Well it’s more like Shopping, and Wicked. Started the day with our first excursion on the Subway. It’s not too confusing, or maybe we just fluked it. It’s kinda weird how none of the platforms are numbered, you just find your letter and the direction (uptown or downtown). For us, it was the E train, downtown. Fifteen or so minutes later we’d travelled from 34th street right down to Chambers, near the World Trade Centre. And also, nearer still to Century 21 Department Store. They must have known I was coming because right at the entrance we went in, lay many hundreds of watches at ridiculous prices, all looking for a good home. I was very well behaved and only picked up one. So far. 🙂 Actually, one of the delightful things about New Yorkers is that so many are quite unafraid to have their own style, and wear it well. As opposed to just slavishly following whatever the trend is this week. The prices at century 21 were sometimes jaw-dropping. $25 Levi jeans, $11 van heusen business shirts, it was all pretty amazing. I picked up a Calvin Klein business shirt for under $25. I wasn’t surprised to see some people lugging two baskets around crammed to the gills – and there was one enterprising young gentleman who bought a heap of stuff, along with a truly massive suitcase in which to stuff it! We were a little more restrained – but gave the travel money card a little bit of a bashing. We may well be back for another go later.
The exciting part of the day was still to come, though. Time to finally hit Broadway to see our first show – Perry’s somewhat belated birthday present, Wicked. Sure enough, it was a fantastic show, really enjoyed it.
Tomorrow we venture outside Manhattan for the first time, for something that sounds very appetising – the Brooklyn Pizza Tour!
A very quiet day, this one. I was still feeling a bit blah, we didn’t end up venturing outdoors until dinner at about 6:30. Found a nice Japanese place not far from the hotel, and has a nice feed. Yep, that was about it for the whole day, really. Tomorrow’s plan is to finally get on the subway, and find a way to what is meant to be a bit of a discount shoppers paradise – Century 21.
Big day today – a nine hour tour around Manhattan. Thought we’d take tour early in the visit to get a taste of places to go back and visit in more detail. First stop – a church.. Saint Who Gives A Toss, I think it was. So … Next! Next was a quick stop at the Rockefeller Centre (sorry, Center) – with the price of New York real estate, owning two or three city blocks makes the mind boggle at just how much money is involved. Of course, the Rockefellers own stacks of apartments and other buildings around the place. Guess it’s nice work if you can get it 🙂 One positive note was that, apparently, no one is just handed a fat inheritance on a plate, you have to work for it just like all the Rockefellers before you.
Grand Central Station was up next – definitely spending more time there in a future visit. After all, we didn’t get close enough to the Apple Store there 🙂 Next up was one those real “I can’t believe I’m actually here” moments – the Empire State Building. One great thing about this tour was the way it was able to cut the queue and get us to the viewing area quickly. The building itself is pretty amazing, such an accomplishment for 1931. Note so classically beautiful on the outside as the Chrysler Building, but inside ere was plenty of Art Deco goodness to enjoy. Oh and apparently there’s a view. 🙂 Which is, of course, just amazing. And not near as cold or windy outside as I was expecting. Just the fact that “holy crap, here we are, standing on the real actual genuine Empire State Building” was amazing. That building that had in one way or another kind-of been a part of all our lives, we’ve all heard about it ever since ever, whether through TV, Movies, books, whatever… and here we were, snapping photos like the millions of tourists before us – but heck, these were our photos, our little reminder of this real ‘wow’ moment. Can you tell I enjoyed it just a bit?
Suitably wowed, it was time to move on. Chinatown, Little Italy, Nolita (North of Little Italy), and a stop for lunch at Chelsea Market. We need one of these in Sydney! Very cool, a little bit Newtown, a little bit Queen Victoria Market in Melbourne, all positioned in an old Nabisco factory, its old brick walls and leftover fittings just dripping with post-industrial cool. Also nearby was The High Line – a leftover elevated freight rail line that has been converted into a public park, albeit a rather long and skinny one. Definitely worth a revisit to that, I think.
Driving alongside the Hudson, we get to Wall St… of which there is actually very little. Surprised at how small and relatively insignificant the street was, although as we all know, what goes on there is anything but insignificant. Ellis Island (home to the Statue of Liberty) is still closed to fix damage caused by hurricane Sandy last year, so they got us as close as they could, by taking us all over to Staten Island on the Staten Island ferry. I wasn’t having the best time at this point as I think lunch must have had something that didn’t quite agree with me. So I was more “righto, there’s the staue of liberty, er ok I’m going back to sit down and feel sorry for myself now.”
The last stop was the September 11 memorial site. Kinda relieved, if that’s the word, to see that was sombre, quiet, thoughtfully and respectfully designed. A fittingly peaceful monument to all the horribleness of the time. The tour ended where it began, back at Times Square, giving us plenty of food for thought on what to go and revisit for the subsequent days in New York. Dinner at the very retro Tick Tock Diner finished a surprisingly tiring day, considering how much time we spent just sitting in a bus. No dumb-tourist stories to report today, we must be getting used to the place! Rain is forecast for tomorrow so lets see how that goes… Might be a shopping/galleries/museums day. Probably without the galleries and museums though 🙂
Jet lag? What jet lag? Up and at ’em at 8AM after a very good night’s sleep, the room is really quiet, no traffic noise which is nice. We didn’t have any set plans today (in case we did get hit by jet lag), so just went for a wander, starting with a healthy(?) breakfast at Dunkin’ Donuts then generally heading north. One thing I love about this city insists simple street numbering system – for pretty much the first time in any city, I can actually tell which way I’m heading – if the street number go up, you’re heading north. If the avenue numbers go up, you’re heading west. Ok, ish… It’s more north-east for streets and north-west for avenues but whatever… It’s a refreshing change for someone like me that otherwise has absolutely zero sense of direction. Just like countless movies and shows on the telly, yes steam really does rise from the streets at times. Not sure if it’s a byproduct of the subway, the sewers, or some other under-road facility. Perhaps it was done at the request of countless movie makers who wanted their gritty urban crime dramas to have a little more atmosphere 🙂
Wandered along Broadway seeing some of the theatres we’ll be visiting in the coming nights. Also saw the Ed Sullivan theatre, home to Letterman’s Late Show. Was nice to see 42nd street – when I saw the musical in Sydney 20-odd years ago I never thought I’d be walking down the actual street one day.
