Friday, June 29, 2007 ;
2:00 PM
June 28
Thurs
NYC tour
hihi! today's been a long and tiring but very fun day.
we set off in the morn, usual route: hotel shuttle to Newark airport, airtrain to Newark rail, train to New York Penn station, then Metro train to 50th St station. about 1+hr.
so it was abt 11am when we reached and we walked down 50th st, just taking in the sights. then Law (remedios, not Ng, and hereby for the rest of NYC trip, law will be thre remedios one, haha) msg me, asking us where we are. turns out he was also at 50th street too, but at the 7th Ave junction already, so we walked on to meet up with him. At Macs. haha
don't laugh. the macs here are different ok. got local flavor. the Wall Street Macs for example, has marble tables and even a grand piano where a pianist will play tunes. Ok, I didn't visit that Mac but I passed by it and saw the piano, and our tour guide said so. Amazingly the prices are still Macs prices, so that shd be a good deal. :-)
We signed up for a city tour together. Law suggested it and we thought since getting ard the city ourselves would be troublesome (traffic and all), it would save us a lot of time if we took a tour. This tour is by New York Party Shuttle, and they had this air con van painted with balloons and everything to pick us up. Very festive atm indeed.
Tour guide was very knowledgeable and nice so of course we tipped him generously. These were the places we stopped and got out to see:
1. Times Square - Broadway, biggest Toys R Us in the world, Disney and M&M's world, so on. There's the biggest Build a Bear workshop in the world too.
2. World Trade Center Site - one of the last stops. Ground Zero. Construction site now.
3. New York Stock Exchange - busy busy. New Yorkers are forever in a rush. If we get in the way of any of the crowd, expect their impatience to show.
4. Wall Street - the financial centers and banks did awe me, but the MacDonalds left a lasting impression. :-)
5. St. Paul’s Chapel - memorial church of sept 11 incident. also called "miracle chapel" because everything nearby was flattened and destroyed when the twin towers collapsed but the church was left standing. Windows of many of the surrounding buildings were shattered as well, but none of the church's was. Also, the chandeliers in the church were not damaged at all.
6. Trinity Church - nice archi.
7. World Financial Center
8. Federal Hall
9. Madison Square Park - had a good view of the Empire State Building in her entirety here.
10. Flatiron Building
11. South Street Seaport - nice sea views, ships, Manhattan city skyline and bridges. Also had a nice food court that is very diverse. A lot of Japanese and chinese food found here. And we had chicken tempura for lunch, plus Mango Bubble tea!!! yay, our first bubble tea in ages. Both ds slurped it up too. Since I also like it very much, I was also grabbing it from them to drink, causing ds1 to ask me (to my indignance), "mummy, why you drink so much! must leave more for us ok!" 4 of us shared one cup cos it cost US$3.99!
US Customs Building
12. 5th Avenue - Most interesting to me. Mixture of many different shops and buildings. Took many pictures, will post later.
13. Rockefeller Center - can go right up to top and have panoramic view. We won't be going up but maybe law will, see how.
14. NBC’s Today Show Set - saw the action and filming going on from outside.
15. St. Patrick’s Cathedral - nice archi
16. Central Park - what can we say? it is so huge you can't even walk through the whole length (ok at least for me). There are how many? 4-5? metro stops spanning the entire length. By the way, yesterday was (according to weather reports) the hottest day NYC experienced in a long long time. And we had to visit central Park ytd, no wonder we felt so hot and sticky! until almost faint. Then I said we almost suffocated in the non-ventilated train car right? seemed that NYC had power outage ytd too. So today, even some places (like the Macs we went to) did not have air con on either, only fans.
17. Strawberry Fields - memorial (the famous "Imagine")
18. Dakota Building - where John Lennon was killed
19. Canyon of Heroes
20. Statue of Liberty - seen from the Staten Island Ferry. it is magnificent, and somehow you just had to be quiet and admire it silently. there were 4000-6000 seats on the ferry and somehow, all the people fell silent when we passed by. everyone was awestruck. it just leaves you reflecting on what it means and symbolises. Which was why, when ds1 saw her and exclaimed to me, "Statue of Liberty!", it seemed so loud, i had to shush him up. He recognised it because of the Little Einsteins DVD he watched, where the group of kids had to go to the Statue of Liberty to look for something (on a mission).
21. Empire State Building - we got off there, it was the last stop. it was so high, i couldn't see its top from right below it. so weird. We saw it's full height earlier from Madison Sq Gdn.
We saw these from the van, and did not stop to get out:
1. Ellis Island - where the first immigrants had to go, seen from the Staten Island Ferry.
2. Central Park Zoo - made famous by Madagascar? At least my kids were excited abt it cos of that movie.
3. Tiffany’s - well, I don't have a tiffany's ring, so hmm... not interesting to me lah. :-)
4. Brooklyn Bridge
5. Verrazano-Narrows Bridge
6. Hudson River - seen from Staten Island Ferry
7. East River
8. FAO Schwarz
9. Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts - where the beloved New York Philharmonic (we heard them perform in spore before, think at the Esplanade if i rem correctly) resides, and where the famous Julliard School of Music is. We may visit again, cos me and dh are both interested.
10. Chrysler Building - one of the tallest bldgs, was actually tallest, until Empire State Bldg was completed. supposed to be beautiful at night with all the triangular lights lit up.
11. Woolworth Building
12. Met Life Building
13. Trump Tower
14. Plaza Hotel
15. City Hall
16. Washington Square Park
17. New York Public Library - impressive archi
18. Greenwich Village
19. SOHO/Tribeca - these places are not really beautiful but have character and personality. Short forms are abundant in NYC, e.g. Nolita also. SOHO stands for "south Houston". Heard that many Hollywood stars stay here, although it doesn't look posh like what we saw at LA. The Beverly Hills and Bel Air areas were very well-landscaped, and well, wealthy looking. But this was more like the rest of New York, rather dusty, grey and old...?
20. Macy’s - largest store in the world. really! we took a look ltr by ourselves. bigger than Harrods in London.
21. Herald Square
Gotta go now, ds2 stirring in his sleep.
rainbows every day, do not worry for the morrow
____________________________________________________________
