New York, New York

After the teaching gig at Bard College, Hannah and I had planned a short trip to NYC. We had been to NYC years ago, and it had left a great impression, and we were looking forward to the visit.

Day 1:
Settled in at the Chelsea International Hostel
Broadway show - Wicked @ the Gershwin Theatre

On the first day in NYC, it was almost just logistics. I was taking a train from Bard College, arriving in Union Station, and Hannah would be taking a plane from Chicago to La Guardia Airport. As a result of my inability to coordinate the arrival time between Hannah and I, instead of picking her up from the airport, she took the subway and met me at the hostel instead.

We were staying at the Chelsea International Hostel. We were staying in an ensuite room, rather than having to share bathrooms with others. We had chosen a hostel instead of staying in a hotel because the cost of staying in a hotel was crazily expensive.. the cheapest I could find was almost $120 per night, and we would have to pay additional charges on facilities fees, resident tax fees and NYC accommodation fees etc. So, since we would only be in the room to rest, we opted for a clean, cheaper hostel room instead.

After we settled in the hostel, we headed out for lunch. We walked all the way to Union Square, and the day was really nice. We picked this nice place that served salad and roast, and started lining up to make our order.... the next thing I remembered was people crowding around me, shouting that we should call the ambulance, and Hannah saying "Shit Sonny, are you ok?". I had totally passed out while we were in the queue, and according to Hannah, I had literally face-planted (nothing graceful as what you would see in the movies). That explained why blood was coming out of my mouth - I had cut my lips and chin while I dropped to the floor. The manager was very nice, and gave us free food and drinks and make sure everything was good with me. I guessed it was the change of cold weather outside, and warmth in the restaurant, plus low glucose that caused the black-out.

I felt a bit weak throughout the day, and (obviously) my chin and lips hurt, but I was fine. That night, we caught the broadway play - Wicked. I was very lucky and got really good seats - we were nine rows from the stage! And we could even see the expressions of the performers. The show was awesome, and we really enjoyed it.

After the play, we headed back to the room and rested. It was going to be a long, fun day tomorrow.

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Day 02:
Central Park
The Metropolitan Museum of Arts
Empire State Building
Heartland Brewery and Rotisserie
Fifth Avenue

The next day, we had planned to spend an entire day at The Metropolitan Museum of Arts (The MET). We woke up early morning, had breakfast at the hostel (it was free!), and took the subway to the 59th St Station. We walked northwards through Central Park, as The MET is at the northern edge of the park. It was a great day for a good walk - the weather was not warm, but the sun was shining.

Finally, we reached The MET. The place was huge! We spend a whole morning, and we just managed to cover only one floor. There were so many things to look at - sculptures, ornaments, painting etc. We saw the " Washington Crossing the Delaware" painting - Hannah and I were surprised that the painting was so much bigger than we anticipated.

After a whole day at The MET, we decided that we needed to do something touristy, and decided we should head to the Empire State Building. Hannah had bought two NY tour tickets, which allowed us to visit five tourist spots in NYC. We had used one for The MET, and we decided to use the other for going up to the top of the Empire State Building. We really lucked out because it was a very clear day, and we could see as far as the horizon. It was really beautiful with the sun setting at the edge of the city.

After enjoying the beautiful sunset on the top of the Empire State Building, we had dinner at a restaurant (just at the ground floor of the Empire State Building) call Heartland Brewery and Rotisserie. We splurged a little bit because this would be our wedding anniversary dinner. After a nice meal and drinks, we took a slow stroll down Fifth Avenue, looking at all the expensive stores, back to our hostel.

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Day 03:

World Trade Center Station

Statue of Liberty Express Curise

Chinatown

Purl SOHO

Day three consisted of more touristy activities. Again, free breakfast at the hostel before we headed out to the new World Trade Center Station. It was a very solemn sight - the location where the original twin towers had stood now has two huge water features. It is two deep holes with water flowing into it, and names of the victims on panels around the fixtures. We did not feel right to take any photos there, and Hannah and I just stood there in silence, remembering the victims. 

After that, we headed out on the Statue of Liberty Express Cruise - heading to Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. To me, both these places symbolizes American, and it was great to be there, reading about the history and just be so close to history that shapes the country. One of the irritating thing though, was the behavior of the tourists (although we were tourists as well.. but we were well-behaved). They were overly enthusiastic to take pics everywhere that they ignored all warnings and everyone else - standing on benches while the ferry was moving etc. There were plenty of opportunities to take pics (as you can see from ours), and we did not understand the rush :/

After the cruise, we took a walk through Lower Manhattan/ NYC Stock Exchange to Chinatown. If you remembered (from previous blog postings), Hannah and I had been on the look-out for the perfect soup dumpling ever since we had the best ones in NYC many years ago. Unfortunately, we couldn't locate the restaurant in Chinatown anymore, but my friend in NYC recommended another restaurant. The place was empty when we were there (given it was 4pm in the afternoon - probably too early for dinner, while too late for lunch). We ordered a couple baskets of soup dumplings, a spicy chicken dish and an appetizer. The soup dumpling tasted good (but honestly, I still preferred the ones we had long ago.. well.. the quest continues), and the food was cheap. Of course, we had to wander around Chinatown in order to digest all those food, and we had to have bubble tea to help with the digestion :P

We wandered to Purl SOHO, a knitting shop because Hannah wanted to buy yard to knit a sweater for my anniversary present. Oh..by the way, I got her a pair of earrings, with forged iron spiral leaf and white pearl for our sixth anniversary (sixth wedding anniversary material - iron).

