MCKENNA77
Staff Sergeant
- Joined
- Jun 29, 2005
- Messages
- 913
THE TOY SOLDIER TRAVELER
Home Base – San Jose, CA
Destination – The New York Symposium – Long Island NY
Miles Traveled Round Trip – 5,186
Cumulative Miles Traveled = 5,948
Method of Travel for this trip – Plane
Thursday March 6th 2008
I caught a flight out of SFO on the airline Jet Blue to JFK airport around noon time. The seats on Jet Blue are actually really nice and the added leg room is a huge plus for a 5.5 hour long flight. Jet Blue also has live satellite television that’s free so that was a huge plus in helping the time pass. When we landed it was late in the evening local time and the JFK airport does not do a very good job marking and signing where their public transportation goes to. Sara KGB and I jumped the airport tram to a sign reading “To all shuttles” as we had an arranged shuttle to take us to our hotel in Manhattan. Much to our chagrin we discovered that those “all” shuttles are only the shuttles that take you to the neighboring hotels by JFK. I think this was the first time in my life that I got lost in an airport. Additionally, after a five and half hour long flight being disorientated in the airport put me in a disgruntled mood. On top of that, KGB and myself started into the classic married argument of “which way do we go”. We took the tram back to terminal one and finally found our way. All of this was about an hour long delay and I certainly didn’t want to spend my entire trip in the JFK airport.
The shuttle ride to the hotel took about an hour. We had booked a place on 58th and 9th called the Hudson. I had never stayed there but had found a good rate on the hotel roulette wheel Hotwire. When we arrived this place was bumping. There is a large night club in the hotel which is apparently a pretty hot night spot. When I was taking the bags up the escalator all I kept thinking to myself was, is this a night club or a hotel? Sara KGB opened up the door to the hotel room and much to my surprise I found out that a hotel room in NYC is roughly 140 square feet. I started to feel like one of those great big dogs that’s been stuffed in a kennel that’s too small and is unable to turn around. I think NYC gives a whole new meaning to the term high density housing. I would place a good wager that San Quentin Prison is a bit roomier then this hotel. Instantly, my next thought turned to how I was going to manage to turn myself into a human tetris piece in order to get on the toilet. There was a seat on the commode though so we weren’t doing it prison style just yet.
Friday March 7th 2008
Good morning New York City! Sara KGB and myself woke up around 8am and headed to a great breakfast place across the street from the hotel. One word can describe the morning rush hour of pedestrians and traffic in NYC, bustling. Everyone is in a hurry and is walking or driving with the purpose of getting there, so you best gangway. Additionally, I have never traveled to a city that has such an infatuation and love for the car horn. As soon as a traffic light will turn green a car that is 10th in the congo line of traffic will just start laying on his horn. Mind you this is even before the driver in the pole position has even moved his wheels forward. There were a ton of traffic signs around NYC that post “No honking, $350 fine.” My guess is that in the history of NYC this has never been enforced.
We walked almost all day long on Friday. The sites included a long walk through Central Park and Times Square. These places are a most see for any visitor and the best part is that they’re free. KGB and I stopped in the enormous Toys R’ Us in Times Square. This place was huge and they have a pretty good size Ferris wheel inside. They also have a great Pez section. Unfortunately, they didn’t carry anything that I didn’t all ready have. After an entire afternoon of walking we headed back to the hotel for some sleep and to get ready for the Knicks game that evening. I think by then both my feet had their own independent heart beat. Just like the cartoon characters with the sets of giant red pulsating feet.
That evening it started to pour rain on the city like monsoon style. When I looked out the window to see what the weather was like all you could view was the top of black umbrellas moving in a herd like manner. For some unknown reason this totally reminded me of a giant pack of rats moving across a land fill. We took a cab down to Madison Square Garden and picked up some sweet Knicks foam fingers before the game started. MSG is pretty sweet and the building itself is huge for a sports complex. Unfortunately for us, watching the NY Knicks is like watching a high school basketball team at pro prices. They’re terrible and worse yet they are not a well coached basketball team. At one point in the game the head coach, Isiah Thomas, received a technical foul and the entire stadium gave him the big booo! It was rather humorous in my opinion but if you’re a true Knicks fan you’ve got to be hating your sports life right now. After the game we ended up drinking some beers in some “chain” joint over by Times Square.
Saturday March 8th 2008
After sleeping in for a while, maybe due to one too many in Times Square, I got up and going around 10am. Sara KGB headed off to burn up the polymer in NY’s shopping district. I was headed to Louis house in Long Island for the Symposium. The best way to get there from Manhattan is by train. The best train depot to go to is Pennsylvania Station which is located adjacent to Madison Square Garden. As soon as I arrived I heard the Port Washington line being called on Track 21. I really wanted to make the train as I was running a bit late and all the people coming off the train were headed up the stairs and I wanted to be headed down the stairs to catch the train on time. So being myself I decided that I was going to make the train even if it required turning about 30 people into human bowling pins. Let’s just say that I didn’t make any friends at Penn Station. The ride to Long Island was roughly 50 minutes and Louis was nice enough to pick me up from the Port Washington stop and take me to his place.
