The Flying Kiwi’s – Epistle
#5
Kia Ora whānau,
Ok, just want to mihi to you all for reading about mine
and mums trip to the big āporo – NEW YORK CITY.
It has been amazing! Especially
when I let you all know that I had to skip a day and all the funny comments you
gave to show that you didn’t appreciate having to wait another day for our
episode here in NYC. So, ngā mihi – that
was hilarious!
So, as promised here they
are:
SATURDAY 5th APRIL, 2013
Mum was awake early this morning (as usual), she was dead
set on getting her hair done today and before we go to Salt Lake.. she’ll
probably have to get it done again before we come home coz her hair grows fast
– I tell you, living up the high end while we’re in New York.
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| The AMAZING view from our FREE upgrade - much better! No nosey neighbors.. haha! |
Mum also made sure that we got our room upgrade (without
paying a single cent more).. they were trying to charge us over $100 for the
upgrade and Mum wasn’t having a bar of it.. it was either give us a free
upgrade or a discount on our room – I mean we had asked them a couple of times
to get the blinds done and they couldn’t even do that! So, mum felt very justified telling them what
to do with that – REFUND or UPGRADE.. it’s lucky they gave us the upgrade
without mum having to challenge them with the refund – coz then she would’ve
said ‘Use the refund to upgrade us for free’.. LoL.. clever move from the
Hotel…
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| Our LOVELY BIG room! With a LOVELY warm, big bed! This is comfort whānau.. |
So, while waiting for the room to be ready for us to move in, I went to
the hairdresser just a couple of doors down to ask for a quote and make an
appointment – they were gonna charge mum and easy $200, which Mum was prepared
to go for MAX – so, I made the appointment and came straight back to the room
to look online for specials – thank you GROUPON – and we found a place in the
WEST VILLAGE for $140 – so we both got our hair did…
I’ve “researched” online and found that (of course) but
there are famous people living all over NYC – and the area we had our haircut
there are some real A-listers living such as:
Liv Tyler, Julia Roberts, Jim Carrey, Hugh Jackman – COOL! I mean, I
didn’t see any of them walking around – Jay-Z and Beyonce live around that area
too.. Probably could’ve hooked up with them and had dinner – LoL.. Crack up..
So, anyway – what an experience getting to the
hairsalon.. it was really the one of the only times we needed to ‘rush’ around,
and we were gonna be late! Crack up..
coz we couldn’t call the salon in the subway – poor mum, she was such a soldier
trying her little heart out to walk to the subway, when it was freakin closed
on Saturday – so, we jumped on a taxi to the next best subway – GREAT
IDEA! This took us to the proper subway
line and we were on our way, once we got out of our subway I called the
hairdresser and told them we were 5minutes away. This part of NYC was really cool, kind of
chic and antique at the same time! No
wonder famous people live there. So,
it’s cool to be able to say we got our hair ‘did’ in Manhattan.
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| POST-hair did! Outside the salon in the West Village - COOL!! |
My
hairdresser was NOT impressed at the state of my hair, my response =
Well, fix it HELLO.. that’s what I’m paying you for.. he had a real thick NY
accent man it was cool to hear him talk – although I was very tired and really
just wanted to sleep.
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| My Hairdresser :) |
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| My hair DID - it doesn’t look REAL different, but it’s nice... |
I told mum in
Māori that we would have to give them a TIP – this concept really does continue
to haunt her. She’s like ‘but, they’re
not waitresses’.. LoL.. Just not a concept she likes.. haha!
I’m ok with my hair – it’s
aight… I love Mums hair – it’s funny
seeing her with short hair again, she had been growing her hair since I got
home from my mission 4 years ago now.. it’s a familiar, haven’t seen in years
Mum style – she looks good! I gave my
hairdresser $20 tip (for him and shampoo-ist) and told mum – her face was
classic – as in.. “Do I have to pay that too?” – well, I reckon they spoke
about it, so if Mum gave any less then her stylist would be insulted –
COMPLEX.. haha! Lucky she loved the
style, so paid the extra $20 as advised.
While talking to her stylist – this was like around 3 or 4pm,
keeping in mind we hadn’t eaten since 8am that morning – he told her to go to
Little Italy, NYC for some good pasta – so, we were on our way to Little Italy
– get off at the appropriate stop and Mum turns around and says she wants to go
to Chinatown again, to get some cheap souvenirs – so we did!
