35 Fifth Ave., #505A SUNDAY AFTERNOON IN LOWER MANHATTAN:
On February 12, the Sunday after the Chinese New Year began, my good friend Dustin and I took a walk down to Chinatown see the festivities.
| Although the parade seemed to be mostly over by the time we arrived, throngs of people still lined the streets. This is the view from Confucius Plaza: |  |
| I took this picture from the other side of the plaza: |  |
| Here is a Chinatown street with interesting fire escapes: |  |
| We realized that we had not arrived in time to witness a huge festival, and so we decided to head down to the Staten Island Ferry and take a ride instead. On the way we passed through this incredibly fancy housing development, which is on the Hudson River just north of Battery Park. Incidentally, this is near the place where my mom saw Will Smith filming a movie while I was at orientation here in New York last summer. |  |
| The Staten Island Ferry is excellent: it costs nothing and it provides beautiful views in all directions. Here is the Statue of Liberty, which I could see in stunning silhouette when the ferry was heading towards Staten Island: |  |
| The water soon calmed a bit, and the clouds became spectacularly indistinct: |  |
| And finally: here is the skyline of Lower Manhattan, as seen from the ferry. I enhanced the contrast of color in this photo because its lighting was not good. Now its lighting is strangely bluish. You can even see the Empire State Building in the distance, at the left edge of the center third of this picture. |  |