New York City, Part 1

I have no photos of Jersey City - Here is a NYC cab!

I left Boston in the early evening. Even though the Boston mechanics did an amazing job of my bike they didn't finish until around 6:30 PM. This meant that by the time I picked up my bike, packed up all my stuff and left Boston it was already getting dark.

This was not my intention, I didn't really want to navigate the Jersey Turnpike during darkness, but I now had no choice in the matter. At least it seemed I was mostly over my cold (I drank a litre of cranberry juice every day in Boston, in the hopes to get over it as quickly as possible).

The ride out wasn't too bad and my GPS did a fantastic job. About 3 hours in I started to get very weary and the traffic started to build. It was in the middle of the night and there was a traffic jam on the freeway!

It's hard to describe the surreal scenery I experienced as I passed through Jersey City and the surrounding areas during the night. Even if I had attached my GoPro the photos wouldn't have come out, but I remember riding on these huge flyovers through massive, dense metropolises  It almost felt like something out of Blade Runner. It was certainly different to the wide open spaces I experienced in the West.

And a cop car!

On the motorcycle it was cold, and I had all my clothing on again in order to keep warm. By this stage in my journey my music had started to bore me - I had something like 30GB of music, each track I felt like I'd heard 100 times. These days I was relying on podcasts to keep up my attention.

So on the cold lonely highway I had nothing but The Joe Rogan Experience and bright GPS map too keep me awake and entertained. The GPS map would periodically show a massive tangle of interconnecting highways and freeways. I felt very lucky that I had the luxury of the GPS as I would not want to be navigating this quagmire on my wits alone.

The Jersey Turnpike eventually spit me out onto some backroad of Jersey City, where I realised that this wasn't the nicest neighbourhood or prettiest city I'd seen in America. Unfortunately my GPS thought I could arrive at my destination on one side of a highway where my hotel was on the other, however a giant divider between the lanes would make things difficult. I had to continue on in order to get my GPS to re-route and get me coming into the hotel from the other direction so I'd be on the right side.

And a building!

Even following GPS directions can be difficult in roads as complicated as these, and with so much traffic. However I was glad I was on a motorcycle as could be nimble enough to weave through cars and make turnoffs quickly. Luckily for me I had already purchased an EZ-Pass (electronic toll bridge pass for East America) and put it in my tail bag, so toll bridges were super fast and painless.

I eventually arrived at my hotel in Jersey City, where the plan was to stay for a few nights and use the public transport travel between Jersey and NYC. However upon arrival, I noted that the front-desk staff were behind a very thick glass window and the whole place smelt of stale cigarette smoke. At first I thought this was tolerable, but after a few hours it started to make me a little nauseous. NYC was supposed to be a bit of a blow-out for me anyway, a chance to spend some money that I'd been saving through couch-surfing, so I booked a nice boutique hotel in the middle of Manhattan called "Hotel Indigo" for the next few nights.

The next day I was a little nervous, as this would finally be the moment where I'd face the infamous NYC traffic. I ate some dried-out hotel muffins, drank a weak coffee, attached the GoPro and set off at around about 10:00 AM. After going under the Holland Tunnel which connects New Jersey to NYC via the Hudson River, I popped out in Manhattan. In the end the traffic wasn't particularly bad, the GPS did lose signal for the first time ever due to the surrounding building heights, but it was easy to remember what its original plan was due to the NYC grid system.

My bike sits outside my hotel in Manhattan.

When I arrived at my hotel I had no idea where to park, so I just put my bike in some loading zone accidentally. Lucky for me I was able to move my bike to the correct spot before the draconian NYC parking inspectors found out.

I checked in and then moved my bike up to a hotel-partnered parking garage. The guy really didn't want to take my bike. As I pulled up he said "No motorbike! No motorbike!". And I'm all like "Hey dude, I'm staying in the hotel up the road, you have to take me in". Reluctantly he gave me a spot... squeezed underneath a staircase. At first I was a little miffed why I didn't get a spot since I'd still be paying the $35 a day any car would. But after further thought I guess there was no way for them to really move my bike, I can imagine a busy NYC garage would be in a constant car juggling act.

Jessica arrived later that morning so we could both head down to the New York Comic Con. Jessica put on her "Abbey from NCIS" outfit and we walked down to the convention centre. Now, I'm not knowledgeable at all in the world of comics - I think I've read about two in my entire life back when I got them in a show-bag from the the Canberra show - but I couldn't miss the opportunity for this massive nerd event!

The event was pretty crazy (although, allegedly, not as large as the San Diego Comic Con), there were tons of people and exhibitions there. We first headed down to Artists Alley, where there were tons of fantastic artwork on display. Some artists were extremely talented, and I managed to get some business cards of a select few so I could possibly order some prints when I got back to Australia.

So. Much. Joker. Artwork.

Harder Better Faster Stronger. No doubt costume is not
Daft Punk related.

Me!

Jessica and I then headed down to the collector halls where there was all kinds of t-shirts, models and exhibitions. There was even Marvel Avengers cologne for sale! Heaps of people were dressed up, but apparently to to the extent of Dragon Con - an event that Jessica regularly attends.

Ah, no more nerd stank.

Minecraft guy.

My favourite costume.

Lego Hulk Smash!

There were some great costumes on display, and I did want to get photos of a lot of them. However I was a little shy about approaching people to get their photograph - especially the more 'racy' ones. I know that in a lot of cases the cos player loves being photographed, but I couldn't get over how creepy that felt. Plus the place was so packed, to get a photo you need to clear a space and make a giant scene, an even larger one if you want a photo next to them. So I just took photos where I could of people in the crowds.

I love the guy's expression on the left.

George Lucas's prequels all make sense now.

Jessica and I attended two sessions as that seemed like a 'con' thing to do, one was about how to get into the comic book industry and the other was about the history of comic book movies. The first was fairly interesting, there seemed to be a whole lot of artists, writers, colourers and marketing people trying to break into a company such as Marvel.

The second session just seemed to be an advertisement for these guy's webseries on facts you should know, they didn't have much of a background in comic book movies. They pretty much just speiled off a list of comic book movies, when they were made with a short background of each. All of which would have taken a quick Wikipedia search. The audience would then cheer for movies like The Avengers or The Dark Knight and boo for movies such as Ghost Rider or The Green Lantern.

All-in-all a fantastic experience! More New-York-ey stuff to follow!