Visitors 4.2: Corona Park and Edgewater

From Coney Island (in Brooklyn, still Tuesday the 16th), we decided that we should take a look at another borough or two...

Here, as our eyes were getting weary and our backs were getting tight, we stopped on the Queens side of the Queensborough bridge tonight.*

This is the big globe (it probably has a name) in Corona Park, the site of two World's Fairs--also the site of the U.S. Open and Shea Stadium.


Lisa provides some sense of scale for the globe.


How come I'm never in any of these pictures?

Ah, here I am. I can't remember what Keith was talking about. I know it involved lots of arm movements... Maybe he's saying, "That globe is really, really big..." (What? I thought this was a roast!)

And of course it is...

I do remember that he was concerned that people would ask him what these things (the towers below) are and he wouldn't know. I say not knowing wouldn't slow me down from offering a convincing answer. It never has before. If I had to know anything about anything before I explained something I'd never be able to write a sermon...

Besides, haven't we all seen the Men in Black movies?

Anyway, after Corona we continued on our way....


After checking on the dogs and catching our breath, we headed down to a little Japanese Market in Edgewater.

There we grabbed a bite from the Japanese Food court (delicious and cheap!)...

... before we commenced to shopping. It had everything one could want... Japanese pickles (cucumber, yes, but also daikon, scallions, seaweed and fish), Gyoza, udon, soba, Japanese cucumbers 2 for $3.50, Pocky, purple yams, tuna, eel... even little Octopi with plum color/flavor...



There were purchases made, but the damage wasn't as bad as IKEA (I think we all learned our lesson). So we said goodbye to the market and headed home.

To be continued...



*If you get this reference, you might win a prize. But probably not. Still, I couldn't think of any clever way into these pictures, so this will have to do.

Visitors 4.1: Coney Island

On Tuesday (September 16) we went to a beach of a totally different kind...

Coney Island!

This began, of course, with food. Nathan's Hotdogs to be exact. I had a pretty decent softshell crab sandwich, Lisa clams and chips and Mom and Keith each hotdogs (sauerkraut and chili respectively).

Now Coney Island is definitely NOT the Jersey Shore....For example... I didn't see any signs for places where the women were wild and the guys were wise at Point Pleasant. Of course, seeing as neither Keith nor I fit the 'wise' bill and neither Lisa nor Mom could be classified as 'wild' we passed this place up.

So how might one describe the difference between the Coney Island Boardwalk and most of the Boardwalks of the Jersey Shore? Well, let's just say that Coney Island has more... ummm... flavor...?




One of the nice things about Coney Island (and Brooklyn in general) is that they say what they mean and mean what they say.
The sad part of this excursion is that Astroland is closed not just for the season, but possibly for good. Is this a goodbye?


Still, the ocean is awesome. And after Keith tightened some loose boards on the boardwalk, we went down to soak it in (but not soak in it)...

And if you look you can find beauty and life anywhere.


Oh, and BTW, Lisa and I took all of these pictures in the time it took Keith to take the picture you see him taking here:


To be continued...

Visitors 3

On Monday we went down the shore.

Here Keith was shooting the "shoreline..." which had no bikinis anywhere near it...

Lisa was just happy not to be working.

By now (three or four minutes had already passed since we'd arrived), we begin to contemplate where we might eat...

...okay, this'll do...

After a nice lunch a grueling and difficult game of chicken with the waves begins. Mom sees the danger and begins to head the other way. She won't be a part of this kind of recklessness.

Yet she can't quite let the rest of us go...

Lisa, showing No Fear (c) whatsoever, unleashes her inner surfer girl.

She stares the mighty waves down and gives no quarter...

It's touch and go when the mighty Humunga Kowabunga rears its head...

The outcome is uncertain... We all hold our breath...

But in the end she is triumphant. She and the waves become one.

Lisa basks in the glory of victory.


Mom captures the whole thing on tape. She will sell them to you for 19.95.

Now we can relax and think about waffle/ice-cream sandwiches and orange ice-cream cones and chocolate covered pretzels and lemonade and satellite wafers (10 cents each!)

Mom reflects on the power of the sea... but also how close the casinos in Atlantic City are.


A day down the shore is ending, but an evening at IKEA is beginning. A far more dangerous adventure than chicken with the waves (I have the receipts to prove it) and so not photographed (but trust me, you wouldn't want to see that carnage).

But for now we just wind down and POSE...



To be continued...