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
