songbird's crazy world

So yesterday Drew and I took the train into NYC. first we headed downtown to Chinatown.  I hadn't been to that area in ages and ages.  The neighborhood never changes.  Crowded sidewalks, shops with their wares spread out on the sidewalk competing with sidewalk vendors, the smell of fresh fish veing sold on Canal Street (your dinner can crawl into your shopping bag if you like).  On Mott Street you can buy all sorts of stuff -- handbags,scarves, Chinese fans, silk dresses, toys.... Restaurant row is on Mott Street too.  the restuarnats all used to be Cantoneses, but now yu can find a variety of cooking styles, incuding Hunan and Sezhuan, and even Korean, Thai and Vietnamese.  Our favorite chinatown place, however, is a traditional Canonese place called Wo Hop .   There are actually two Wo Hop restaurants on Mott Street -- a street level restaurant at 15 Mott that can seat about 150 people, and a .much smaller space in the basement at 17 ...

There he is, in all his glory, parading around Times Square. In all the years I've lived/worked/played in NYC, I've never seen him. A group of my friends ran into him once, I was supposed to be with them but had to cancel out. So I've never seen him. I've seen lots of "living statues", you know, people dressed like the Statue of Liberty -- or something similar -- who perform on the street. One time I ran into "Spongebob Squarepants" outside the Toys R Us on 44th Street. And several years ago I saw a group of roller skaters dressed up as butterflies to promots MSN, But the Naked Cowboy...never.