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A night out in Manhattan

NEWYORK, May 15 – In last week’s globetrotter I mentioned that if you are to go to an entertainment joint in New York you had better be dressed up for the occasion otherwise you ain’t going nowhere.

Here now is the story.

It’s a Friday evening and after a long days’ work my friends and I decide to go clubbing. Needless to say we are all alien from Kenya, Bulgaria, Peru, India and United Kingdom. So we rush to the hotel room to freshen up ready for a night out.

When we finally meet at the Hotels lobby the ladies are dressed in these sexy jeans trousers and flashy tops while the men also look dazzling.

We made a deal that it was to be a whole night of club hopping and decided to start with uptown Manhattan and end it in the down town.

The first joint we landed at we found these stone faced bouncers who were checking identity cards at the main entrance. The queue was pretty long and you couldn’t fail to notice the stunning dress code.

Anyway to cut the long story short, when it was our turn this is what we were told ‘sorry but we have a strict dress code and you can’t come in jeans’ and so were the other clubs we tried to get to in this side of the city.

That’s the way we ended up at the West village.

WEST VILLAGE

West village is a more vibrant part of Manhattan that is full of life, far different from the East side where our hotel is.

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At midnight, you would be forgiven to think it was still early evening. Here no one cares about your dress code, class or status in the society. The men and women in this west village are fashionably but not extravagantly dressed. They appear friendlier and you will see a smile here and another there.

The streets are busy and loud wild music can be heard from every corner. West village is considered to be in the lower Manhattan and is one that brings New York top on the list of the most bustling night life scenes.

Bleecker Street which is a famous one in New York is here. It is popular in this part of the city as a Greenwich Village, nightclub.

Greenwich is a residential area commonly referred to as ‘the village, where a majority of people here are the upper middle class.
 
The bleecker street is located near a major landmark, Washington Square Park and Music Venue Café Wha where the likes of the Kool and the Gang and Bill Cosby began their careers.
 
From the loud music, one can tell why it is popular for music venues and comedy. Only in West Village can you dance on top of the table and no one cares.
 
Here you have a variety of choices to make. You can watch a live bands, musicians or instrumentalists or go for pop music or if none of that appeals, you can go for comedies.
 
The place is amazing and there is a lot of great food. We had a choice of various cuisines from the Indian to Italian and Chinese delicacies.
 
Being the Kenyan I am, I decided to ask whether I could get ‘nyamchom’. Unfortunately no one in this lovely village had heard of it. The best they could get was grilled chicken.
 
So I went for the Indian meal. This was a break from the usual American meal of fries, hamburgers, sandwiches etc.
 
‘Dosa’ is a light Indian meal that is a must try. It is a long wrap that has some spiced vegetables inside and works really well when you don’t want to eat much.
 
Tandoori chicken is another Indian meal you should not miss out, if you are looking for a heavy meal.
  See you next week when I bring you closer to the Moma museum, Brooklyn Bridge and other amazing sites.
  But I leave you with some few lessons about this magnificent city of New York.

•    Always have enough money to leave some ‘tip’ for every service provided. It works like this, when you ask for your bill, it will more often than not come with the amount you are to pay for the service and an extra 20 percent of your total bill is ‘gratuity.’ For those service providers who are a bit more generous the bill will come printed ‘Good-10 percent, Very Good-20 percent, Excellent- above 20 percent. Even mobile phones have an automatic tip calculator besides the standard calculator.

•    Lesson number two, never ask for chips if you really want chips. Ask for fries otherwise you will get crisps.

•    Lesson three New York is a ‘walking city.’ Always be prepared with some flat shoes.

See yah!
 

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