New York Adventure – Day 3

Anyone who read my previous New York posts will know that I recently embarked on my first trip to the states, specifically to New York, with my best friend D. We’d wanted to go since we were 13.

Day 1 and Day 2 have been pretty extensively blogged now so I’m swiftly moving on to the super exciting Day 3.

We’d pre-planned our days quite meticulously but the plans were open to change if (as with Day 2), we discovered something we wanted to see was nearby to where we already were. Because Day 2 changed so drastically – we were supposed to do the SATC tour followed by late lunch in Central Park, but ended up doing the NY Public Library and Grand Central as they were near to the drop off point of our tour – it meant we’d freed up time from another day later in the week. So we decided to change the plan completely for Day 3 and do what we’d not done on Day 2 – Explore Central Park.

We found a cute little cafe for breakfast – I had a really tasty Spinach and Bacon Omlette and D had Eggs Benedict – and then headed straight for Central Park as we wanted to do as much of it as we could and it really is HUGE. People who’ve been tell you that it’s huge but when you look at it on the map it doesn’t look that big. Believe me, it’s massive!!!! We were in there for most of the day and probably only covered a third of it. It’s humungous!

Anyway, on the way to Central Park I suddenly realised where we were! Before we’d set out on our trip I had done a LOT of research and planned routes and looked at endless maps and even visited my fair share of websites, which showed lots of cool places to go. As D is the biggest SATC fan in the world (Yes I do believe this to be true, she not only knew all of the answers to the questions on the SATC tour but she even knew things the tour guide didn’t!) I also looked into some locations from the show. I knew we would be going on the SATC tour but I wanted to do some research too. In doing this I came across the website iamnotastalker.com (if you’re a fan of SATC please go to Lindsay’s site, I think you’ll really enjoy seeing the places she’s been to from the show). Which is basically dedicated to seeking out movie and TV show locations – including SATC. Somehow when looking at this website I became particularly enthralled by how Lindsay (the lady who runs the site) found Mr Big’s church that he goes to with his mother. Lindsay even posed outside a house that she thought was the one Carrie stood in front of while she waited for Big. But oops, she was standing in front of the wrong house! Anyway, whilst walking down this road on the way to Central Park I suddenly realise this is the house!! And look over the road and there is the church!!

So we took lots of pictures outside (as Lindsay did – even repeating her pose) and as we were looking around the front of the church, a cleaner comes out and asks if D and I want to go inside. We say “if that’s alright?” and he ushers us in. We take a seat in one of the pews and no sooner have we done this than the priest appears and starts practicing playing a flute on the alter. The most serene and beautiful playing you have ever heard. We listened a while and then left, it felt like a very personal NY moment just for us. :0)

After our saintly moment we headed on to Central Park. We decided very quickly that we needed a specific Central Park map as there were places in the park we specifically wanted to go to, such as Strawberry Fields, the Imagine Mosaic and the Alice In Wonderland Statue. We made our way around in a sort of backwards giant S shape if that makes sense? Starting at the lower east side and moving up. We found Strawberry Fields and got an ice cream as we walked through it to the Imagine Mosaic.

From there I suggested to D that we go to see the Dakota Building which is where John Lennon and Yoko Ono lived and is sadly famous for the fact that it’s where John Lennon was shot. We took a few photos of the outside but it’s an eerie place to be honest, because of the legacy of what happened there I guess. Which is why I was shocked to discover that Yoko Ono apparently maintains their top floor apartment there. I don’t know that I’d want to stay somewhere that my husband died. But then she must have happy memories of that place too.

To get back to our happy place we wandered back into the park and headed for Alice. I couldn’t really get any good pictures of her as these annoying kids, err I mean lovely little children, were playing all over it. This is the best I could do without looking like I was photographing kiddies.

Whilst in Central Park we also saw Cleopatra’s Needle - one of three Ancient Egyptian obelisks re-erected in London, Paris, and New York City during the nineteenth century. Although the needles are genuine Ancient Egyptian obelisks, they are somewhat misnamed as they have no particular connection with Queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt.

The Lake in Central Park

Belvedere Castle

Conservatory Water in Central Park

Kerbs Boathouse (if you’ve seen the guilty pleasure that is 27 Dresses you might recognise this)

Bethesda Fountain

And finally, The Mall

After eating the most vile pretzel I’ve ever had the misfortune of tasting in The Mall we headed out of Central Park and decided as we still had a fair amount of daylight hours we would take the subway to Coney Island for some bracing sea air – or as my friend Greg Holden puts it in his song ‘Coney Island’ – “Where the air will clear my mind”. Hmmm, this is what greeted us when we reached Coney Island.

As you can see it was really busy! It was like an even more run down version of Blackpool, during the closed season! And as it was June it definitely wasn’t closed. The whole place is like a ghost town. Very strange indeed.

Coney Island being a massive let down we quickly hopped back on the subway and headed back to our hotel to freshen up for our evening sojourn into Little Italy.

I wish I could say something really exciting about Little Italy but my food was so dull there that I can’t think of anything else to say. It is a lot nicer a place than China Town though so if you’re going to go to one make it Little Italy. Just make sure you go for something exciting on the menu if you eat there as the safe option is the boring option!

Well folks that’s another day done! I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did! :0D

Lady K x

New York Adventure – Day 2

Anyone who read my previous New York post will know that I recently embarked on my first trip outside Europe, to New York, with my best friend D.

