A Not-So-Accidental Tourist in New York – Part III

Continue on my trip to New York and hope memory is still fresh; time to boost my memory capacity? SSD should be lighter :-p

So it was the 3^rd day in New York City and no signs of this summer shower would come to a stop today. I did not like this cold and rainy day at all, and the original plan of walking to Serendipity seemed very uninviting now. But being a good sport, just had to make the best out of a situation like this, isn’t it? So I stepped out of my tiny hotel room and heading to American Museum of Natural History.

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American Museum of Natural History was situated in the west side of Central Park, so I started at the subway station again and would take the B train heading Uptown this morning. Arrived at the museum before 10:00a.m. and the summer shower was pouring down so hard on me that I had to run toward the Rose Center and the entrance was crowded with school kids and their chaperons. This museum was unbelievably huge, and no way that any visitor could see all the exhibitions in a day or two. In fact a Museum guide told me that this museum had 46 exhibtion halls and there could be more than 20 on-going exhibitions in any day; one would need about a week to see everything on display, by the way I was told by the docent that there were more than 32 million specimens in.

I was planning to see the figures from Night at the Museum, so I asked for a copy of the list and asked where I could find them. Surprised and disappointed that the Teddy Roosevelt on his horse was not actually in the museum, also the little cowboy with his friend. How heartbreaking this is 🙁

However, the dinosaurs were here and I could see many visitors were to visit the dinosures specifically. Standing 3 times taller than me, the T-rex was surrounded by many excited adults and kids – a truly amazing display (the T-rex and the people). And just to think that a giant mammal like that had come to an extinction about 65 millions years ago with probable causes like climatic change, diseases, changing plant communities, aren’t we facing the similar situations here? From the perspective of our galaxy and beyond, we the human beings are just a grain of sand in the hourglass of time, and extreme tiny in the universe, isn’t it? It also reminds me of how big and successful corporates have clapsed and failed.

Besides the very impressive fossil displays, I also found the diorama representations of nature were really fascinating. If you ever visit the AMNH, you should go talk to the museum guide and learn about Museum’s exploration, discovery and scientific achievement. Perhaps no human enterprise can shock and enlighten us and change our sense of ourselves and the universe like scientific discovery, really!

If there was anything I did not like about this Museum I would have to say it’s the size of it — it’s simply too big and too confusing. The Museum was founded in 1869 and during that time it probably wasn’t a concern of how many visitors the Museum would have 100 years later, therefore the number of restrooms and their where about probably were never an issue. I got lost several times inside this massive complex and finally had giving up finding my way back to which hall I was; I just had to walk toward the entrance and restart my tour again.

I left the Museum in late afternoon and decided to walk over to Carnegie Hall in the rain, just to witness the horrible rush hour traffic of New York in a rainy day. Just kidding! I was going to have the hot pastrami sandwich at the Carnegei deli actually and did not mind the rain, wind and walk at all. Walking in the deli I could see the walls were covered by celebrity photos, and many of the blacks and whites that I just could not recognize. The waiter served pickle first while I was waiting for my hot pastrami sandwich. I was told by a bus driver that the best food in New York wasn’t cheesecake or pizza, it’s actually what I was having here tonight. I won’t argue to that  after I started my first bite.  Oh, I have to confess that I ordered the 3″ thick cheesecake after my huge sandwich.