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| Mum and her stylist - Matthew - post-hair DID.. |
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| During the HAIR styling.. |
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| Matthew and I - he was a lot of fun. |
It was awesome bargaining around the place, then heading off to Little Italy for dinner, her hairstylist suggested one place to eat – we were walking that way and then realized we were going the wrong direction coz I kept stopping to take in Little Italy – beautiful! So, weird how Manhattan has these individual little pockets of communities – Chinatown, Downtown, Uptown, Little Italy and how different they are.. Anyway, we decided to just eat at the nearest restaurant and it was really good! So, that paid off!
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| Mum with her meal - Little Italy, NYC |
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| Me and my kai - Little Italy, NYC |
When we got home, I said to mum to come with me to the
corner dairy and see if the infamous FABIO was available to go to the Salsa
place – mum was even keen to come with me as a safety measure – LoL! And as the update goes, FABIO was a no-show –
so I went by myself, mum no longer worried for my safety HAHAHA, nah, but it
was literally 200mts away from the Hotel.
I felt all good about it. It was
cool listening to the music, I guess I had already resigned myself to NOT
getting to dance, I mean that’s why people turn up in groups to salsa with at
least a male and female – or a group of people so they know they have someone
to dance with – I enjoyed going anyway, now I can say I went J It was funny though coz mum kept ringing me to
see if I was ok, the music was so loud I couldn’t hear her and hung up and she
kept ringing back – FUNNY!! So, I came
home safely and she was settled.
I SHOULD have gone straight to sleep – but stayed up to
do our Flying Kiwi… good and bad idea (oh to be the object of all of your guys
post-work addictions – LoL!) As a result
Mum and I had only 3 hours sleep before getting up to get ready for
Philadelphia… MEAN!!!
SUNDAY 6th APRIL, 2013
So, although we’d only had 3hours sleep we were both awake and moving around
at 5am. We planned to leave here by
5.45am to catch the subway to 42nd Street – Penn Station for the
Amtrak train to Philadelphia. Man! I must be getting the hang of NYC subway
system coz we were just about to panic board a train, and I said ‘Nope’ let’s
step back and after that one left our train pulled up and we were on our way.
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| Should be sleeping - AUE! |
When we got to Amtrak it was early, so I went to get a hot chocolate for me and
mum and waited for the ‘Red Cap’ helpers to get us to the train. I had an unrestful sleep to Philadelphia. I mean at least when we do the Wellington
commuter train I know if I’m asleep that the end is where I’m going.. this
train was gonna end up in Washington or something if we didn’t wake up in time
to get OFF.. LoL.. that would be a major FAIL.. So, if not having a good sleep
was the price that was ok too..
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| With our hot chocolate on Amtrak to Philly... |
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| And what else? A bagel with cream cheese… WOAH! |
Can I just say ‘IT was Philadelphia born and raised, on a
playground is where I spent most of my days!
Chillin out relaxin acting so cool, we were shooting some bball outside
of my school when couple of guys, they were up to no good, starting making
trouble in my neighbourhood, I got in 1 little fight and my mom got scared, she
said ‘You’re moving with your Aunty and Uncle in Bel Air!’… Philly is such a
beautiful city! Ok, ok.. we were only
there for less then 12hours J but, it had such a
different, arty, vibe to it.. real clean and chic.. it was cool. And really easy to manouver after getting
around NYC for a week.
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| This is at the Philadelphia Station - and look at that… they use KIWI shoe polish… COOL!! |
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| Philadelphia - hop on hop off bus tour.. on our way to convention center |
We made our way to the AERA hui, Philadelphia Convention Center – these
hui you’re suppose to pay to attend, but mum and I weren’t paying to go to a
20minute hui. So, we just did what we
would’ve done back home – walked in like you owned the place, asked where the
room was and went there.. HAHA! We got
to the room an hour or so before our panel session started, so we just sat
outside the room in the warmth and waited.
