ASTRO CAT and MOONMOUSE's NEW YORK CITY Trip

 Hi! This is the first official post on this blog; and it's quite an eventful one. During this past weekend (June 28th - June 30th) me and my sister got to go on a trip to New York City. I had a lot of fun on my trip and I'd really like to share it. But first; a complementary drawing. 

To begin our story, let's start at the train station we departed from; it was a big, old school train station that I thought was really really cool to look at.

As for my thoughts on rail travel itself; I loved being on a train, it's so much more comfortable and affordable than going by plane and there's way less hassle; why even go by plane if it's an option?

About four hours later we finally got to New York City, the big apple itself; here's the first picture taken upon arrival.

Astro Cat and Moonmouse upon arrival in New York City, you can see Moynihan Train Hall and Manhattan West behind them.

After we got there, we checked into our hotel which was literally a walk away. Check in wasn't too crazy or anything and it was a nice room all things considered; it was bigger than I thought it was going to be and it had basic amenities. (breakfast was included with the room too!) It didn't have a refrigerator or a microwave which wasn't too surprising (it was bigger than I anticipated but it was still quite small.) and there weren't any trash bags in our garbage cans; New York City must have some of the most stringent laws against plastic waste because the straws we got were paper and there weren't any plastic trash bags; that's probably for the better in the grand scheme of things but it was still a bit of a culture shock.

First place we went after settling in was to the M&M's store in Times Square! It was actually decently big and there were a lot of things to see, do, and of course, buy. They had these really neat statues of the M&M mascots that I thought were really cool having been a long time fan of their commercials. I got a photo of Moonmouse with the blue one because of course; she's blue! I didn't see a statue of the green one which is a shame but it doesn't affect my overall experience. 

They also had a self-serve candy dispensary where you could make your own bag of M&Ms (or Skittles, they also had Skittles among the candies, theoretically if you really wanted people to hate you, you could mix the two together.) I, of course, got blue and green standard chocolate M&Ms (can't imagine why, can't you?) They also taste better than the ones in a normal bag, maybe because they come direct from the factory; but that could very well be a placebo effect.

While we're on the topic of M&Ms, I figure now's the time to talk about my favorite M&M's commercial; it's about M&Ms jumping in and out of a computer and it has really neat visuals and music to go along with it; here's a link to it here.

After that we got a bite to eat; and on our way back we went into this weird toy shop that while it had some cute stuff in it a lot of their stock was straight up bootleg, why else would they have a sign asking people not to photograph anything? So after that, we went back to our hotel room to rest for the rest of the night; next morning is where the real fun starts.

So, next morning we start our day by going to Times Square again; we took the subway and I began to discover that I'm a bit of a fan of rail travel between getting to NYC by train and going on the subways. Sometimes they get a bit crowded but such is life in a big city I suppose. Even the corridors of the stations had some cool displays in them. I managed to snap some photos of a couple I really liked.

Then we got to Times Square; our first stop on that trip was the LEGO store; and right away we saw a taxi made entirely out of LEGOs which I can't even imagine how long that took to build.

The LEGO taxi.

Downstairs they had a "customize a minifigure" thing where you could make three minifigures, so I got some made of my family members; they LOVED getting them. My younger sister's minifigure apparently got the only cellphone in the entire tray also, which was really cool. (We did look we couldn't find another one, they had a bunch of acorn hats though, something I've never seen anybody IRL ever wear, not a jab at anyone, I just found it odd.)

Then we went upstairs and on the stairwells we saw this really neat LEGO City display with firefighters rescuing cats, a bank robber climbing up the wall, Batman, how could I not get a photo?

Upstairs we saw a bunch more LEGO stuff, this stuff geared more towards older kids and adults; they had some really cool LEGO sets, there was a roller coaster, an Atari 2600, an NES, a Super Mario 64 set, and my favorite, a Pac-Man arcade machine.

After we finished up at the LEGO Store, we went to NBC Studios at Rockefeller Plaza, and it was such a cool building, I loved the black marble in those corridors.

We actually visited the gift shop to get my mother something because that's where her favorite TV personality films his show, and in the gift shop they had these pieces of TV and radio equipment that I thought were so awesome, especially to someone who's had a lifelong fascination with the early days of television.

I'm actually somewhat surprised there's nothing protecting that camera; it's just out in the open like that. It's rather odd, you'd think there would be considering its age and it's an assumedly very heavily travelled tourist destination.

After we got my mother her present; we went to the world's oldest toy store, F.A.O. Schwartz; and it was a cool place to see, much cooler and 1000% more legitimate than that toy store we went to the night before, there were a lot of toys, and a walk-in rocket; which since Astro Cat and Moonmouse were with me on this trip; it'd be illegal for me not to take up that photo-op.

Fun fact: F.A.O. Schwartz has the big piano that was in that Tom Hanks movie, Big, which is my sister's dad's favorite movie. (Here's the scene.) That area actually wasn't open when we were there, somebody was renting that space out for a birthday party, that birthday party probably cost more money than I will ever have in my life. Also, I didn't get a photo of this but I did see a life-sized Bambi doll that was over $2,000, a very cool thing to look at, but something I will realistically never actually have.

This is somewhat related but I really wish that Toys R. Us was still around, I would've loved to go to that Times Square store.

After our visit to F.A.O. Schwartz, we went to the Nintendo store. Upon entry we were greeted by promotional stuff for the new Luigi's Mansion game, the fireplace and the suit of armor were super, super sick; and there was a cardboard cutoff of Luigi, which is always nice because it's Luigi.

They also had other statues, they had one of Luigi and Toad (which were in an area that would've been too hard to get a good picture of them from.), one of Link, one of Bowser (which I regret not getting a picture of because it was by far the coolest one), one of Pikachu, and of course, one of Mr. Videogame himself.

They also had a line of all of Nintendo's consoles; complete with a stack of OG Nintendo playing cards (which in case you didn't know, Nintendo was founded as a company that made playing cards) and the Color TV-Game 6; which was Nintendo's very first video game console ever made (and only ever came out in Japan.) They also had a Mario Kart jacket, which if my dad were still around would've been a perfect souvenir for him.

After the Nintendo store, we bid Times Square a farewell and headed back to our hotel room for a little bit, while getting another good picture of a famous New York landmark.

Astro Cat and Moonmouse in front of Madison Square Garden

After a little bit we made our way to the NYU Skirball theater for the Battle for Dream Island / Inanimate Insanity 2024 Tour; which was actually the reason I wanted to go to New York City in the first place. I had a lot of fun at the tour, it was a nice theater, and I got to meet some of the animators that work on those shows; they were all very pleasant and nice people and I enjoyed talking to them. As for the presentation itself I can't actually tell you very much about its contents; what I will say is that I got probably the BEST seat I possibly could, it was dead center of the theater.

After the event; we returned once again to our hotel. My sister discovered there was a rooftop bar with a good view of the city, I was initially reluctant to go up (I don't like heights) but I did promise her I would. I didn't drink anything, but I did get one last photo.

And that about concludes our trip; we went home the next day. I had a lot of fun during my visit to New York City and I'd love to go back, I just can't imagine living there.