The Medieval Festival at Fort Tyron is an annual event, with this being the 25th year running. Produced by the Washington Heights & Inwood Development Corporation and supported by The City of New York Department of Parks and Recreation, it is one of the largest and most popular event held in all NYC parks. They expect a total of 40,000 visitors this year and guess what? Admission is free!
So, what is the festival all about? Well, the purpose of the festival is an attempt to bring to life the customs and spirit of the Middle Ages. Fort Tryon Park is transformed into a Medieval market town decorated with bright banners and processional flags. Performers, guests and festival goers dress in medieval costumes. Visitors are greeted by authentic medieval music, dance, magic, minstrels, as well as jugglers and jesters.
The moment we stepped out from the subway station, we were greeted by girls dressed in Medieval costumes, dancing to Medieval music. How cool is that? Something tells me it's gonna be one cool festival.
Since admissions to the festival is free, the organizers have set up two wishing wells at the entrance. You can help out with the production cost by donating a couple of dollars to the wishing well. The suggested donation is $2, which I feel is reasonable - given the size and how elaborate the event was.
You can also help yourselves to a free festival program booklet at the entrance. It's loaded with all the information you would need to enjoy the festival - a map of the whole festival grounds, times and locations of events and performances as well as write ups about the events.
Our first stop was The South Lawn Village. Here at the South Lawn Village Square, you can check out and buy all sorts of Medieval weaponry as well as watch various types of combat demonstrations.
There are also all kinds of stalls selling Medieval craft, clothes, jewelry...just about anything you can think of. Heck, you can even get your own pet dragon here! :P
On the other side of South Lawn Village is where you can learn all about Medieval crafts and watch life demos. There were all kinds of demos, from weaving to spooling yarn! Pretty interesting actually.
From the South Lawn Village, we made our way Centercheap Market. This is where all the Artisans gather to sell their wares. Here is one lady making and selling clay mugs.
Here is another crowd favorite. The blacksmith, his wife and a few apprentice were out in full force, making swords, knives and other cool stuff. Business was brisk too...I sometimes wonder what all those people do with the swords and other weaponry they buy from festivals like this? Take it out when their friends come over to play Dungeons and Dragons? :P
You can also see many street performers all over Centercheap Market, be it juggling, playing music or just telling stories from the past.
We managed to catch the Majesta Chanters, performing the Gregorian Chant. Interesting but I guess we sorta lost interest after a while..haha!
We continued walking and ended up at Sir Stan Wichels Tournament Field of Honor. Guess what we saw there? Yup, a princess riding a unicorn!! See, I told you guys that unicorns are real...but noooo, nobody believed me! Who's the loony one now??? :P
We then entered the Tournament Field to grab a seat and waited for the Children's Costume Parade to begin.
Here they are. Look at all the cutie pies marching around the field. Aren't they just adorable? Not much of a parade, they just walked around the field and ended by giving everybody a bow :P However, they were just soooo cute, so who cares if they just walked around the field. They did a good job! :D
After the parade, it was the event everybody was waiting for all day. King Rene's Joust Tournament!! A thrilling joust between four knights on horseback. Very exciting!
Now it's time for some food. Just opposite the Tournament Field is the Triangle Pub. Here you can get all kinds of food like fried dough and turkey legs. Look at all those yummy turkey legs on the grill! You can buy beer in giant Medieval steins or wine in goblets too. We didn't manage to buy anything, cos the line was just too long. Just how long is long? Well, there were at least about 60-80 people in every line. I overheard a lady complaining that she has been in line for almost an hour and it's not even her turn yet!! I think I'll give those turkey legs a pass. I know that the smell of the turkey legs grilling on an open fire was just so good, but no way will I wait in line for an hour just to get some.
Ahhh the famous Cloisters. The Cloisters incorporates several Medieval buildings that were purchased in Europe, brought to the United States, and reassembled, often stone by stone. You could go up there and check out the museum but we didn't really have enough time to fully enjoy it. We will have to return another day, just for The Cloisters.