As Day 1 has been charted I thought I’d move swiftly on to Day 2 of our adventure which includes some very exciting things indeed!

We’d already planned our days out quite meticulously but the plans were open to change if something unexpected cropped up. Day 1 went pretty much to the letter. Day 2 however strayed off the path a little bit…

Having woken up relatively early we headed out to get Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Now anyone who knows New York or has seen Breakfast at Tiffany’s will know that Audrey Hepburn doesn’t go into Tiffany’s and sit down to eat breakfast. Tiffany’s is not one of New York’s finest eateries but a jewelers. She eats a pastry and drinks coffee while standing outside the shop window. And anyone who knows this goes to Tiffany’s, pastry and coffee in hand, and poses outside the shop for photographs to capture their Audrey moment.

Here’s mine:

Sadly it did rain throughout our Audrey moment but it was still lovely to be there and do what she did. We had a little time to kill and looked for shelter prior to meeting the bus for the Sex and the City Tour we were booked on. We found a little cinema called the Paris Theatre which funnily enough featured in an episode of Sex and the City! Carrie goes to see a movie on her own on “date night” at this glamorous, old-school, single-screen theater, asking for “Joy For Two – for one”. She muses, “the most amazing thing about living in a city like New York is that any night of the week you can go to Paris.”

We caught the tour bus shortly after our trip to Paris and went on a journey all over the city. From the pick up point at the Fountain outside the Plaza hotel we passed the Flatiron Building, visited Buddakan, one of the locations for the first Sex and the City film (where Carrie and Big have their rehearsal dinner);

We then stopped at the Magnolia Bakery (again) and O’Neill’s Bar which is used as the location for the ‘Scout’ bar owned by Aiden and Steve in the show. We stopped there for a cheeky, early-afternoon Cosmopolitan:

The tour bus dropped us off outside the HBO shop which is round the corner from three other Sex and the City locations, Bryant Park where Samantha had red paint thrown over her during New York Fashion Week, the Bryant Park Hotel used in the first SATC movie - the scene when Carrie hits Big with her bouquet and Charlotte shouts ‘NO!’ at Big after he’s pulled the plug on the wedding – and of course, the New York Public Library where the non-wedding was held. Being so close to the NY Public Library, where Ghostbusters and The Day After Tomorrow were filmed, we had to go in. This is where we deviated from ‘the plan’ as we didn’t know this is where the tour would drop us off so we’d planned to do the NY Public Library and surrounding area on another day. It just meant we had to do a little bit of swapping and being adaptable with our other days.

Here’s a nice pic of the street from The Day After Tomorrow that the wall of water came down:

And a nice pic of the Library from across the street:

From the NY Public Library we crossed the street to grab our first NY Hot Dog. D tried the Chilli Dog but I wasn’t brave enough and opted for a standard dog with ketchup. It was really good though. :0P

We turned a corner and without even realising where we were, we’d ended up face to face with Grand Central Station! And more importantly film fans, with the bridge that the main fight scene is on at the end of Avengers Assemble (or Marvel’s The Avengers as it’s known in the rest of the world)!!! As you can imagine, to someone like me who is something of a film fan (I’ve seen Avengers 6 times), this was a momentous occasion indeed!

From here we also had a clear view of the Chrysler Building. The best view we had of it really. If I’d known that I’d have taken more pictures of it but as it was I only took two. This was the best one of the gorgeous building:

I marvelled (pun intended) at the Bridge and the Chrysler for as long as I could convince D to stay there but eventually she wanted to go and have a mooch around Grand Central. So off we went for a quick look around the famous train station.

Unfortunately as it was so overcast that day, we didn’t get any shots of the light coming in the windows as it does in the famous pictures of Grand Central Station. We also didn’t go down to any of the platforms so I can’t show you any photos of that. But what we did see in the main terminal was a truly gorgeous building, which explains why it’s ”the world’s number six most visited tourist attraction”, bringing in approximately 21,600,000 visitors annually, according to the travel magazine Travel + Leisure in its October 2011 survey.

From Grand Central we made our way back to our hotel to freshen up for the evening and then headed to Chinatown for our evening meal.

For anyone who is planning a trip to New York I would not recommend a trip to Chinatown. New York has a certain smell about it. I’m not sure if it’s the subway, the river, the sewer, the fact that there are SO MANY people, traffic or what? But it has a smell. Not pleasant but also not exactly unpleasant. It’s not always noticeable but it’s just how New York smells. If you’ve been there you’ll know what I mean. Chinatown has a whole other smell. And this one really ain’t nice! It’s a dirty place. Much dirtier than the rest of New York, and just has a completely different feel. When you walk around Chinatown you feel like you’re not in New York anymore. And that’s not a good or comfortable feeling.

We did find a nice place to eat there, very reasonably priced and with nice, friendly waiters. But the food was a bit strange. Dishes you’d order here did not come prepared in the same way. The food was nice, just a little odd.

After our meal we got out of Chinatown pronto and walked back to our hotel via a few shops. It was the first real chance we’d had to shop and so we made the most of it. On the way we passed a nice gothic looking church;

and the Flatiron Building again, so I had the opportunity to take some pictures of it:

Regrettably my camera is not so good at taking pictures at night, as I discovered on this trip, so this was the best night time shot of the beautiful Flatiron Building but thankfully I was able to re-visit it during the day and got some cracking photos of it then.

Until next time NY fans...

Lady K