Most international place in New York is…

As a tourist, I say that should be Metropolitan Museum of Art. You literally can see exhibits coming from the entire world which covers Asia, Europe, Africa, Americas and Oceania.

I started with Egypt section first. The most impressive exhibit is an Egyptian Temple. It is not a copy of the original temple. Instead, the entire temple was divided into bricks and transferred from Egypt to the US. You may think this must be a story of western power stealing the temple during the colonization of Africa. Luckily, it was not. In the 1960s, Egyptian government built the Aswan Dam across the Nile River. After the construction of the dam completed, the sea level started to rise which would flood many historical sites along the Nile River. The US government assisted Egyptian in relocating the historical sites. In return, Egypt gave a temple to the US.

Another exhibit that shocked me is a Jiangnan Garden (江南園林). They copy the pavilion and the rockery. It was a similar feeling of meeting a high school friend unexpectedly in a small town of the foreign country. However, you cannot get this feeling if you already knew it. Sorry for the ‘spoiler’!

Visiting an art museum allows you to not only appreciate the exhibits but also observe some interesting visitors. In the section of Roman and Greek Art, some visitors were staring the statute and sketching it on their sketchbooks or iPad. The most professional visitor I saw was the one who drew in the section of the European painting. She brought an easel, a drawing board, painting brushes and pigments. Originally, I thought she might be invited by the museum but she also had a visitor sticker on her clothes.

Lastly, you can pay whatever you want to enter the museum although they suggest every visitor to pay $25. It is such a generous act to a poor student like me!