There was also two childrens section - The Kids Zone and The Little Theatre. In The Kids Zone, there were all kinds of arts and craft like puppet making and costumes. There were storytelling and magic shows by Merlin the Magician in The Little Theatre. Kids also had a chance to meet Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham at The Little Theatre.
Another cool thing about the festival was that there were just musicians and performers everywhere you go. You see them sitting on rocks by the cliff, by the walkways or even on bales of hay :P After spending almost the whole afternoon at the festival, it was time to go home. It was my first Medieval Festival and I really enjoyed it. Everybody was so into it (a lot of visitors were also in costumes), for a brief moment, it felt like I just walked back into time. I will most definitely return next year for the 2010 Medieval Festival (this time, maybe in costume :P)!!
Fort Tyron Park - Washington Heights, NYC
1 Margaret Corbin Dr
New York, NY 10040
Tel: (212)795 1388
Web: http://www.forttryonparktrust.org/
The Annual NJ State Fair @ Meadowlands is here again! It's the largest state fair in the whole of NJ, with over 150 rides and attractions! Kevin and I have been wanting to go since it started on June 25th but we never got around to it. At last, we managed to go last Friday (since the last day was July 12th) night. It's located at the Giant's Stadium Fairgrounds, about 15 - 20 minutes away from our apartment :D We arrived at around 8pm and parking was fairly easy. I guess it's because of the big car park or maybe it's still considered little bit early. Parking is $3 for the entire night. 
We got our tickets at $9 ($7 for weekdays) a person at the door and was given the option to buy an unlimited ride stamp for an additional $19.90. We passed on that, I don't think we will be riding enough rides at the fair to make it worthwhile. I guess it's a good deal if you have kids with you. 
Our first stop was to go take a ride on the Skyride. It's actually a ski lift that goes from one end of the fair to the other. We figured it's the best way to check out the fair, to see what we want to do and stuff. The view was amazing from up there, check out this little video clip that I took when we were on the Skyride. 
Yup, that's right. It's time for the long awaited Pig Races!! Hahaha! I've never seen pig racing before and I was pretty excited to check it out. We made a point to get to the arena early, so that we will get front row seats. There were three heats, here is a video of the second heat. Aren't they just so cute? They look pretty fast here but you should see the third heats. It featured the Asian Pot Bellied Pigs. Boy were they fat! I mean, they were so hugeee..it wasn't even funny. They were just merrily strolling along the track, I think it took them about 3-4 minutes just to complete the race. It was funny! 
Check out what's next to the petting zoo. Noooo, you are not allowed to pet those! Hahaha! They are actually part of the famous tiger show act. It's free and there are 4 performances per night. We didn't managed to catch the acts cos there were other shows that we wanted to see going on at the same time as the tiger show. However, it was cool that we got a chance to get up to close to real tigers...we were just a few feet away from them! 
There were also elephant rides (the elephant is 41 years old!), camel rides and pony rides.
After all that walking around, it was time to get a snack! There are over a hundred food stalls at the fair, selling all kinds of yummy carnival food. From turkey legs to corn dogs to funnel cakes! We shared a funnel cake (of course!) and Kevin also had a large pretzel too! The funnel cake was hugeeeee and really good. It better be good, we paid a good $6 for it! Just imagine, $6 for some dough and sugar...tsk tsk tsk :P
Another good thing about this fair is that there are constantly live shows to watch. Apart from the pig races, we also managed to catch a mini concert by a local band as well as a magic show by the people from Festival of Magic. There were also other things going on like a show by hypnotist Steve Bayner, the Marcan tiger show and a bicycle tricks show.
Apart from live shows, there were also all kinds of rides and carnival games. I just love the whole atmosphere at the fair.
We ended the night by going for a midnight (well, more like nearing 1am) ride on the Giant Wheel. The view from the wheel was just amazing! We could see the whole Manhattan skyline, all lit up as well as a few bridges and of course, a birds eye view of the fair itself. With the nice cool breeze blowing in our faces and the beautiful view, it was definitely the best way to end our evening at the fair :D