Louis has just an insanely awesome collection. The entire top floor of his home is dedicated to his collection and the amount of K&C Warbirds there is off the radar. One of the things that I enjoyed the most in the collection was that you could see the progression of quality over time in the King and Country soldiers and vehicles. I also had the great opportunity to meet fellow forum members, collectors, dealers and toy soldier manufactures. It was an excellent one stop place for all things related to toy soldiers and toy soldier collecting.
If there was one thing that I enjoyed the most about the Symposium it would have to be the sculpting demonstration by John Jenkins. I found John to be a very creative and intelligent individual. To witness how toy soldiers are actually molded, shaped and formed was incredibly interesting to me. I walked away from the demonstration saying, “holy cow, paying $25 a dude is actually really reasonable.” The amount of fortitude and manual dexterity that he has to have in order to create these toy soldiers is just unreal. I know if I tried it I would end up with a product that looked like something a 4 year old toddler created with a pile of Playdough. I would like to personally thank Louis for arranging this and allowing me the opportunity to meet all of the great people there.
After riding the train back into the city it was time to get ready to eat at Larry Lo’s restaurant Tse Yang. Now, I reside in the San Francisco Bay Area which has an excellent selection of Chinese food. Tse Yang put all of those previous places I’ve visited to shame. The Peking duck we had was so good I could have eaten 100 pounds of it. The service and the food there was impeccable. Additionally, the ambiance of the restaurant was incredible. The wood carved Buddha and the huge salt water fish tank were great views to add to an absolutely perfect meal.
Sunday March 9th 2008
The shuttle to pick us both up was scheduled to meet us around 3pm so we didn’t have a full day in the city but we decided to make the most of it anyways. Sara KGB and I headed down to the Times Square area again and decided to go to the observatory in the Rockefeller Center. The tickets to get in were a bit pricey but what isn’t pricey in New York. They take you up in an elevator to the 70th floor and the views from the walk out deck up there are just unreal. You get a great 4 sided panoramic view of Manhattan this way. The only draw back was that it was cold out that day and the wind blows a rather heavy gale up there. I became the center of attention as I had brought a bottle of bubbles that I had purchased from the Toys R’ Us the previous day. The wind just made those things take off as I decided to blow bubbles all over NYC. It worked out real well until my hands just about froze off from the wind factor. After we came down we decided to do some shopping in the Times Square area and I found a sweet Reebok hockey store. They even had old school Canadian hockey team gear in there, it was great. I also checked out a really cool comic book store called Midtown Comics. Anybody who is a DC Comics or Marvel fan this place is a must stop.
Home Base – San Jose, CA
Destination – The New York Symposium – Long Island NY
Miles Traveled Round Trip – 5,186
Cumulative Miles Traveled = 5,948
Method of Travel for this trip – Plane
Thursday March 6th 2008
I caught a flight out of SFO on the airline Jet Blue to JFK airport around noon time. The seats on Jet Blue are actually really nice and the added leg room is a huge plus for a 5.5 hour long flight. Jet Blue also has live satellite television that’s free so that was a huge plus in helping the time pass. When we landed it was late in the evening local time and the JFK airport does not do a very good job marking and signing where their public transportation goes to. Sara KGB and I jumped the airport tram to a sign reading “To all shuttles” as we had an arranged shuttle to take us to our hotel in Manhattan. Much to our chagrin we discovered that those “all” shuttles are only the shuttles that take you to the neighboring hotels by JFK. I think this was the first time in my life that I got lost in an airport. Additionally, after a five and half hour long flight being disorientated in the airport put me in a disgruntled mood. On top of that, KGB and myself started into the classic married argument of “which way do we go”. We took the tram back to terminal one and finally found our way. All of this was about an hour long delay and I certainly didn’t want to spend my entire trip in the JFK airport.
The shuttle ride to the hotel took about an hour. We had booked a place on 58th and 9th called the Hudson. I had never stayed there but had found a good rate on the hotel roulette wheel Hotwire. When we arrived this place was bumping. There is a large night club in the hotel which is apparently a pretty hot night spot. When I was taking the bags up the escalator all I kept thinking to myself was, is this a night club or a hotel? Sara KGB opened up the door to the hotel room and much to my surprise I found out that a hotel room in NYC is roughly 140 square feet. I started to feel like one of those great big dogs that’s been stuffed in a kennel that’s too small and is unable to turn around. I think NYC gives a whole new meaning to the term high density housing. I would place a good wager that San Quentin Prison is a bit roomier then this hotel. Instantly, my next thought turned to how I was going to manage to turn myself into a human tetris piece in order to get on the toilet. There was a seat on the commode though so we weren’t doing it prison style just yet.
Friday March 7th 2008
Good morning New York City! Sara KGB and myself woke up around 8am and headed to a great breakfast place across the street from the hotel. One word can describe the morning rush hour of pedestrians and traffic in NYC, bustling. Everyone is in a hurry and is walking or driving with the purpose of getting there, so you best gangway. Additionally, I have never traveled to a city that has such an infatuation and love for the car horn. As soon as a traffic light will turn green a car that is 10th in the congo line of traffic will just start laying on his horn. Mind you this is even before the driver in the pole position has even moved his wheels forward. There were a ton of traffic signs around NYC that post “No honking, $350 fine.” My guess is that in the history of NYC this has never been enforced.
