Saturday, January 5, 2019
We kick off the 2019 travel year by taking a long trip to Brooklyn, New York, a mere 40 mile drive from where we live in Warren, NJ. The premise of the trip was a) that we were going into the city to see the Escher Exhibit in Industry City, a region of Brooklyn that many people will know little-to-nothing about, b) to collect on a wedding present that Joy & Steve had given us which was a dinner of our choosing, and c) to spend the night in Brooklyn to catch a show the next day. But that will be part of the next day’s blog post.
The drive in was remarkably easy, something you can do in about an hour on a Saturday morning. The fact we landed free parking was an added bonus. I had hit the bike early morning so we weren’t super-early getting in. But we had plenty of time to goof around before the timed tickets.
Met up with them shortly after parking and grabbed lunch at a soup bun place called Yaso Tangbao, 1 of the 3 locations in NYC. Food was pretty good, not amazing but at these prices it’s really reasonable, especially for the city. As mentioned above, the whole area appears to be a set of converted warehouses, so there’s not necessarily any continuity between the shops. The warehouses are separated by open areas, which means you need to walk from building to open to building and so on. In all there were maybe 7 warehouses, some more populated than others.
I don’t really know what a Hipster Village is, but I think this would qualify. In the pic below, a massive teepee stood between 2 of the warehouses. It was a dry sitting area for people to hang out, read, talk, drink coffee, or do whatever. It’s a little goofy maybe but at the same time, I appreciate the effort.
After lunch we had an espresso and macaroons at Chez Colson, then walked around a bit hopping from warehouse to warehouse to see what was there. We swung through the actual food court to use the bathroom then made our way to Japan Village which was probably the most interesting shop of all them.
Eventually it was almost 1:30 and we made our way to the main attraction for the day.
Short summary: Click the link above and book tickets. This exhibit is great, 100% worth it. It ends at the beginning of February (the 3rd) so your time is limited. Make the time if you can. This is a one-time exhibit. This is the first & last place it will be. At the time of this writing, it does not plan to travel. On February 4th it will be gone and the space will be rented to someone else, or nobody at all.
All the pictures, in a gallery:
Longer summary: There’s not much I can say about MC Hammer Escher that you don’t already know. His stuff is unique, and amazing, and makes your brain sit up in a way that very few other artists can. To me, this exhibit really brings home how amazing he is. Many of the works he did were wood carvings, which makes so much of this stuff flat-out amazing. The progression from his beginnings to the middle/end is interesting. Being able to see everything in an afternoon is fantastic. We’ve been to plenty of museums and exhibits in the past few years and this ranks right up there with the top things we’ve seen.
In the middle of the exhibit there’s a reading room where you can take a break, sit down, read, or look out the window. The window looks out towards the city where you can see, much to my surprise, a windmill. I have to say that I am quite surprised to have found one there.
We also landed a fridge magnet in the gift shop, which is our first of 2019. Not the last though.
After the show, we hit up a sort of bike-coffee shop which was good for hanging out but pretty lousy in terms of coffee. When I say “pretty lousy” I mean it really could not have been much worse. The shop was filled with random Italian products that no biker in their right mind would buy, at least not in my experience. But again, it gave us a place to sit and talk, and there was free WiFi so that was good.
Our dinner plan was originally going to be a Turkish place that was in walking distance but when we got there we realized it was mostly a store front meant for takeout and maybe a quick counter bite. So we went to the Peruvian place next door, Lima. Food was good but I now regret not just getting the roast chicken, which is sort of what Peruvian food is most known for. I guess there are endless fields of chickens in this country.
After dinner we walked back to the car and parted ways with our gracious hosts, who ended up paying for everything the whole day, including lunch, coffee, the exhibition, and dinner. I am now regretting not getting the 50% off, 2-foot-tall chocolate Santa from the chocolate shop. Short of the miss on the Santa, it was a great day and we really appreciate the present.
We hopped in the car and drove towards the hotel, which was closer to Manhattan proper, and found more free street parking. After a 5 block walk we were at the hotel, Even Hotel Brooklyn. Place was great and cost us about $3.50 because we have free hotels from using hotels.com so much. Despite the low cost (even before the comped night it was reasonable) the place was really quite nice and I could see staying here again in the future.
Got in the room, and D watched My Life in Ruins which I caught part of. It was entertaining enough and there are certainly worse ways to burn time. After the first movie (yeah there’s more) we went to Whole Foods to grab some ice cream. A note on Whole Foods. For those who travel a bunch, Whole Foods is an absolute anchor when you need something reliable to eat. In this case, that was chocolate ice cream.
We then returned to the hotel and watched Frozen Ground. I’m pleasantly surprised to say that Nicholas Cage is actually not bad in this one. It’s based on a real story, which is damn sad when they show the pictures at the end of the real people killed by this nutcase.
That wraps up day 1 of our first trip of the year. In all it was a great day and the first of many more to come. Welcome to 2019!
Traveling Normandy 