First, I would like to apologize for being so late. It was because of my alter-ego, named "electronic brain" by our Chinese colleagues, wich we call, without even knowing why, "computer". So my small computer suffered - involuntarily and because of me - from a stress fracture. Combining Photoshop and Visual studio led to many pains changing my high tech jewel into a 1960s combine harvester. So, I decided that resting would be for the best and I started a painful and ineffective introspection regarding my satisfying electronic relationship. South Ferry, April, the 6th of 2008, here we are!
South Ferry, as you have guessed, is in Manhattan's southern district, you access it by Line 1, last station. This is the terminus and the must-go territory if you want to enjoy the best view of the islands and if you want to visit them : Governor's Island , Staten Island (another district of New-York), Liberty Island (which I refuse to talk about to before having being there), and the also really famous Ellis Island, which used to be the immigrants' main entry.
As I arrive in South Ferry, I just feel I am definitely in the right place: the sea, the Statue of Liberty, the sunny weather,... and an ice cream truck ! We must stop there ! I immediately choose the "chocolate dip cone": an Italian shaped ice cream covered with chocolate. Everything is going so well! As the sun begins to set, we decide to walk to Battery Park. With the Financial District's old buildings as a background and Jersey City's modern skyscrapers in front of me, I was feeling as if I was walking in a cosmopolitan pier which would be the hybrid result of La Rochelle and Yokohama.
Today is Sunday: walkers have a walk, roller skaters "roll" their skate boards, readers read books and children...today is Sunday! Today is Sunday and for the first time since I came to New-York the weather is sunny and not too cold. Today is Sunday and the air smells like optimism and a good mood. Today is Sunday, and like everywhere in the world, people look happy (because it's not the time yet when they realize that... fuck, tomorrow is Monday already!)
Soon we arrive to a place surrounded by concrete and glass-made mountains. I pay attention to an isolated greenhouse, looking like Les Halles in Paris. It's the World Financial Center Winter Garden: inside, a forest of palm trees from Mojave Desert.
After this nice stroll near the pier, we decide to walk inside the land aiming a Japanese restaurant. As we walk down Greenwich street I feel that this place is so ugly : destroyed buildings everywhere, a few shops, everything under construction... not so friendly. It took me the time to go back home to eventually realize that of course there is nothing, of course every thing's under construction, of course...the World Trade Center used to be here! Without the twin towers, the firefighters, photographers or CNN journalists everywhere, you don't really feel you're there. The funny thing is that I have always refused to go to Ground Zero, Now I can say I did have been there!
After becoming starved from the walk that has been longer that it was supposed to be (ouch, my knees!), we arrive at a small European style district: Greenwich Village. Small houses, small trees, small stuff,...charming! I mean more charming than the restaurant, which, according to websites' critics who have never been to an izakaya and apparently don't know what you can have there, should have been so damn good! The heart full of contempt and the wallet empty from money, we go back home taking the subway at Christopher Street.
