Chinatown!

Happy Chinese New Year! I walked right into it by accident today. That's where everybody who was anybody was. The streets were piled high in confetti and confetti rockets were blasting away. Apparantly in some there is a little parachute with special chinese writing on it. Everyone would become very excited when one of these appeared and dash to try and catch it. Probably some special good luck. There were many colorful dragon puppets and dances throughout the streets. It seemed that most of the chinese restaurants were closed for the holiday. Therefore all the Thai and Vietnamese restaurants were packed, and this is where I wound up having Pad Thai for breakfast at 3:30pm. You see, this is what I really like about traveling by myself. No one to worry about but me.

As you can see from my earlier post, I wasn't headed to Chinatown when I set out about noon today. I have this habit of just wandering about and seeing what I stumble on (Something which drives my husband, Herr Stadtplan- Mr. Map in German- to distraction). Anyhow, I accidently (and then said "what the hell" and kept going) walked past Greenwich Village and came upon this great celebration, and the most delicious Pad Thai I've ever eaten for breakfast, in Chinatown.

After that I walked along the Bowery to the East Village. Had a great tele. chat with Olga along the way as I passed the first thrift shop we went into on our Thrift Shop Tour of NYC this past Columbus Day. I miss all my friends. I feel a little lonely here, but I really needed some alone time. (I didn't even tell my mother I was coming to NY. So Ma, if you read this, I hope you understand I really wanted to be alone in my apt. in NYC just once. I know I still owe you a Broadway show!). The East Village was really subdued on a somewhat cold, Sunday afternoon. I guess compared to Chinatown! Walked straight across 8th street to Greenwich Village (See, I do eventually get to places).

By then I was chilled to the bone and determined to find my first happening cafe to have some green tea of course. Well wouldn't you know, they were completely sold out of green tea today! It's too hard to believe that I probably found the only cafe in NYC that was sold out of green tea. There must have been quite a rush on it! See, this is what I'm telling everyone. Despite the unavailability of green tea, the place really had the "right feel" about it, so I stuck, and I'm glad I did.

Now unfortunately, this doesn't mean I met Kiefer, or anyone else for that matter. After sitting in what I believe was a great location- nice organic cafe on 8th street (main thoroughfare between East Village, Broadway, NYU and Greenwich Village) right in the big window with a clear view, for about one and a half hours, I saw no one whom I thought was famous. Oh sure there were a couple of "maybes" but I'll never know. By the way, since I couldn't have green tea, I had a large caffe latte. Oh boy, I forgot that I haven't had a big dose of caffeine in a while! So with my heart pounding away I decided to eat something. They had homemade, organic zucchini soup with homemade bread. It was really like pureed zucchini in a blender. It was ok. So I figure since I couldn't have green tea, I'd have some green soup. I'd say that's an A for effort!

Well finally I was ready to move on. So I said to the waiter. "So tell me. Do any famous people come in here?" He said, "Yes! Everyday!" He said Uma Thurman lives around the corner and comes in all the time. He said she is really tall. Movie Director Brian DePalma is in a lot. Jimmy Smits(sp) comes in with wife and kids. Kirsten Dunst is apparently taking some sort of class across the street (I saw a sculpting school) and comes in every day recently. Some Saturday Night Live guys come in (he said they were really boring). So of course I popped the big question. "Has Kiefer Sutherland ever come in here before?" He said "Not here, he goes to the other cafe I used to work at on ______ street all the time" And there you have it folks. I'm now just a little bit closer to getting an autograph some day! You know what I say to that? It's all good! Until tomorrow.