Sunday dawned bright and early for rest of New York I’m sure, but I only woke up around 10 am, already late for my planned trip to the Bronx Zoo, located at Fordham Road and the Bronx River Parkway, which has the reputation of being one of the best zoos in the world. Between getting ready and convincing Luvshack to do the same, we managed to leave the house only after noon and it was already 1 pm when we got the Zoo, which meant that we had to curtail our visit and limit it to specific exhibits that we wanted to see.
Thus, we raced through Jungle World, the Congo Gorilla Forest and African exhibits and then stopped for lunch at the Dancing Crane Café in the Zoo, where I was able to observe in detail the feeding habits of Homo sapiens. Another friend of mine had driven up to the city from Allentown, PA that afternoon and we met up with him in the restaurant en route to Tiger Mountain which due to time constraints was the last exhibit we were able to visit.
I really liked the displays at the Bronx Zoo and their signal service to conservation of various species such as the lowland gorilla. I would dearly love to return there and spend a whole day or two or a lifetime going through all the exhibits.
After about an hour of R&R at home, we rode the subway down to Greenwich Village where we stepped into a bar called The Pure Lounge for a brief while to listen to some live jazz. The place looks kind of shady with dim blue lighting and the band seemed pretty listless too, although Ginnetta, the main performer (and I use that term in several senses), was quite adamant, and not a little irritating, about getting the audience involved even against their wishes.
They wound up their show by 9 pm and there was another band scheduled to follow, but we decided to get something to eat as my PA friend had to get back to New Jersey by midnight to pick up his car. So we ended up at Wild Ginger, a nice Thai restaurant on Grove Street just off Bleecker Street. Excellent décor and ambience and great food.
