Being in Downtown Manhatten, I took the opportunity to jump on a water taxi to see more of the Hudson river. The service does a loop towards Brooklyn bridge then heads via Liberty (stopping only for photos) then up the river towards Midtown. I alighted at 42nd and headed up the hill to exploring more of Time Square, walking in and out of shops. Not that much fun – until you get to the 3 storey M&M store!! That’s right. Just behind Times Square houses M&M colours that you wouldn’t think would exist!
And on Times Square itself a “Toys R Us” that has a Ferris wheel and massive lego displays!
Excited much??
Outside on Times Square, The Today Show (Australia) was also filming on location. With the bright lights and crowds gathering, many Americans would stop and peer to see what the commotion was about. “Who are these people?” “Are they celebrities?” “Are they models?” – Alas no. They kept walking when I told them it was only Karl and Lisa from an Australan breakfast show.
The next day was ‘walking day’. I began in Madison Square gardens (unfortunately it was closed due to renovations), then headed towards the Empire State Building, which had great views of the city from the top, but doesn’t really compare to sunset at ‘Top of the Rock’. And from there I headed down to ‘Little Italy’ and ‘Chinatown’ where I stopped for a Lombardi’s pizza. I was told that if you’re in New York, you have to have to stop at Lombardi’s and I can see why.
Walking around Little Italy reminded me of the episode of the Simpsons – don’t know why. But with time quickly getting away from me I jumped on the subway back uptown to Central park, where it was my mission to walk around this giant area. Two and a bit hours later and after walking the many trails I got from the north-west corner to the southern point near the zoo (yes, it has a zoo). If you think of every type of park in Sydney (natural, man-made and zoological) and put it in one area about the size of a small suburb, you have Central park. Kids train for sports, college students go for runs, people walk and yucky couples take horse-drawn carriage rides. It is really an escape for New-Yorkers.
That night, to complete NYC, I headed on a pub crawl with the hostel. A good night doesn’t end well with kareoke – A GREAT one does! This was after visiting small pubs that could hardly fit the 30 something (mainly Australian and German) backpackers, which I thought were only still operating because of the hostel-run crawls.
And my New York experience ended with a trip to the bus terminal (just off Times Square) to head on a Grayhound to Boston.
