Boston and more

I got into Boston late last afternoon last night. what a cool city. unfortunately there was a convention or something going on that weekend, so my hostel overbooked! and everywhere you went, it didn't allow overnight parking or it would have cost like $20 to park or something. so i drove all over the city, and a great seafood dinner at the infamous no name restaurant, visited Cheers pub and then proceded to drive north towards montreal.


Boston Skyline


the best seafood chowdah...ever (notice...NO potatoes!)


mmm...seafood platter


Cheers (the TV set looks WAY BIGGER)



i figured things would open up and be much cheaper as you got out of the city. nope. i was like 150 miles north of boston and everything else was either full or over $100 to stay for the night. yea right, i'll drive forever before i'll pay $100 a night for a place to sleep for 8 hours. if anything, i knew i could always pull into rest areas and be just fine. so i kept pulling into exits and following signs to accomodations. drove thru massachusetts, and new hampshire and by the time i got into vermont, i was gearing up to either drive straight into montreal or just pull over. i ended up finding this obscure bed and breakfast out of nowhere, and it was like less than $40 a night. for one of the coolest heritage buildings i have ever seen, it was built before the turn of the century. anyway, got in, met up with the owner and he was with some guests, just chatting it up. they were musicians from Boston. i asked them if they heard of my friend Obi's band, westbound train...they didnt. sorry bud.

anyway, had my first glass of wine in 2 months and a crazy time talking relgion and faith with these goth looking rock band people. i asked what kind of music they did and they said "heavy but not metal" i just nodded and said "oh yea, cool" i have no idea what that means. do you? lyle the owner, started out of nowhere his personal rendition of "Danny Boy" in the key of B flat. nice, and then Bridge the lead singer of the band, sang some other song she knew when she was a kid. good thing they didn't ask me to sing anything out of memory.

i'm in montreal right now. another VERY COOL city. and planning on catching a canadien's game right now. i hear the hockey fans here are crazy, and i'm hoping they are more raucous than the yankee fans in new york. cos that would do me proud.
the hostel here is NOT overbooked and generally very cool. walked around old montreal and i'm in the latin quarter right now. the notre dame cathedral is just amazing. but interestingly enough, the only place in the city where i felt like i didn't fit in. (i was told many times to take my hat off). i'm in like the gay district of montreal and don't feel ostracised at all. ah the church, its an interesting organism.

Old Montreal


Notre Dame Cathedral (outside)



Notre Dame Cathedral (inside)




i'll be in ottawa and toronto tomorrow, staying with an old roommate, john kim. and then i head off to SK. for all SK people reading...i can't find a place to stay from oct 26th to nov 4th. its not confirmed yet, but i do have a place from Nov 5th onwards. anything affordable seems to be either unavailable or booked up. if you know of anything (even just a 3'x7' space on someone's carpet, email me at darrell_lim(at)yahoo(dot)com. i should be able to check it tomorrow night.

i miss talking french, its cool here.

last night

things have moved along more quickly than anticipated. they spoke to me wednesday night and offered me the chance to move on quicker than agreed upon, and so i said sure. I leave tomorrow morning, and over the weekend, i hope to hit boston, montreal and toronto. i would say stay tuned for the blogs, but my laptop hard drive is fried, so that might be difficult to post anything. then monday, i head off on the 3 day trek back to SK.

I spent my last day today...in NYC. we had a breakout session with musician/song writer Charlie Hall, and it was really good. amongst some of the things we discussed was how the idea of worship is slowly becoming more like the social justice we see in Isaiah58, talked a lot about the dysfunctions of church plants and established churches, and in reality we really just need each other in order to be healthy. we need to be working together. it was good.

i headed off to find another musical to watch on my last night, and i managed to get tickets to one of the hottest shows on broadway, called "the producers". It's won like 12 tony's. the most for any musical ever, and much deserved i must say. it was cool. very well done.

while waiting for the show to start, i decided to check out the NBC experience tour, where they take you around the studios and tell about the history of NBC. i got to go on the sets of Dateline, and Saturday Night Live. it was pretty cool. actually before that, i followed a swarm of people up the elevator(i thot they were heading for the tour), but then the elevator doors opened, and people were screaming " Welcome to Conan, here's your free t-shirt!!". i was like, cool, this tour is GREAT and i haven't even paid yet! right...and then at the next turn, they asked for my ticket and then proceeded to escort me out of that level (when i obviously DID NOT have tickets to Conan). apparently i somehow squeezed thru security unnoticed and was in a completely wrong side of Rockefeller center. hey, i got a free t-shirt out of it! so yeah, when you see me wear it, i didn't actually go to the show. i snuck in unaware long enough to get the goods before being chased out!

wow, in no time, i'll be back in school. back to the grind. but i'm excited for it, and think i'm coming back with a lot more questions and a lot more passion than i had in the summer. i hope its a good two months before i head back to BC again. i am most excited to spend countless hours in that study carrel, hopefully get my blockbuster job back and get free movies and suiting up in my fireman uniform - i've missed that desperately!

one more thing.

