like a good Unitarian-Universalist (haha). Afterwards, I also finally decided to check out the Metro Anime Club at their monthly meeting in the underground level of Maui Tacos. Basically it's a group of adults of various ages who get together and watch anime for several hours every month. Yeah, pretty freaking awesome if you ask me. So, I got to see a couple episodes of Skip Beat, Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad, Tokyo Magnitude 8.0, and some other stuff I can't remember. We were also paid a visit by local cosplay singer Reni, who I saw last year at the NY Anime Festival. She's pretty cute. I really went to the meeting hoping to make a friend, which luckily I did: a lovely girl named Amelia close to my age. Most of the other people seemed older than me, so at first I felt sort of awkward and I didn't think I'd be able to make friends, but then Amelia walked in and she struck me as the sort of person I'd like to talk to. We agreed it would be cool to hang out sometime. So I was glad I decided to take a chance and go to the meeting.

Tuesday, January 19:

I went to the LGBT Community Center (just "The Center" for short) to check out their open house/orientation thing, but ended up being a little disappointed. Some of the organizations and groups that meet there were handing out pamphlets and talking to visitors, but that was kind of it. I was hoping it would be something more structured and orientation-like. I did talk to a few of the reps and got some information on groups, though. Too bad most of them meet in the evenings in the middle of the week, when I have class. That's not too helpful. Oh well. This Tuesday wasn't too disappointing anyways, because on my trip to the Center, I discovered a fantastic donut place called The Donut Pub. Plus, Adam Lambert was on Oprah earlier that day. Word.

Friday, January 22:

I met up with Shirley and Shovana at Kinokuniya Books and we went all over town checking out anime-related stores, including Book-Off, Image Anime, Forbidden Planet, and Toy Tokyo. We also had a good dinner at a Japanese place near St. Marks, looked at manga at Barnes and Noble, and later ate some delicious donuts at the Donut Pub. Good times were had all around. I didn't get to buy anything except a gorgeous yaoi manga called Wild Rock. Bishies running around in loin cloths? Yes, please. Ahem, moving on.

Saturday, January 23:

I went to "Anime Day" at Kinokuniya Books, and was joined by Amelia and Shirley. They had guest speakers and presenters, a raffle for not-so-exciting prizes, Reni the cosplay singer (she seems to pop up everywhere), and more! Actually, the whole thing ended up not being very exciting. And Amelia had to leave early. Kind of disappointing. Oh well.

Monday, January 25:

I finally got to spend some time with Ashley, who I met last semester in my Asian History course. We were going to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, only to discover that it's closed on Mondays. It was a rainy day, so our options were limited. We wandered around until we decided to eat at UNO Chicago Bar and Grill, which caught my eye because the one back home in Oro Valley had closed and I hadn't gotten to enjoy that restaurant much. We enjoyed some Chicago-style pizza and deep conversation. We then headed out and I proposed we go see the movie Me and Orson Welles, which was playing at a small Lincoln Center cinema, and we did that after popping in Best Buy for a moment. The movie was great, and it starred Zac Efron. Oh, yes...

And I think that's pretty much it for the fun times of January!

The Missed Adventures (Part 3)

Looks like I have some catching up to do with my blog here. It's been a while since I updated, and school has started since then, so I guess I should have a lot to say about that. I'll get to it, but first of all, let me just complete the Missed Adventures series. On another rainy evening (I believe it was a Friday) while my parents were out of town in July/August, I decided to check out the art museum again. This time I had fun taking photos of the Greek and Roman sculpture section. Gotta love those muscular male figures. I was also very excited to explore the Asian art wing, but I didn't get many good photos because the lighting was just too dim and my camera sucks that way. It was so beautiful though. There were lots of Chinese and Japanese paintings with that simplistic, Daoist aesthetic that I love, and all sorts of fascinating Buddha and Bodhisatva statues of the ancient Far East. And I absolutely love the feeling of Zen within the Chinese Garden Court. You'll see a peek of that part towards the end of the slideshow.

