Friday 4th May – Staying in a hostel has its upsides and downsides. On the down side, you have to share a room with strangers (who often end up having the strangest of habits), get woken up (or kept awake) by snorers and late arrivals, share a bathroom with pigs, and keep all your stuff locked up tight. On the up side, hostels can offer a great social programme and save you a wad of money. My reasons for staying at the hostel were a mix of the two; my budget didn’t stretch to 2 months staying in a place by myself, and I really wanted to take advantage of the social aspect of the hostel before spending 5 weeks in relative solitude in an apartment on my own.
To this end, I booked myself onto a number of walking tours at the hostel, and today I took part in the first of them. The tour was called ‘Historic Harlem’, and was led by an old gentleman called Ed. We all met in the lobby of the hostel, and that’s where I first met Calvin. I didn’t know it at the time, but Calvin and I were going to end up spending a lot of time together over the next week, and he would become a fabulous travel buddy, and a good friend. Our first interaction happened when Ed asked Calvin if he was Japanese, and without thinking I said, “He’s not Japanese, he looks Korean.” Cue stunned looks all around. A lot of people say they can’t tell the difference, but as a language teacher and having spent a lot of time with people of both nationalities, I reckon I have a pretty good handle on it. As it turns out, I was right; Calvin is Korean. His English, though, is near-native and it was just freaking wicked to hear it; it gave me so much faith and hope for all my Koreans who struggle with their language acquisition! DO NOT DESPAIR MY LOVELIES! You CAN be great… if you work your ass off at it! 😉
Anyway, the tour started and we wandered towards the nearest subway station. Calvin was joined by JiSoo, a friend of his from Korea, and our little trio was joined by a girl from Hong Kong called Daion. The rest of the tour were mostly older folk who didn’t seem much interested in us, as they were travelling in groups or pairs. It usually seems that way; the ‘singles’ team up together.
A statue of Malcolm X at his memorial in Harlem,
New York, May 2012
We got off the subway at the highest point I have ever been in Manhattan; Broadway and 168th Street, Washington Heights… almost as far up as you can go! Our first stop was the Malcolm X Memorial on 166th Street. I admit that I know less about Malcolm X than I would like to. I remember that he converted to Islam, and I remember that he and Martin Luther King had different opinions on how equal rights should be achieved, but their general aim was the same. I remember watching the movie of his life when I was a kid and not really understanding most of it; I think it was at a Drive-In and I’m pretty sure I kept drifting in and out of sleep! Once again, I find another topic that I will have to read up on in the near future. Anyway, the memorial is in the cinema where he was killed in 1965. It is no longer a cinema, but the original lobby is intact. At first glance I was highly concerned, because all I could see when Ed pointed to the ‘Malcolm X Memorial’ was a barbeque restaurant (!), and I thought, “Eh what? They’ve turned the place where he was assassinated into a barbeque joint?!?” but luckily that’s only part of the building. In the memorial itself, there is a hallway and a small set of stairs, and at the top of these stairs is a very lifelike statue of Malcolm X himself, standing on a little podium and speaking into a microphone. I cannot imagine what it must have been like to be African-American at the time that Malcolm X and Martin Luther King were most prominent. The determination, the hope and the inspiration… quite something.
We kept walking for some time; we went through Sugar Hill, with its 19th century townhouses (and so named because of the ‘sugar’ – or money – that you needed to have to be able to live there) and we passed by some beautiful old worker’s townhouses (which now probably require more sugar than you can count to buy them). After that, we paid a visit to the Morris Jumel House, which is a beautiful old homestead that used to sit in amongst farmland, until urban spread turned it into a wooden oasis in the middle of multi-storey brick dwellings. It was built in 1765, and George Washington used it as his New York headquarters during the revolutionary war, I believe. Apparently it is now run by some sort of Republican Ladies Brigade (eep). I’m surprised they’re into it; the one-time owner, Eliza Jumel, was a lady of questionable virtue who married an older man for his money, and then after he died, she remarried another man who had apparently killed some sort of high-profile politician who is now a face on American money. Not quite the role model for ‘ladies who lunch’, is it? The plaque outside describes this woman as being ‘colourful’… ha ha ha ha ha! I can only hope that people refer to me as ‘colourful’ in a couple of hundred years…!
We strolled past Count Basie Place, and we made a stop at Duke Ellington’s old house – awesome! I was thrilled to learn that Ed did a bit of swing dancing in his day, and had even danced at the Savoy once upon a time… I am SO jealous. He was an interesting man, actually, and although he looked fairly old he must have been even older than he looked, because some of his memories go way back; I’m guessing in his late 80s or early 90s. He was a slow but steady walker, and doing a pretty good job of keeping up considering his age! He told us how his mother used to make him sleep out on the fire escapes in hot weather, to keep him cool, and how he and his friends used to hang out up there and throw peanuts on pedestrians. Cheeky little blighter!
All of us stopped at a place called Taza de Cafe for a break and a little drink. The man behind the counter was playfully insistent that we should eat something, and very persuasive, and the lady kept showing us all the baked goodies that she had, but I knew that lunch wasn’t far away – and that it was going to be a big one – so I just enjoyed my hot chocolate.
We wandered across the top of Jackie Robinson Park (Jackie Robinson was, I believe, the first African-American baseball player in the traditionally white league), from where there was a view across the river to Yankee Stadium. We walked along the promenade, enjoying the view, before cutting through a park and then through a housing complex that had been built by the Rockefellers for the poor. It was surprisingly beautiful inside, considering its boringly functional exterior; full of little green patches and scampering squirrels.
