vanillafrog's voice: summer in the city

ok, last day and then i will be done with the nyc posts! wednesday was so hot! we thought we would be ready for it, the temp still wasn't as high as it was at home...but it was so humid and we don't walk around outside all day at home! i don't even know how we woke up wednesday morning after everything we did on tuesday. but, we did, and we went to chinatown. i'm not talking about canal st., where you go buy the fake illegal purses. i mean real chinatown. where we were the only white and english speaking people around for a few blocks. we started on canal st., you pretty much have to if you take the subway there. those people got on my nerves. you'd be walking down the street and this nice innocent looking lady would appear out of nowhere and whisper, "belts, sunglasses, purses. fendi, coach, louis." ummm, hello, i'm wearing a "hippie" skirt and my purse was on clearance for $15...do you think i want to follow you into some dark back room behind a wall in your dirty little shop to buy a bag that's still fake and illegal? sorry. and i have a real coach, thankyouverymuch. anyway, i didn't really like chinatown. after going to tokyo, it's like why bother. but we did go to columbus park and see some serious cards and mahjong games. that area is part of the five points neighborhood on which scorsese based gangs of new york...yeah, nice place! we ate some pork buns and a coconut roll at tai pan bakery. they were delicious and cheap! 2 buns, a roll, a coke, and 2 bottles of water for $8! we walked under manhattan bridge. and someone asked ME for directions! probably because we were the only other people around he thought would speak english...not because he thought i was a local! after chinatown, we went to lower manhattan to go on a tour of wall street. i wasn't expecting much from this tour, but it was actually really fun and i learned a lot. we saw the nyse and federal hall. we also saw the new building they are working on at ground zero. we also got to see trinity church while we were waiting for our tour. george washington went to church there when he lived there and alexander hamilton is actually buried in the church cemetery. after the tour, we made it back uptown and got ready for dinner. k-dogg had made reservations a month earlier at wd-50. it's owned by wylie dufresne. if you watch top chef, especially the season they were in nyc, you should remember him. so we got dressed up and rode in a taxi to the lower east side, passing the flat iron building. the food was amazing...the duck was the best meat i have ever eaten. we saw wylie! yeah, he actually cooks at his own restaurant...take that, bobby flay! it's definitely the most we have ever paid for a meal, but it was fun and something we'll never forget!