Leaving New York City?

Roar! Friday I did something I almost never do, I "left" New York City! NYC is such a great place I'll never understand why anyone would ever want to leave it. Luckily, for the trip I had in mind, all I had to do was was head over to the eastern shore of Manhattan...

Roar! Here I am outside of the United Nations headquarters over at the end of East 42nd street. The UN is considered to be international territory and once you go inside not only are you no longer in NYC, you're no longer in the United States! Last time I came by the UN I never went inside. I hope I don't need a passport to get in!

Outside the visitors center there is this wild piece of corporate art! I see a lot of these types of things around NYC. Personally, I would have gone with a Jeff Koons sculpture! Roar!

Here I am in the lobby of the United Nations visitors center. For some reason they had a sculpture of Sputnik hanging from the ceiling! I guess that's pretty neat! Roar!

The lobby also had this big exhibit on climate change and its effects on Antarctica. In the background there is a cast of sculpture of Poseidon on loan from Greece! I suppose that's pretty appropriate when you consider the threat of rising sea levels! Roar!

PENGUINS! I love penguins! They are such cool birds! The only thing better than pictures of penguins and real penguins! Maybe I should take a trip to the zoo sometime soon?

There were a lot of other neat things in the visitors center. Here are a bunch of cool portraits of past Secretary Generals.

And here is the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the United Nations. They sure do a lot of great work! Roar!

There was also this awesome rock sculpture called an inukshuk. They're made by the various different native peoples of the arctic region. They are commonly used as travel markers and can be found all over from Alaska to Greenland! I hope this guy brings me good luck on this journey I've made outside NYC! Roar!

This mosaic of a Dove of Peace was presented to the UN by Pope John Paul II during one of his visits. It was just hanging on the wall and all the tourists were just running their fingers over it! I think that is kind of weird! Roar!

There was also this guest book to sign. I left my mark underneath a note left by a Chinese visitor. They had written "Move the UN to China." I wonder what Bao Bao would think of that? Roar!

Next I went downstairs to visit the gift shop. There was a ton of nifty UN stuff to buy! Here I am trying on an official UN hat. I'm not quite sure how this hat is different from the lid I tried on a while back. Roar!

Strangely, there were also all these bears waiting around for people to come give them a good home! I thought this was the gift shop not an adoption agency?! Roar!

Finally I went over to the UN post office! This is the real reason I left New York. I think stamps are really cool and since the UN is international territory it has its own post office and stamps! Time to mail some letters!

Here are some postcards I wrote out to a few of my fans! If you also want to get some sweet postcards from me you can join the TREXNYC mailing list by sending me an email with your address! Roar!

Time to send those postcards on their way! Keep an eye on your mailbox everyone! You might be getting some sweet mail from a dinosaur! Roar!

I had a lot of fun at the UN. When I was leaving I noticed this tiny island in the East River. It turns out that's Belmont Island, an island formed by fill from the old Steinway trolly tunnels that were dug over a century ago! The Island is now commonly known as U Thant Island, named after one of the former UN Secretary Generals. Apparently it's run by the parks department and protected as a bird sanctuary. I remember back in 2004 the island got a lot of attention when local artist Duke Riley rowed a boat out there and declared it a sovereign nation! I wonder what the UN thought of that! Roar!

Visiting the United Nations was a lot of fun and I got to see a lot of neat things! I guess this just goes to show that sometimes it's not a bad thing to leave New York City once in a while! Roar!

Wild Weekend Part Two: Friday

Roar! On Friday I continued my super busy weekend. It was the first day of the Metro Expo NY Stamp Show so I went up to the Holiday Inn on West 57th Street to check it out.

There were so many stamp dealers here! I'd never seen so many stamps before! It was really cool to dig through the history of all these different countries to see what I could find.


Woah! Check out these sweet dinosaur stamps I found! Roar!

After the stamp expo I headed over to the Museum of Modern Art for their new free Fridays program. They were having this exhibit of early Bauhuas which was great. Unfortunately pictures weren't allowed at the exhibit so I recommend going to check it out in person while it's still there.
The Bauhaus exhibit got me thinking about what Bauhaus animals might look like so I came up with this print. I call it Cowhaus. Roar!

Here I am hanging out in some of the art in the MoMA's permanent collection. This painting sure takes me back.

I thought this was a really great piece that truly got at the essence of "Chair." It's a picture of a chair, a chair, and the definition of "Chair." Though I feel the artist could have taken it one step farther and had a live video of everyone looking at the chair. That would have been great!

Woah, I better be careful not to go into the light again! Roar!

After the MoMA I headed over to the Carnegie Deli for a Giant Meat Knish! It was filled with a mix of ground pastrami, corned beef, and potato. It was so delicious! The perfect end to a fun Friday.