An unusual sight: an empty subway carriage (we were at the very beginning of the line),
New York, May 2012
Soon afterwards, we made our way to a subway station which was at the top end of the line; when we got onto the carriage it was entirely empty… not something I’d seen before during daylight hours! We got off at 125th Street, where our group started to part ways. Calvin, JiSoo, Daion and I had already decided to go for a big lunch together at Sylvia’s, a famous soul food restaurant on 127th Street – just 2 blocks from where we were. We were saying our goodbyes to the rest of the group when two of the Belgian women asked us where we were going. We told them, and they seemed a bit surprised. “You’re eating… in Harlem?” Uh, yeah. What’s the problem with that? They looked at each other with raised eyebrows. “Maybe we… maybe the food is not good.” I thought that they meant taste-wise, so I told them about soul food and what kind of things they might encounter, and they followed us to the restaurant. Then they started behaving in an almost panicky way, and scarpered. I found out later that they hadn’t wanted to eat in the restaurant because it was Harlem. Because it was run by African Americans. And, according to the Belgians, there is no hygiene in Harlem. WTF?!? I simply couldn’t believe it. When I found out, I wanted to go and confront them. Violently. Where the hell did they think they were? And who the hell do they think they are? People like that make me sick. Racist freaks.
Racist Belgian females aside, the four of us went into Sylvia’s and had a kickass lunch. We ordered up a veritable feast and ate up every bite. We ordered on the advice of our neighbours, who were eating all kinds of good stuff. Based on my experience at Amy Ruth’s, the others wanted to try fried chicken and waffles, so we ordered that. Then we looked at our neighbour and saw their barbeque ribs, and ordered that too. And then we chatted to a couple next to us who had come all the way from Texas, and they were eating chitlins. Totally clueless, we asked what chitlins were, and they said that basically it was pig intestines. All of us went, “Oooh, interesting!” which surprised our neighbours, as I suppose that they don’t normally get that reaction when they talk about tripe. I guess they didn’t figure that they were talking to two Koreans and two girls from Hong Kong, who are used to eating anything and everything! So, we ordered fried chitlins as well. Our side dishes were black-eyed peas, gumbo and candied yams.
Oh, what a meal. The waffles and chicken, I have to say, were not as good as Amy Ruth’s; the waffles were a bit cold and not very crispy, and the chicken wasn’t crash-hot. The chitlins were interesting; not very flavourful (more a result of the intestines than the way it was cooked, I think) but pretty good. The ribs were disgustingly good, with delicious sauce smothered all over them, and the gumbo was full of yummy okra. The black-eyed peas were great too, but the highlight was the candied yams – orange sweet potato with sugary, syrupy goodness… yum. After eating, I went to wash my hands and I met a woman from Chicago in the bathrooms; she said that the food in Chicago was much better and that I should go there to eat up instead! Still, I really enjoyed my meal at Sylvia’s, and the company was great.
The beginning of great friendships: Calvin, Tara and Daion after their feast at Sylvia’s, Harlem,
New York, May 2012
After our late lunch, Calvin and JiSoo went to the Museum of Modern Art while Daion and I went back to the hostel. I relaxed for a while before deciding to join the hostel’s evening programme, which included a choice between a night out at a nightclub or a night at a jazz club. I figured I would go downstairs and see what the crowd was like for both before making my choice. As I went downstairs, I found Daion there, and she was heading to the jazz club, which pretty much made up my mind for me. However, as the crew for the nightclub turned up I knew I’d made the right decision. They were all men, and they were mostly yobs. They were also mostly Australian, and they were already mostly half-cut. In the end, there were only four of us for the jazz club – me, Daion, Lew (an Australian gentleman from Perth), and an older Italian man whose English was fairly limited. We went around the corner to SaSa’s Jazz Lounge, which was much, MUCH smaller than I had expected it to be; just a sliver of a room without many places to sit except at the bar (which was full), and the band were set up near the entrance. It was loud. LOUD. My ears ached and I blinked every time the drummer hit the drum. The music was good, but not amazing. In the end, Daion bought and finished one beer, and we left. The Italian man had embarrassed the hell out of us by walking right up to the band, putting the camera within 30 centimetres of the saxophonist’s face (this in front of the crowd) and using a flash to take pictures. Good lord. Bad tourist! However, Lew looked like he was having a good time, and as it turned out I’d be seeing a bit of him over the next few days, too.
Daion and I walked back to the hostel and went to our respective dorm rooms. I found that the American girl above me had moved out and been replaced by an Australian guy. He’d had a bit of a rough ride; he and his friends had been going through America on their way to Europe when his appendix had burst. In the end, he had to stay behind in hospital while his friends went ahead to England. He had just been released from the hospital and was awaiting the all-clear from the doctor. All sympathy I had for him evaporated, however, when his phone rang in the middle of the night and he answered it in a very loud voice, complaining that he hadn’t been able to sleep because of the Spanish guy’s snores. And now, thanks to the Aussie guy, none of us could sleep either. Gah! (Plus, I would just like to mention that he was also a snorer… hypocrite!)
As I was lying there trying to get back to sleep, I thought I could hear some scampering happening on the floor underneath my bed. I had read that there were mice in the hostel, but so far had seen no sign of them; I put the sound down to my tired mind playing tricks on me, and tried to think no more of it. (Mouse story: to be continued…!)
And that was that for the day!
Thanks for stopping by,
Tara.
Born in Hong Kong and raised all over the world, I've been tootling around for 33 years now. A Spanish friend of mine once said that "the smallest pot has the finest marmalade"... I have to agree with her! I'm small but I can still make 6-foot Brazilian bodybuilders cry if the need arises. And I never need to whinge about legroom on a plane!
little tara 
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