Snapshots from New York City

We were walking through a street market, and my friends were a few steps behind me. I stopped to let them catch up, pausing just long enough for a middle-aged Chinese man to pop out of the Shiatsu tent and grab my shoulders. "Free sample, free sample!" he kept chanting, as he boldly kneaded my shoulders through the straps of my backpack with frightening strength. I wriggled and writhed from his grasp, telling him, "No," again and again. I never thought I would refuse a free massage, but I never expected to receive one from a perfect stranger, either.

Snapshots from New York City

While walking through Central Park, we passed a movie being filmed. So we gawked.

The producer told us that we were welcome to watch, but since we were right in the shot, would we mind sitting on the bench and pretending to have a conversation?

We sat, and chatted, and managed to figure which actor was supposed to be famous. (The producer told us it was Sam Rockwell, who for some reason I thought was Dean Stockwell.)

As we were leaving, we heard the director finally call, "Rolling!" So I guess we won't be in a movie after all.

Snapshots from New York City

Soup dumplings. They sound like something a drunken frat boy would invent, "Dude, what if you put the soup inside the noodles?" But they taste delicious.

You carefully bite a small hole in the corner of your dumpling to drink the soup through, then you eat the rest. Unless you're me, in which case you bite a small hole, out of which a geyser of boiling liquid spurts and burns your tongue so badly that it doesn't heal for five days.

But they're so tasty and sweet and unique. I'd do it again in a second.