How I spent my birthday.

“I’ve had abs before, I don’t see a need to have them again.”

– Me, when talking to Anna about going to the gym.

Just a quick update for friends and family back home who tried to contact me, but couldn’t due to the extreme differences in time zones. Yesterday was my 36th birthday, but like most weekends for us, the fun started on Friday.

Friday, August 28, 2015
Our night started at the State Library, where we were getting New York City identity cards processed, hence why I’m not wearing a hat in most of the photos. These cards aren’t a requirement but there are a couple of benefits to having them

1. Sometimes our Singapore IDs won’t be accepted and we don’t want to take our passports with us everywhere.
2. They grant you free entry to a lot of museums and exhibitions.

The whole process was pretty simple, we were in and out quickly, and now we just have to wait for the cards to arrive.

Anna’s colleague, Jesse McCann, came with us and he really knows his way around the city, taking us to this great bar/Korean fried chicken joint, Turntable Chicken Jazz, where the chicken was excellent and the beer towers were a little disturbing (above, right). That thing kept changing colour the whole time.

After we left Turntable, we walked around, did a bit of shopping and then decided to see some stand-up comedy. We bought some tickets and headed down to the Eastville Comedy Club, where the headline act was supposed to be a dude I find funny as hell, Judah Friedlander. There were four comedians in all, however, the show finished without Friedlander, but that wasn’t too big a deal, because the other guys and the MC were all hilarious. I have to admit, I did start to feel a bit sorry for an Indian girl in the crowd. She was about 25 years old, had only moved from Bangalore to New York two weeks earlier, and she got targeted by all of the comedians. One of them based almost his entire time slot around her, but she took it well.

After the show we sat in the front bar and had a few beers with the comedians, as they had to do another set at 11:00pm and it is true what they say; Comedians are some of the most depressing people when they’re not on stage. They were bitching about each other behind their backs, talking about how much their life sucks, and how they wish they could get out of their individual ruts. The funniest dude was the worst, when he was sitting with us he was getting pretty drunk and quite emotional. The 11:00pm set would’ve been interesting…

We decided to go somewhere a bit happier than the comedy club so we went to a shisha bar that we had passed earlier. On the way we passed one of those fortune-telling ‘Zoltar’ machines (above, right), like in the film Big. I honestly had no idea those really existed, because I can’t comprehend anyone being gullible enough to believe that something constructed in a factory that requires routine maintenance and servicing could truly predict the future. I guess I was wrong.
We lasted about two drinks in the shisha bar before Anna started to get a bit sleepy and we had to head home.

Saturday, August 29, 2015
My hair still looked exactly the same from the previous night, so I went sans hat with Anna to Momofuku Noodle Bar. We have had food from one of the main Momofuku restaurants and have been to the Momofuku Milk Bar a few times for drinks and snacks and they are all pretty spectacular so instead of writing endlessly about our lunch, I’ll just let a couple of pictures do the talking:

Once finished we were off to do some shopping around Greenwich Village. There are a ton of cool stores there, heaps of second-hand and vintage stores, but almost all of them had one extremely frustrating trait; They organised their t-shirts by colour, as opposed to size. Nobody has ever said, “I like this one, but it won’t fit because it’s green.” Size is infinitely more important than colour.

After walking around for a few hours, Anna was feeling a little peckish and we were right near a British cafe that Anna likes, Tea and Sympathy. Anna was ecstatic with her tea and scones, but to say that I was a little nonplussed would be somewhat of an understatement. I ordered Welsh Rarebit and received cheese on toast (left). Not only the fact the dish is pronounced “Rabbit,” it’s not even Welsh, it originated in England. Two words, two lies!

Extremely disappointed with my lack of rabbit meat, we started walking around again, shopping more and then we went to a Vietnamese bar and restaurant for dinner and followed it up with a bit of bar-hopping. I know I’m starting to feel my age a bit when the bar we were in filled up with college kids and we just wished they’d shut the hell up.
Sick of witnessing kids experiencing their first ever beers, we moved on to a great little bar called Peculier Pub and settled in for the night. I don’t think it was the last time I’ll ever see the inside of that place.

Sunday, August 30, 2015
Sunday was my actual birthday, but it’s not something I particularly care about. In fact, the last several years I have been completely oblivious to the fact that it was my birthday until someone else mentioned it. Also, in a strange twist of fate I share my birthday with my father-in-law so this was the first time in about eight years we haven’t posed for a photo together with us both cutting a birthday cake in much the same way we would if we were getting married. Happy birthday, dad!
Another frustrating thing about my birthday is that it is also the day after Michael Jackson’s birthday and I’m not much of a fan so, especially when my birthday falls around a weekend, I hear constant Michael Jackson songs. Oh well.
I wanted to have a lazy day, so we went to a French restaurant down the road for brunch, bummed around watching TV all afternoon before heading over to Brooklyn to go to Habana Outpost again. Last time I went was with with my friends, Urs and Tabby, to watch Purple Rain, but this time they were showing another film I love, Coming to America.

Only Anna’s cousin, Jennifer, and her boyfriend, Pedro, had been to Habana Outpost before and that was the previous weekend, but everyone loved it and had a great time. They’re showing Goonies and The Lost Boys in coming weeks, so I think we’ll be heading out there again. I’d go again just for the corn and the Cuban sandwich!

So, that’s how it all went down. I’d like to thank everyone for their birthday wishes and messages, and also I’d like to thank Jennifer, Pedro, Courtney, and Veena for joining us on Sunday night!

Next time you hear from me, it will probably be next week about our trip to Boston this weekend.