The Big Apple

If I can make it here I can make it anywhere, New York, New York.

Well after two wonderful months in England we have come back to the new world. A nice flight into JFK and an F1 racing taxi driver got us to our hotel GEM Hotel on 36^th Street West in Manhattan. Not a cheap place and all of New York seemed to be booked out.  We later found out that the X Factor selection was on Monday and Tuesday and 9/11 memorial services. I think the former will get more attention here.

We arrived in the evening and walked around seeing Times Square (full of fruit loops), 5^th Avenue and having pizza by the slice.

Unlike London, New York was linear and cavernous in its design of streets and avenues so exploring was easy and decided to get a hop on hop off bus to see the sites.

 

Some of the older buildings ie Chrysler, Empire State and Flat Iron were interesting and nicely done. Visited ground zero, but could not get to the memorial as it is a paid site and a construction zone for the Freedom Tower. The building is of a very basic design and like most things in NY looked quick and flash with not much thought put into it.  A shame, we could see the spot and the only memorial was to the special forces who killed people from that day forward. Ironic considering why the buildings were brought down.

Took a ferry across to see the Statue of Liberty. Michael got the wrong one so we had to pay. After seeing mini me on the Seine in Paris it was a bit of an anti climax.

 

The bus continued on to the Rockerfeller Centre, which was very impressive and Central Park with the street sellers of bikes, horse carriages and bus trips.

 

The night bus trip was good and we travelled over to Brooklyn to see the night-lights of Manhattan. They looked similar to Sydney or Hong Kong. The tour guide fancied himself as an entertainer and spent his time high kicking down aisle whilst belting out New York, New York.  He was also big on audience participation and you all know just how much I love paying to be the entertainment!

Checked out Wall Street to see if anyone was jumping, but no, it must have been a good day. There was more security to access the New York Stock Exchange than we had seen at 10 Downing Street, making it almost like a shrine to capitalism. The bull was well patted with shiny horns and balls. Not sure if that means you will come into money or return to New York again.

Visited Grand Central Station, which was fully restored and wonderful to see the marble and lights. Lucky Jacquie K stopped it being changed.

 

I don’t know if we expected too much from this city, however after being in London it was a bit underwhelming with much talk of it being a city for tourists, but with very little signage or information. A lot of homelessness and police cars everywhere including 3 wheeled mini vans. It was also very dirty with litter strewn about which also contrasted sharply with London where there was an endless parade of street sweepers keeping everywhere pristine.

We are off to Toronto by train from Penn Station to see Tim & Jess.