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It's exhausting, having a day off from work, isn't it?

I went on down to Coney Island (never been) with my old roommate, her work buddy and her boyfriend, and it was fun. I touched the ocean for the summer, went on the Ferris Wheel and did the whole aquarium (which was nicer than I was expecting, so kudos there), all in about five hours. Not too bad. Save for a massive headache (too much sun, too little food, possibly still not recovered from sleep deprivation earlier this weekend) at the end, a completely successful trip.

And, good thing too, as the train ride out there is longer than Pinocchio's nose on a politician. This way, I've seen the sights, had fun, and come home again, one more "classic" New York experience down.

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*sigh*

I stayed home, got work done and did experimental chinese cooking. My kitchen still smells like bamboo shoots.

Hey, that's productive as all get out. I wish I could be half so productive when stuck at home. I just waste time.

Well, there was wasting time too.

Yeah, but you seemed to have implied that not all of your time was wasted, thus doing oodles better than me.

I haven't been to Coney Island, either. I meant to go this summer, but it just didn't happen.

It's not too bad a way to spend the day. I wouldn't say the rides are all that attractive (being as expensive as they are), but there's some decent bad-for-you food, a beach, and the aquarium, which were plesant enough.

Plus, you have every excuse to have missed it with your busy summer.

I'm surprised at your thumbs up for the aquarium. Dayne and I checked it out a few weekends ago and were terribly disappointed at how awful-to-nonexistent the educational signage was. Some of the exhibits looked to be lacking signage due to disrepair, and some seemed to be lacking simply because someone crapped out halfway through the exhibits' designs. I have a great picture of a walrus; in the foreground is a huge glass plate that obviously could have displayed information about diet, biological relatives, range, etc., but instead says, in small white letters: "walrus."

That's not even the worst of it. Did you see the exhibit of some unidentified creature labeled only with "sight feeder?"

No, I didn't see that one. Yes, there were plenty of exhibits where lightbulbs had burnt out, and a few where the explanatory panels were missing, but as a whole, I was expecting much, much less, so it was better than I anticipated.

As for the educational stuff, well, I long ago stopped really paying attention because, and I'm totally bragging here, I knew most of it already. With the "Alien Stingers" exhibit, I had already talked about most of the creatures in or out of it before we ever went inside. That one was a tad disappointing, given that, aside from two or three other species, they just had tank after tank of moon jellies. Also, when it comes to aquariums, I have seen better, but I have seen worse. I see a lot of aquariums because I like them better than zoos and I love fish, so just being there gives me a happy. This one had otters, too, so that was nice.

What was atrocious was the shark tank. Completely uninspired setting and far too tiny for that many animals. I had a better set up for my snake's terrarium, and he had a log to hide in, a stick to climb on, and a fish bowl. Really, not very exciting, especially not after I dove in a cage with wild ones (they're a lot less fat, for one).

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