Eventually we reached 58th street – the start of Central Park. It was really quite different to what I was expecting, perhaps I was just expecting a big flat park with trees, grass and walking paths, but there’s so much more than that. Arches, bridges, rocky outcrops, lakes, buildings, a merry-go-round, Central Park Zoo … And we probably only covered 10% of the park today if we were lucky. Tourist item: find a squirrel. Check! So many park benches, almost each one with a plaque of dedication, some famous, some funny, and many dedicated to those who can visit the park no more. Central Park Zoo was cool – not very big, but we turned up in time to see the Sea Lions being fed, which was good fun.
Central Park ZooCentral ParkCentral Park
After that, time for an ice-cream (imaginatively called “The original ice-cream on a stick”, yes, really) and more wandering, where we drifted out of Central Park and on to 5th Avenue. And of course, the very cool 5th avenue “glass cube” Apple store. Really big, really busy, but only a two minute wait for the Genius Bar if you had an issue that needed solving. There were at lest 25 staff walking around, probably more.
After that was FAO Schwarz the famous toy shop with its even more famous giant piano…which was kinda underwhelming to be honest. Walked past all the other fancy-schmancy 5th Ave shops – Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Prada, Armani, Tiffany’s (no breakfast), and Saks fifth avenue. Saw the New York Public Library as seen in Ghostbusters. 🙂 A quick and delicious lunch at a sandwich (i.e subway-esque) place called Potbelly (hey, it seemed appropriate 🙂 was in order, and a welcome chance to rest the feet for a while.
Then on to Macy’s which was nice – it’s pretty clear the Myers executives must spend a fair bit of time there, as it has a fairly similar look and feel to it. Except at Macy’s you can actually find salespeople when you need them. You can also find three different Starbucks, a few cafes, ice cream shops and goodness knows what else…it’s a big shop.
Finally returned to the hotel late afternoon to give our poor feet a rest, before heading out for dinner. We walked west over to 12th Avenue to have a look at the Hudson, which wasn’t what you’d call pretty, rather, pretty industrial. Dinner was at Applebee’s Times Square, and it was kinda disappointing. Despite a Mojito the size of a bucket, and very tasty food, the service was slow and the appetiser arrived well after we’d finished the main meals… felt like they had a team that just don’t work well together. Dessert at Cold Stone (I.e cold rock) helped make things better though 🙂 Then off to bed for some well-earned rest. Ready for the all-day city tour tomorrow. Sweet!
So here we are, hanging around in the Qantas business lounge, which I have not seen in a good many years! We’re boarding in about an hour, so doing our best to make good use of the free breakfast goodies on offer, and kinda marvelling at the people helping themselves to free beer. At 8AM! The upgrade gods smiled upon us slightly – for the LA -> New York leg of the flight we’ll have a window seat. Ah well here we go, next stop LAX then on to JFK!
Well, that was all pretty easy! The only wrinkle was right at the start when the flight was a bit late leaving Sydney. But there was a positive side – the flight itself was just under 13 hours instead of the expected 14. As per every traveller’s dread, there was a very young baby on the flight … who proceeded to be the best behaved baby ever, nary a peep out of it the whole time. The seats were comfy, really appreciated the extra legroom in premium economy, and got over the shock of using cutlery made of metal, and drinking out of glass, instead of the usual plastic 🙂
Despite all the horror stories I’ve heard about LAX, it was really easy to get through, perhaps it helped that we arrived at about 6AM local time. We made it back on the plane with plenty of time to spare, ready for the flight to NY. The plane was half empty by this time so it was a more relaxed flight, managed to get a decent snooze. Next minute… Hello New York!
Glad we took the lazy option and booked someone to meet-and-greet us at the airport and drive us to the hotel. Made things easy. The ‘Tryp by Wyndham’ is lovely, room isn’t exactly big, but big enough, very clean and modern, and we look right on to the massive “New Yorker” hotel across the road. We arrived about 6:30 pm, so went out for a wander and started ticking off the tourist things already. Pretzel from a street vendor? Check. Times Square? Check. And I thought Tokyo had lots of neon signs and advertising – doesn’t compare to the sheer volume of Times Square. Also visited Toys R Us with a massive indoor Ferris wheel… Gosh. Found our way back to the hotel a bit later on and just crashed, a bit tired for some reason! But an excellent start to this big holiday adventure.
Dumb things that Australians do on holiday #1: Push a revolving door in the wrong direction… We now know you go anti-clockwise…!
I think it’s true what they say – that preparing for a holiday can create those good “I’m on holiday!” vibes weeks or months before the holiday even starts. We’ve done stacks of searching, comparing, browsing, asking, but most importantly, booking! Flights are sorted, accommodation is sorted, some airport transfers, tours, that kind of thing, all sorted. All we have to do now is wait for it all to start. Only 23 days to go … bring it on!
JVL+PJC 