Wednesday was a fine, if very wet day. None of our relatives would be able to accompany us (because of school and work), so we decided to tackle Manhattan on our own to visit Chinatown and the American Museum of Natural History.

Now, when it came to the subway, my navigational skills were flawless and we arrived at the designated stations without a hitch. Above ground, though, my sense of direction decided to fail was as bad as Kenranīs Yagami on dry land, except that I wasn't going to pop out of a sewer in the middle of Queens. Even with a map we got lost on more than one occasion, which is strange considering that back in Marva I was able to easily read the map and find our way back to base camp with ease. But then again, a topographic map in the middle of the Negev desert is different from a street map in the middle of New York.

In any case, once outside of the station near Chinatown, we took the wrong direction and almost ended up in Soho, where we were going to head to later in the day anyways. We backtracked and almost got lost in Little Italy (in retrospective, maybe it wouldn't have been that bad). When we did find our way, it was nice and busy, though not as lively as it should have been because of the rain. My uncle lent me a huge umbrella that I closed after a few blocks when I decided that it would be healthier to get soaked that poke out the eyes of half of Chinatown with the umbrella.

And soaked I got. Maybe that's why I didn't get sick.

Found a couple of anime stores, selling high numbers of bootlegged dvds and lots of Gundam 00 gunpla with no Astraea in sight.. And lots of asian ladies offering their purses in the middle of the street (I was later told that they were really offering to take us to a alley store with lots of cheap knockoffs of fashion brands).

Finally we dedided to make our way to the museum. So we headed back to Soho and Noho all the way to the are around the New York University where we ate a delicious pizza Either it was really tasty, or the cold made us feel it tasty, which didn't matter in the end.

Even Fiori got wet.

Even though we arrived an hour and a half before closing time, we wanted to see the prehistoric animals, and prehistoric animals we saw. We even had time to take a quick tour of the Mesoamerican and South Pacific exhibits, including the Easter head replica (lots of people saying "gum gum" when seeing it, and taking photos with it).

I just love the arqueoptetix

Yeah. I never outgrew the Dinosaur Phase.

Fiori looking at my all-time favorite, the Parasaurolophus.

His favorite is the Triceratops, though.

On the way back home, we got lost again. Actually we had to get out of the station and go back to it through another entrance to grab the train going back to Queens (one station can have different entrances depending on where you are heading... so complicated). We didn't find the entrance and we ended up walking all the way to Times Square, were we decided to grab the train in Rockefeller center. At least we got to familiar territory.

And yes, there were people skating.

Thursday we took calmly. The sun was out again. It was mostly walking around Queens looking for a bookstore. We did find eventually, after we walked the opposite way for half an hour (not my fault this time around). I was told that it was rather small, so I though that if that was the small one (half the size of the floor space as the new locale of La Casita in Multiplaza, and with two floors) I wondered what the big one was like. I found out the next day.

We spent quite some time in there, just looking around. There were people sitting on the carpet, just reading or doing schoolwork, which was pretty amusing.

I also had a nice mini pecan pie in a pastry shop, where one of the waitresses complimented Fiori.

BTW, during the whole trip and all over the place, Fiori had been travelling in the side pocket of a woven purple bag I had bought at the Mercado de Artesanias, so he was pretty much safe.

Unfortunately, I was wearing cream trousers on the Chinatown day and when the bag got wet it stained the trousers. Fiori was safe because of the inner lining. But the trousers... most of the stain came out but not all of it. They're still good so I'm going to dye them a nice blue.

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Today I got the second Naruto dvd at a bargain. I'll wait for the others to have their prices lowered before getting them.

When I discovered that the Pinky doll I bought at Kino had no name (in fact, only series 6 and before are named, and Reina was one of them), I had a hard time choosing a name for her. I finally decided on Laila. So yeah. Reina and Laila are very good friends... perhaps more than just friends.

Reina is the long-haired one, Laila has short hair. The winery postcard makes a nice background.

I want the Pinky boy from the Sky Crawlers movie. He's cute, and one of the few boys. Though it seems the new series will have a cute postman as well.

I made a small scenario photo with the gashapon set and some furniture I borrowed from Abi's toy. I think I'll get more props for them.

So far on Reborn. Zakuro's Carnage release is him fusing with a T-rex, which would have been fun if it turned his arms into puny T-rex arms. But it didn't, so he easily blocks the attacks of Lal, Gamma and Goku. However, Goku releases his Vongola box that transformed Uri and the Sistema C.A.I.'s cannon into the first Storm guardianīs weapon of choice: a bow and arrow.

Now, Tsuna had been against the idea of Lal and Goku fighting because they were badly injured. For the first time in his life, Gokudera will have none of it and actually says that he cannot obey Tsuna this time because he's fighting for the sake of their friendship. Interestingly enough, Giotto and his Storm guardian were childhood friends and both founded what would become the Vongola. And as I think about it, Gokudera was actually Tsuna's first friend.

In any case, with much difficulty because of his back injury, Goku is only able to rip off one of Zakuro's arms and is still knocked off his feet. Bluebell appears to finish the trio off with her Carnage release (she becomes a Shonisaurus mermaid), but Zakuro stops her for a while, but they still attack together.

Much to my displeasure, the Varia (minus Squalo and Fran) show up to save them.

Under other circumstances, I would have welcomed the Varia showing up, but not during this fight. The reason being is that up until know Goku hasn't actually won a fight against one of the big enemies. He lost against Chikusa, was later ambushed by Ken and finally possesed by Mukuro during the Kokuyo raid. He lost against Belphegor in his fight for the Storm ring, and though he managed to defeat Levi and save Lambo during the Sky ring fight, he was tentacle raped by Mammon a few minutes later. Defeating Levi doesn't count because it was a free-for-all at the moment. In the current arc, defeating Nosaru doesn't count because Nosaru was Gamma's junior. He was defeated and tortured by Gamma, then in the Melone base he did better against Gamma but it still ended in a draw, and during the Choice battle, he was tentacle raped by Kikyo. (seriously... putting it THAT way, what kind of manga am I reading?).

He really needs at least one good, solid, win. We'll see next chapter.

I need to do the Psyren summary... tomorrow!.

And Nuramago will get an important announcement next week. At least that's how they put it. I hope it's an anime.

And I apologize for the photo spam.

Feeling: content

Now playing: A Gaia Gear melody in one of my cds