Hello Lower East Side... We'd been planning this overnight trip for weeks. It originally started as a mission to be a part of some art show in Brooklyn, but ended up being simply 4 friends bumbling around SoHo and the Lower East Side of NYC on a pair of chilly January weekend days (and a night thrown in there for good measure as well). Alesia, Cheryl and James all piled into the PT Cruiser, driven by me, and we all headed from Worcester, MA to New Haven, CT where we picked up a MetroNorth train destined for Grand Central Station. This was James' first visit to the city. Cheryl's on her third or fourth trip. Alesia lived in NYC for a spell and I'm just glad that our collective plan was to have no plan at all, but to wander around and explore. At Grand Central, we boarded a downtown-bound 6 train, disembarking at Canal Street, making our first real stop at the hotel on Lafayette and Howard Street, two blocks up from the chaos of Canal Street. The Holiday Inn Downtown Manhattan had the best deal for 4 people in one room with 2 double beds in just the right, downtown location, near everything, spitting distance from Chinatown action, the subway and all manner of shopping and eating and imbibing, not necessarily in that order. Our room was small, but we didn't exactly need a suite for massive latenight partying or anything. The view was of Lafayette and a giant billboard showing a several-story tall bottle of Hennesseys cognac.

Exploring around... Our only real must-do destination was teany, the Moby-owned tea shop cafe on Rivington Street in the LES. Alesia & I had visited here once before and had a pot of tea apiece and were caffiened out of our brains on yummy herbal fruit tea and pie and faux-bacon BLT sandwich. Because of that first visit, I really wanted Cheryl & James to experience this cozy, downstairs, crowded, chaotic yet stylish and charming den of tea and design. We had to wait a little bit for a table for four, but it was worth it. In warmer weather, one can sit in the outside enclosed area that was was far too chilly for our liking on this particular visit. We walked up 2nd Ave, passing by shops with hideous looking alligator skin shoes (some with ridiculous leathery "fins" sticking up) and loud hawking salesmen braving the cold, bellowing out short bursts of info about their wares, be they hats or socks or t-shirts, etc. We cut over to 1st Ave. via 8th Street / St. Marks Place and were a mere block away from Toy Tokyo and Love Saves the Day. TT is THE place to hit in NYC when you're in the market for new or vintage Japanese or other cool collectible toys and gadgets. LSD is vintage clothing garage sale knick knack AND paddywack all thrown into one cram-packed retail outlet. There was so much stuff that there had tables of stuff set up outside even as things were getting a bit twilighty. Our first bar destination was Waikiki Wally's. We had thought about trudging on up to Otto's Shrunken Head, but we spotted this tiki polynesian paradise bar on 2nd St. between 1st Ave. and Avenue A. We all bellied up to the bar and ordered colorfully named rum beverages. I got a Black Beach. Alesia got a Hibiscus Heaven. James and Cheryl ordered a pupu platter with a flaming can of sterno fully lit. All the drinks, or course, were served in tacky-as-all-hell, but super cool ceramic tiki mugs with flowers as garnish. (Wally's drink menu) Stumbling out of Wally's, we spied a "smoking bar" right next door, but super spy secret agent Cheryl deemed it "not sketchy enough", what with the close quarters, darkness, beanbag seating and general bizarreness. Karma was destined to be our next stop, a smoking bar that Cheryl & I had visited a year or so before and were still intrigued by. Walking in to Karma, you're immediately hit by that now foreign bar scent of cigarette smoke which is permitted in only a select few smoking bars in the city. There's lots of red lighting and red fabric hanging from the ceiling, forming individual little "rooms" for people to hang out with their pals, drink up and induldge in a bit of hookah. The four of us tried the vanilla hookah flavor and took turns taking drags off of the water pipe on the table using our individual mouthguard thingies. Alternating between trancey electronic music and completely inappropriate 80's flashback music, both played at a reasonable non-overwhelming volume, Karma made for a much needed pitstop from the norm. We wandered down 1st Ave. and got some much needed dinner at a Polish restaurant whose decor seemed permanently fixated on Valentine's Day. Alesia and I ordered pierogies, blintzes and potato pancakes and I gulped down a Polish beer whose name I can't pronounce (or read). Our last stop of the night was at the ACE Bar on 5th St. between Ave. A & B. I'd been here several times before over the course of five years because of the down-to-earthedness, the cheap drink prices and the immense collectible lunchbox displays in shelves behind plexiglass doors. It was a busy Saturday night and the 4 of us trudged on through the people to order our drinks at the bar. I spotted that one of the few tables in ACE had only two guys at it and I thought I'd go on over and "commandeer" the table by striking up a conversation from out of the blue with them. Turns out that these two youngish guys were very into the idea of meeting and talking with 4 strangers to NYC, and I've discovered that from most of my travels, being friendly (with caution) can be the best way to make new friends and to have some great times while you're at wherever you are. -Doug Chapel (January, 2007)

Waikiki Wally's drink menu Karma Hookah Bar and Lounge