I'll have more on my recent happenings soon! Not that college is all that exciting to talk about anyway. Or is it?

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

A couple weeks ago, I had fun taking photos of the incredible sculptures at the Met, trying my best to achieve artistic photography. Blogger was being stupid and wouldn't let me post this slideshow in the entry below. Anyways, here you go...

Wall Street, Pride Parade, and Such

My mind is all jumbled because this post is a little late, and I'm trying to work out how to organize a run-down of my recent adventures for you. *sigh* Okay.

Two weekends ago, I took the subway to Wall Street and joined Mom and Dad for a stroll around the financial district. There are lots of really cool buildings, both historical and modern, around that part of town.

We also went to Battery Park, where you can look over the river and see the Statue of Liberty in the distance. I've still never actually seen that thing up close!

On Sunday, June 28, I went over to 5th Avenue around noon to watch the Gay Pride Parade-- a celebration of GLBT self-expression, equality, truth, peace, and love. There were plenty of drag queens and hot guys to go around. Gotta love it. I took hundreds of pictures at the parade, so I've compiled a slideshow of a small selection of them. I also took several video clips (but I think I'll upload those on another post because Blogger is giving me a headache). There were a few notable people marching in the parade, including the governor of New York David Paterson, Oscar-winner Dustin Lance Black, activist Cleve Jones, and I'm pretty positive I also saw Jaslene Gonzalez from America's Next Top Model.

The parade was way longer than I expected, but I stuck around for most of it until I was basically starving to death. After a meal of pizza and breadsticks, I proceeded to take the subway over to the PrideFest Street Fair, which took place over in The Village (At least, I think that's what they call that area). There was lots of junk food and rainbow-themed gifts for sale, but I just bought a lemonade because, as I've noted before, I don't have much money. I did enjoy walking up and down the street fair checking out guys and stuff. By evening, I was exhausted, especially because I didn't sleep well the night before. Ah well, it was a fun, gay-filled day anyways.

In other news, I've been watching way too much baseball lately because there's a Yankee's game on 6 days a week and dad got me into it. Me? Watching sports? Crazy talk! I know, right? But as usual, I've also been diggin' lots of anime. Since I finished watching the intellectually stimulating series "Kino's Journey," I started on another great series I bought a while back, "Samurai 7," a futuristic rendition of Akira Kurosawa's legendary epic film Seven Samurai. Thus far, it's a fairly impressive series, with a diverse cast of characters, an engaging story, samurai action, and subtle romance. I also rented some great anime films recently: (1) Kiki's Delivery Service, a family-friendly coming-of-age story about a young witch, directed by the masterpiece factory himself Hayao Miyazaki; (2) The Sky Crawlers, a pensive, complex, and mysterious study of the human condition punctuated with stunning CG aerial action sequences, directed by Mamoru Oshii of Ghost in the Shell; and (3) Tokyo Godfathers, writer/director Satoshi Kon's quirky tale about three homeless people who discover an abandoned baby in a garbage dump and try to find out who her mother is in an adventure full of chance encounters and holiday miracles.

Over the past week, I also worked on making some curtains for my room out of cheap bedsheets. I did it with mom's help, of course, because I didn't really know how to sew before. They look pretty good now, except I think they just need one more finishing touch.

Last Friday, I went with the parentals to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where we admired all kinds of amazing art--what else? I took a lot of pictures of the incredible statues, which are probably my favorite kind of artwork to look at. The amount of skill that went into creating these realistic figures is astounding. The photos will have to come on a later post because this one's long enough already!

For July 4th, we had a picnic in the shade at Central Park. It was a gorgeous day! After we ate, we took a little nap on our picnic blanket and enjoyed the breeze blowing gently over us. Then we walked around the park and checked out the beautiful Conservatory Gardens, which feature fountains with bronze statues, topiaries, colorful flower beds, and lush ivy. I'm mad that I forgot to bring my camera that day! But of course, I can go back and take pictures any time I want. Because I live in New York City.