i had to take this for my dad. he and dave are tight. i went into the souvenir shop, hoping to find something cheap. nope. everything is like super expensive. like a cup for $10. and like shirts for $30. cmon. gimme a break. i'll pass, thank you, and be satisified with this solitary picture.

i thought of tracking down the Hello Deli. but then i decided not to, cos that would show that somehow i really cared a lot of about Rupert Gee - which i don't really. nice guy, but hey, its just a deli. sorry, i'm not that interested.

monday night

yesterday night, i booted off after work into the city to desperate search for another taste of broadway! I headed off to the TKTS booth on broadway and 42nd(i think). anyway, this place sells tickets for shows that evening at hugely discounted prices(generally 50% off). so not only is nyc one of THE best places to watch musicals because of the variety, and the quality (the best of the best are here), its also amazingly affordable.

anyway, i booted over to the booth, and i guess monday nights are a "dark" night for theatre - thats what they were calling it. i guess it means that most theatres are closed to recuperate from the weekend. Actors usually are exhausted when the weekend is over, because they are also performing matinee shows as well as their evening time slots. I was fortunate enough to score a GREAT seat for the infamous rock musical RENT! i got my ticket for $48 (cheap!) and headed off to explore Chinatown and Little Italy before the show.

I figured just as much that Chinatown would probably feed me for a pretty cheap, and i gotta at least be around my people for a couple of hours while i'm in nyc. the chinatown is huge! and everywhere you go, even in the evenings are bustling with life. i would have taken pictures but nothing really stood out. just the usual chinese store houses with souvenirs stacked all over the front door. i got some pretty good deals. i got an FDNY tshirt for $6. a leather belt for $3. and i was so excited when i saw a BUBBLE TEA PLACE! i was like, this has got to be the bomb, i mean its NYC and bubble tea - it must be good! I walked in with my sister on the phone with me, and hoped for a passionfruit bubble tea. as i left the store, i confirmed that the milky white substance was indeed passionfruit. my fellow asian barista chirped enthusiastically "yep, is passchren flute" i walked out with a milky coconut drink with jelly instead. it was quite amusing.

i found a cheap chinese buffet place for 4 sides for $4. actually with the soup and rice it was like 6 items for $4. chinese food can be cheaper in richmond, BC. but i thot it was worth an honourable mention when you find such good value in the NYC. of course my sister is laughing, cos she gets lunch in ecuador for like 20 cents.


as i walked into RENT, i was trying to notice any signs that forbade photography/video. i didn't, so i immediately pulled out my camera and took this shot of the stage.



i then opened my playbill, and in the front cover it said, photography wasn't allowed. oh well, i snapped the pic before i saw anything! lol.

RENT was really good, but very different from any other musical that i've seen. i've seen Joseph and the amazing technicolor dreamcoat, les miserables and of course beauty and the beast(which was AMAZING). and they were all grand musicals, with tremendous costumes and elaborate stage layouts. the songs were always memorable and everything was too the enth degree. rent was different. it was the like the emergent version(for all my seminary friends), of the modern musical. the stage stayed the same the whole time. and a lot of the focus wasn't on sweeping numbers or beautiful backdrops. it was in a real story with real people. very postmodern, very cool. the songs weren't as approachable, but they were real, and heartfelt. it was a great experience.

stay tuned folks, more stories to come, got lots more to see before the week ends!


DL

moving on (again)

For those of you who don't know about this. I've been praying about this for a while now, and i told the church last week that i was going to move on. while i love the people here, the city and opportunity to be involved in serving new york city, i've found that there were serious incompatibilities in ministry philosophy between both parties. Its sad to leave because i've gotten to know and grown close to quite a number of people here. I'm continually encouraged and just thanked constantly for what i do here, so its been a very edifying time.

i leave in exactly 2 weeks and have much to accomplish before i go. its quite premature and i wish there was more time to explore the area, but i think that would definitely be really selfish, and just not the right reason to stay!

so i am hoping to soak in a couple of broadway shows before i go back to caronport to resume my masters. tonight, i'm excited to say that i'm going to see one of my favourite stories of all time - on broadway! beauty and the beast! remember how i excited i was when i was just walking by the theater? well tonight, is my night. wahoo.

yesterday i visited the famed Greenwich Village in lower Manhattan. LOVED it. most of the area is occupied by the New York University campus - they own many of the buildings around washington square park. apparently there was huge bazaar just outside the park yesterday and all kinds of street performers in the park. it was really really cool


remember that hotdog and papaya juice combo for $2.75? this is it. GREAT WAY to start the afternoon. and one of the best deals you can find in the city. seriously, the juice is to die for. its excellent!


street performers/dancers, complete with their own drummer for corny jokes...=)


this guy was playing a miniature piano...seriously...look at how tiny it is. his buddy was playing drums with him and he was doing classical sounding renditions of favourite hits of yesterday year. including the sir mix-a-lot classic. "i like big B_tts"


bazaar just outside the park...seriously how cool is this city?



I love the way the streets look in the fall.



stay tuned for more travelogues, i am hoping to head up to montreal, and ottawa maybe next weekend and i'm definitely fitting Boston in there somewhere.