30: Day 23/Hakuna Matata!

Date: 17/7/10
Town: Manhattan, NY
Time: 7.32pm
Timezone: GMT -04.00

Well, today my sister and I slept in until almost lunchtime and then we went out for poached eggs and pancakes. No better way to enjoy brunch, I say.
Then we took a tour bus downtown and we saw a lot of New York that way. We figure we couldn't be bothered walking. So here's some of the things I have seen.


This, my friends, is the Empire State Building from the base - the tallest building in New York. Because it was built in the Great Depression, they used to pay people to travel up and down the elevators turning lights on and off to give the impression that people were actually renting space there. But they weren't.


This is Macy's, it's the biggest department store in New York. It's like Myer, or David Jones, but on a really big scale. Lots and lots of clothes and brands. Very exciting. Macy's is so big and rich they host their own Thanksgiving Day parade, and they even sponsor the fireworks for the annual Fourth of July festivities. And if you're not sure how big that festival is, last year they detonated about 22 tonnes of pyrotechnics. So... yeah. Expensive.


That's a firetruck. It's ladder 18. That's exciting. I love firetrucks. I bought myself a FDNY shirt today, in a souvenir shop. I'm also a bit of a pyromaniac (you should see my candle collection) so it's a little bit contradictory. Oh, when I say pyromaniac, I don't mean arsonist. I just like fire.


This is the Flatiron Building. As you may have guessed, this is not my image. It's not a flying bus. I'm not that amazing. This is from Wikipedia, like most other images of landmarks that I get crappy photos of.
The Flatiron Building is on a triangular block of land at the intersection of 23rd, 5th and Broadway. It was used in the motion picture Spider Man as the headquarters for the Daily Bugle, where Peter Parker works as a photographer. It was the pinnacle of modern architecture in it's day, originally called the Fuller Building but caught the nickname of Flatiron building because of it's shape, and now it's a landmark and the entire district is known as the Flatiron district. It's pretty impressive.


And if you look closely, you'll see a person standing on top of the Flatiron Building. Don't stress, he's not a jumper - Antony Gormely, artist extraordinaire, sculpted about twenty seven or so statues of men and has placed them atop a number of different scyscrapers in downtown Manhattan. They got annoyed at him because the emergency services had hundreds of calls from distressed people who thought they were watching a suicide.
Hah, hah. Nice one, Tony.
Then guess what we did? We went to see the Lion King! Live! At Broadway! On a Saturday! And it was amazing! I am the biggest fan of the movies and I loved the musical! I'm using so many exclamation marks!


Unfortunately, I wasn't allowed to take photos because they make money from buying books with photos in them (and I bought one). So here's some images from Google that I thought you'd like.





It was almost an exact replica of the classic Disney movie on a Broadway stage - the singers were amazing, gave me goosebumps. The lady who played Rafiki the baboon witchdoctor was the funniest, best actress and the most amazing singer. She sang 'He Lives In You' a few times, and she was spectacular.
Scar was my other favourite character - he was everything I thought he'd be.
Lion King holds a special place in my heart - when Rikki and I were little, it was the best movie around. We once spent an entire night at my cousin's 21st birthday party trying to get as many quotes from the Lion King movie into our conversations.
Some of my personal favourites...
- "What do you want me to do, dress in drag and do the hula?"
- "Uncle scar, when I'm king, what'll that make you?" "A monkey's uncle."
- "Are you talking to me? ... they call me... MISTER PIG! AAARGH!"
- "He'd make a very handsome throw rug."
- "Aaare you achin? Foorrr some bacon? Heee's a big pig, yep yep you can be a big pig too, OI!"
- "Ix-nay on the upid-stay..." "Who you callin oopid-stay?!"
- "Mufasa." "What did you say?!" "Uh, I said, que pasa?"
- "Slimy, yet satisfying."
There's more, but I don't have time.
And that's all. There's more, but I don't have time.
Want me to say it again?
... I don't have time.
I'm trying to get up to date. Stick with me, kiddos.
Catchaz.