new york: i want to be a part of it

when people ask where our favourite place on our trip was both of us have said that new york is right up there on our list. that is why it is unacceptable that it has taken me nearly one month to blog about new york. what can i say? it's a lot easier to blog when you are away! but anyway, let's dive right in. 

after arriving in new york from our flight from vancouver (via toronto) we got our only yellow cab of the whole trip from the aiport to our hotel. arriving late on the friday night we had just enough time for a quick look at times square before collapsing into our hotel bed. the next day, the first thing we had to do was to sell our gps device as we had no more use for it without a car (despite my request that we should keep it... just in case!) anyway, we sold it successfully in a second hand electronics shop in the 'diamond district' to a group of quite threatening looking italian-american guys who could easily have been extras from 'the sopranos'. we'd decided to do the open-top bus tours to get our bearings a bit as neither of us had been to new york before. we took the uptown bus tour first taking in columbus circle, cathedral of st john the divine, grant's tomb, harlem, and central park. in the afternoon we went to the museum of modern art (MOMA) which had a mind blowing collection of modern art including van gogh's starry night and work by miro, kandinsky, pollock, gaugin, rothko, magritte, matisse, and monet. 

'top of the rock' (rockefeller centre) provided excellent views of new york from its 68th and 70th floors.

we got up early the next day (sunday) to go on a wall street area guided tour, something that i was particularly excited about after my economics classes at uni! the tour was lead by james, an excellent tour guide, who told us lots about the area and took us to see the bull statue, NY stock exchange, the financial district and city hall.

that afternoon we went to the national september 11 memorial and museum. a fitting tribute with the twin waterfalls and survivor tree. it was a very emotional experience and we felt it an appropriate way to pay our respects to the city. 

the next day we were back down to battery park to get on the ferry to liberty island where we went up to the pedestal of lady liberty. we actually had tickets to go right up to lady liberty's crown, but we estimate we probably made it as far as her breast before the extremely cramped and steep spiral staircases became too much for us and our combined fear got the better of us. besides, the best views are from the bottom - we got some great snaps from the downstairs. it was selfie central outside so jam and i thought we better join in!

the ferry afterwards took us to ellis island for look around the immigration museum which we both found very interesting. back on the mainland we walked over the brooklyn bridge, which, by the way, jamie cannot say in any way other than as an alicia keys impression from her annoyingly catchy hit 'empire state of mind'. the walk across the bridge was lovely and gave brilliant views of both manhattan and brooklyn.

 

once in brooklyn we had a look around the dumbo area which was so much quieter than manhattan and full of cool book, art and pastry shops! we then took the subway to williamsburg where we had happy hour cocktails in a thai restaurant called Qi; the bathrooms alone make it worth a visit but the lychee martini was super beautiful too. dinner was at the very hipster-esque commodore complete with arcade games, diner booths, dim lighting, fried chicken and mint juleps!