We walked almost all day long on Friday. The sites included a long walk through Central Park and Times Square. These places are a most see for any visitor and the best part is that they’re free. KGB and I stopped in the enormous Toys R’ Us in Times Square. This place was huge and they have a pretty good size Ferris wheel inside. They also have a great Pez section. Unfortunately, they didn’t carry anything that I didn’t all ready have. After an entire afternoon of walking we headed back to the hotel for some sleep and to get ready for the Knicks game that evening. I think by then both my feet had their own independent heart beat. Just like the cartoon characters with the sets of giant red pulsating feet.
That evening it started to pour rain on the city like monsoon style. When I looked out the window to see what the weather was like all you could view was the top of black umbrellas moving in a herd like manner. For some unknown reason this totally reminded me of a giant pack of rats moving across a land fill. We took a cab down to Madison Square Garden and picked up some sweet Knicks foam fingers before the game started. MSG is pretty sweet and the building itself is huge for a sports complex. Unfortunately for us, watching the NY Knicks is like watching a high school basketball team at pro prices. They’re terrible and worse yet they are not a well coached basketball team. At one point in the game the head coach, Isiah Thomas, received a technical foul and the entire stadium gave him the big booo! It was rather humorous in my opinion but if you’re a true Knicks fan you’ve got to be hating your sports life right now. After the game we ended up drinking some beers in some “chain” joint over by Times Square.
Saturday March 8th 2008
After sleeping in for a while, maybe due to one too many in Times Square, I got up and going around 10am. Sara KGB headed off to burn up the polymer in NY’s shopping district. I was headed to Louis house in Long Island for the Symposium. The best way to get there from Manhattan is by train. The best train depot to go to is Pennsylvania Station which is located adjacent to Madison Square Garden. As soon as I arrived I heard the Port Washington line being called on Track 21. I really wanted to make the train as I was running a bit late and all the people coming off the train were headed up the stairs and I wanted to be headed down the stairs to catch the train on time. So being myself I decided that I was going to make the train even if it required turning about 30 people into human bowling pins. Let’s just say that I didn’t make any friends at Penn Station. The ride to Long Island was roughly 50 minutes and Louis was nice enough to pick me up from the Port Washington stop and take me to his place.
Louis has just an insanely awesome collection. The entire top floor of his home is dedicated to his collection and the amount of K&C Warbirds there is off the radar. One of the things that I enjoyed the most in the collection was that you could see the progression of quality over time in the King and Country soldiers and vehicles. I also had the great opportunity to meet fellow forum members, collectors, dealers and toy soldier manufactures. It was an excellent one stop place for all things related to toy soldiers and toy soldier collecting.
If there was one thing that I enjoyed the most about the Symposium it would have to be the sculpting demonstration by John Jenkins. I found John to be a very creative and intelligent individual. To witness how toy soldiers are actually molded, shaped and formed was incredibly interesting to me. I walked away from the demonstration saying, “holy cow, paying $25 a dude is actually really reasonable.” The amount of fortitude and manual dexterity that he has to have in order to create these toy soldiers is just unreal. I know if I tried it I would end up with a product that looked like something a 4 year old toddler created with a pile of Playdough. I would like to personally thank Louis for arranging this and allowing me the opportunity to meet all of the great people there.
After riding the train back into the city it was time to get ready to eat at Larry Lo’s restaurant Tse Yang. Now, I reside in the San Francisco Bay Area which has an excellent selection of Chinese food. Tse Yang put all of those previous places I’ve visited to shame. The Peking duck we had was so good I could have eaten 100 pounds of it. The service and the food there was impeccable. Additionally, the ambiance of the restaurant was incredible. The wood carved Buddha and the huge salt water fish tank were great views to add to an absolutely perfect meal.
Sunday March 9th 2008
The shuttle to pick us both up was scheduled to meet us around 3pm so we didn’t have a full day in the city but we decided to make the most of it anyways. Sara KGB and I headed down to the Times Square area again and decided to go to the observatory in the Rockefeller Center. The tickets to get in were a bit pricey but what isn’t pricey in New York. They take you up in an elevator to the 70th floor and the views from the walk out deck up there are just unreal. You get a great 4 sided panoramic view of Manhattan this way. The only draw back was that it was cold out that day and the wind blows a rather heavy gale up there. I became the center of attention as I had brought a bottle of bubbles that I had purchased from the Toys R’ Us the previous day. The wind just made those things take off as I decided to blow bubbles all over NYC. It worked out real well until my hands just about froze off from the wind factor. After we came down we decided to do some shopping in the Times Square area and I found a sweet Reebok hockey store. They even had old school Canadian hockey team gear in there, it was great. I also checked out a really cool comic book store called Midtown Comics. Anybody who is a DC Comics or Marvel fan this place is a must stop.