We went in and waited for my supervisor Professor Matt McCrudden to
come, when he did I gave him a good hug and he told me he’d save some time for
me to go up and give a mihi and waiata – AWESOME! So, after his kōrero he gave me some time, I
got up and did a short mihi in Māori and then did some translating into pakeha
and sang ‘Mā wai ra?’ – HAHA – before I sang it I went to translate it for them
and **POOF BLANK** and mumbled my way through, sand and sat down.. got a clap
for my efforts – HAHA!
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| My name as an AUTHOR - how cool! Hehehe… pretty cool! |
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| 100 points for ‘Who can name that marae?' |
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| My supervisor Matt and I (COOL!) Speaking Māori in front of Americans.. |
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| My moment of FAME - next time I’ll just do it all myself.. hehe... |
Afterwards, we had lunch and ticked of PHILLY CHEESE STEAK in
Philly (someone in Masterton ward, let Elder Adams know that I had one and it
was AMAZiNG!)
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| Here it is… YUMMY! |
And actually, the place where I bought my Philly cheese steak sub
– Pres. Obama also got one from there! I
took a photo of ‘THE’ photo of him ordering his sub… I STOOD where he stood..
MEAN! I didn’t even know that when I
lined up – all I knew was that there were a LOT of people lining up for their
kai, so they MUST have been good. It was
very good!
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| Pres. Obama ate here too… he stood where I was standing - unless he didn’t have to line up.. hmm.. |
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| A close up of that Pres. Obama picture… COOL! |
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| THIS WAS DELICIOUS!! Very yummy... |
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| Lovely Art at the Convention Center |
Now, I know we shouldn’t buy on a Sunday – but we
did! We went to KMART that was closing
down with mean sales! Everything was on
sale – Mum was charged full price for an item where it should’ve been $15 less,
the lady sent us to the front desk to get a refund. Now, because the store was closing soon they
weren’t accepting refunds or exchanges, but in this case it would have to be
different. So, we went to the front
desk, Mum said ‘I need a refund’ **POOF** the lady went bazzurk – going all ‘No
refunds’, mum slips into don’t mess with me/3 hours sleep mode ‘Can you
listen!’ which was COMPLETELY called for with the first lady,
but then that lady won’t deal with mum and gets someone else to work with mum
and carries on with the next girl… MAN, does anyone know SHAME? I do… she went WAY over-board and I’m pinning
it down to being VERY TIRED and having SORE feet.. that was by far a memory
that will STICK in my mind – I let her alone for the first lady, coz mum was
right but had to step in and assist the second lady coz she was ‘Ok’.. but, it
was OH MY GOSH – hilarious…
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| Uh those are rice bowls, spoons and tea cups behind us - arty isn’t it? |
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| Mum and her new boyfriend - LoL... |
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| Philly fire department… Cool! |
So, we went back to the station – we got there early as
then I had to hear mum going on about the Kmart episode again and again –
LoL! I had to tell her that I didn’t
step in until I thought she was wrong – oh boy… then heard her saying about how
we were at the train a whole hour and a half before we left and she could’ve
been at the $2 shop in Philly.. The train ride back was AWESOME! Had a mean sleep on the way home coz we were
WASTED! Woke up just before we pulled in
a had a cool kōrero with a father and daughter who were on their way to Boston. When we got off – we decided to go back to Times Square for our
final NYC dinner – Japanese. We also saw one of the Avengers - for TK and Bubu… (internet isn’t working, so I’ll paste it on FB later for them)
It was lovely – and then we took our final MTA train back
to Astoria – to our
whare. What an amazing adventure mum and
I have been on over the past week in NYC.
Tomorrow I will post our TOP 10 moments in NYC… I’m sure you all will be
able to appreciate our walk down memory lane… J
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| Our FINAL - MTA ride from 42nd Street ‘Times Square’ to Astoria 39th Ave… |
Dee Cruise reminded me that Sunday 6th April
the church was organised in Palmyra, New York.
Although mum and I couldn’t get to Palmyra we are in the state where
Joseph Smith was born and raised. Where
he received the first vision – where Christ and Heavenly Father appeared to
him. HOW AWESOME!!
Anyway, it’s 4.12am – DANG! You guys are taking it out of me.. At least
tomorrow will be spent flying – SLEEP on PLANE?
Yes I will…
Arohanui whānau,
friends and bored readers…
Mama Kiwi and Parns
Xoxoxoxoxoxo
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