After my satisfying meal in Chinatown, I conveniently walked towards the direction of Brooklyn Bridge, just off the south-west corner of Chinatown. I had wanted to just walk over the bridge to Brooklyn, enjoy the view of the city and call it a day.

Brooklyn Bridge is an iconic landmark in New York City. Many must have seen it before. Probably in American movies, such as a car pursuit scene where the camera trails the car from above and you see the car cruising along with the view of it blocked periodically by the iron beams laid horizontally over the parts on the two sides of the bridge that are dedicated to traffic.

Traffic lanes are on both sides of the bridge, with each side going in an opposite direction. Traffic under these iron beams is a familiar scene we see in movies and TV serials.

Otherwise, you may have seen it photographs of Manhattan’s skyline, such as the ones you see in the 1000-piece jigsaw puzzles. To give you an example of what I mean, I have a silhouette version, which contains the same elements as the photographs I was referring to.

When Brooklyn Bridge was completed in 1883, it was the longest suspension bridge in the world, an architectural wonder of its kind. Its majestic towers and its net-like steel cables make up the symmetries and patterns that become the focal points of photographers’ cameras.

From the bridge, you get wonderful views of both sides of the East River.

View of the Brooklyn side from the Manhattan side

Manhattan Bridge spans across the East River upstream of Brooklyn Bridge. Here is an unobstructed view from the middle of the bridge.

A view of the port of New York and the Lady herself, I mean, the Statue of Liberty.

View of the Manhattan side from the Brooklyn side.

As I started walking across the bridge, I noticed signs on the bridge indicating that it would be closed to pedestrian traffic from 7.30 pm. The reason was that there were events going on to celebrate the bridge’s 125th anniversary. In fact, there were events taking place throughout the entire Memorial Day weekend.

I thought there would have to be some important celebration programs that evening if they had to close the bridge to pedestrian traffic. I interjected the NYPD dude who was talking to his buddy and asked if there was anything going on here on the bridge that evening.

He replied that the bridge will be closed from 7.30 for a commemorative event to take place. He added that there will be fireworks-.

I probably did not catch the rest of his sentence once I heard him said the word “fireworks”. I was thrilled. I was lucky then, to have came on the day where they were having fireworks at the bridge. On second thoughts, maybe not, because I left my tripod in the hostel, not having made any plans to take any pictures that night.

In any case, since I found out about it, I was going to stay around for it. The policeman told me that there was a little park just next to the bridge in Brooklyn where people were gathering to watch the fireworks. I would make sure that I made my way there once I got off the bridge in Brooklyn.

This past weekend was the Memorial Day long weekend. I took two days off from work to make my long-awaited trip to New York City.

I made my way to the airport early in the morning to catch a 10 am flight to JFK. By the time I got to my hostel at West End Avenue and 102nd Street, it was already 3-something in the afternoon. I had not eaten much food yet, because I was planning to visit Chinatown and I was saving my calories for some cheap, authentic Chinese food from one of those eateries where Caucasians would not think of patronising. I did not know what I was going to eat, but I knew that I would definitely find something I wanted to eat.

I took the Subway to the Canal Street station and made my way to what was to be the Chinatown area. You know that you are in Chinatown when you find every single shop along the street bearing a sign board with Chinese characters.

Even McDonald’s has its name in traditional Chinese inscribed under its iconic golden arches

How Chinatown attracted me was probably not so much of it being a tourist site. What I liked about going there was that being able to speak to the people in the shops and eateries in Cantonese, even though we all were capable of conversing in English, manifested the cosmopolitan in me. What I liked as well was being able to rediscover some tastes and sights that have not been part of my life in the recent years.

I was hungry by the the time I got there. After checking out few eateries along Mott Street to the north of Canal, I settled on one which had its name indicating that it served Teochew (潮州) specialties. It was no longer lunch and not really dinner. It was the meal of the day. That meal of the day was duck braised in spiced, dark soy sauce with dried flat rice noodles.

Wait, I cannot recognise what I was eating by looking at its description in proper English like this. Put it in plain foodie terminology, it is “loh ngap dried hor fun”. In Cantonese, it is “滷鴨乾撈河粉”, which easily evokes the image of the bowl of steaming hot flat rice noodles, topped with slices of duck meat that has turned dark brown after being braised in the dark soy sauce. Accompanying this image is the lightly spiced smell of the sauce in the bowl that gradually rises to my nose along with the vapour from the hot noodles, infiltrating my nostrils. One can’t help but to go on and pick up a few strands of the noodles with a pair of chopsticks, place them into a spoon, followed by a slice of the duck meat dipped and coated with the sauce seeped to the bottom of the bowl… and send the content of the spoon right into one’s mouth. Imagine its taste… salty, spiced, juicy… It would be good.

Indeed it was good, darn good! I had mine with a load of ground chilli sauce. Darn, I have not had any “loh ngap” in Atlanta at all. Here, we are lucky enough to have a couple of Hong Kong BBQ eateries selling roasted ducks. I slowly savoured my duck noodles to make sure I enjoyed the most out of every bit of it.

Bowl, empty in front of me. Bliss. Mission accomplished for the day. It did not matter what else I had to do the rest of the evening, or so I thought.