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Day 04

Chelsea Market

MOMA

Pizza

Takénobu

We started the day at the Chelsea Market. It was built in the former National Biscuit Company (Nabisco) factory complex where the Oreo cookie was invented and produced. There was a food hall, shopping mall on the ground floor, and the offices and television production companies in the upper floors. Hannah bought a book she needed for her new work (.. she should write something about her new work soon :P), and we had a quick take-away lunch from this Australian food place (Tuck shop), which I don't really think were Australian at all :/

After the morning at Chelsea Market, we headed to Museum of Modern Arts (MOMA). Today was the only day that rained on this trip, and thus, it was nice to stay indoors and enjoy the arts. Honestly, I am not a big fan of modern arts, or in most times, I just couldn't understand what the artists were trying to tell.. but the museum was very nice, and we enjoyed ourselves.

Hannah got a notification a few days ago that one of her favorite modern cello player, Takénobu was going to pay in a pub in NYC, and we had booked two tickets. We had dinner at a small Italian pizza place, which was authentically NYC. After dinner, due to poor time coordination, we had to wander around the streets for more than an hour in order to go to the pub for Takénobu's concert (we were not able to go into the pub 30mins before the start of the concert). Hannah and I enjoyed his performace a lot ... do go look at his music if you are interested.  

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Day 05

American Museum of Natural History

We were flying back to Chicago today, but our flight was at 4pm, so we decided to go to the American Museum of Natural History in the morning. We went there the last time we were here in NYC, so we thought we do not need to go through all the exhibitions. We wandered around the museum really fast, going to the some of the most interesting exhibits (to us) before heading back to the hostel to pick up our luggage and headed to the airport.

Until next time, NYC.

Bard College Teaching

This post is so delayed, and I am very sorry about it! Work and life have really caught up with me, and I have been so busy trying to keep everything together.

In January, I spend two weeks in Bard College, teaching a group of liberal arts students the microbiome in the Citizen Science program. There was a snow storm the day I flew out to NY - I was flying to Albany, and be picked up by the bus driver (together with other faculty members). It snowed so much that I was worried we were going to be stranded in the airport. Luckily, after spending two hours waiting, our driver finally arrived, and we were on the way to the college campus.

The room that I was going to spend the next two weeks was very "spartan" like - a single bed, a single chair and a table. Some of the other faculty members brought along rugs, blankets and lamps to make it more homely - I just treated it as a time for me to rough it out :)

We had additional last minute training for a couple of days, and we were going to meet our students on Sunday evening. There was a opening ceremony, and then we get to talk to our students. Each faculty members were supposed to have 18 students, but due to a few faculty members having last minute cancellations, I had 21 students.

I spend Sunday morning doing some last minute preparation - all the faculty members were excited and nervous at the same time. The students were not biology majors, so this program had been known as "Science Jail" in the past, and our goal was to make them not only understand but also enjoy science!

I arranged my class tables so that I can see all the students. I am excited to meet my students this evening, and ready to take them on a wild trip through the microbiome!

My syllabus for this course was the human gut microbiome, how they are affected by antibiotics, and antibiotic resistance bacteria, and finally ended with a global view on antibiotic resistance bacteria and how it is going to affect us! I used a mixture of videos, scientific readings and group discussions to go through the syllabus. My main goal was not to teach them everything about the microbiome, but for them to appreciate science, and the secondary goal was to empower them the knowledge to be able to find the real facts behind the scientific propaganda and present it to the class (normal people) in simple terms.

Apart from teaching theories, we also had three days of laboratory sessions. The labs were simple, including gram staining, plaque assay and Kirby Bauer assay. I didn't really teach the labs, but instead I taught the Teaching Fellow (who is a senior in Bard College) how to teach the labs. So, in turn, I took a more supervisory role, and the Teaching Fellow became the teacher.

The two weeks when we were there, I couldn't help but be amazed by the beauty of the location. It was almost as if we were in Winter Wonderland.

The student had a final project. The faculty members had the freedom to choose whatever final project they wanted the students to undertake - most of the faculty members asked for a written assignment and a presentation about microbiome. I was pretty bored with microbiome by then, and so I asked the students to be creative and do anything they liked (with bonus points for creativity) about the microbiome.

My class final project included a song, three videos, cooking, a comic drawing, a game, two books, haiku, a computer simulation program and an art installation. Of course, there were also presentations, and for these creative items, they had to prepare a short 5 minutes presentation as well. I was blown away by the creativity of these students... no wonder most of them are art majors :)