Where Are We Sleeping Tonight: Paramount Hotel, New York City, New York This morning we started our day nice and early so we could squeeze in as much as possible. We started out exploring the shops in Time Square. First we had breakfast at Starbucks before checking out M&M's World - a store dedicated to everything imaginable with their signature 'm' on it. Walking around, we saw not one but two Elmos! Then we checked out a "closing down" store that had a speaker system blasting advertising gems like "everything must go, everything must go and everything must go" and "if a country exists, we ship there" - they had some cheap Canon gear which Clare is still trying to decide if she trusts the store enough to buy it. Next up was a tourist trap with "I heart NY" on just about everything you could possibly imagine. Later on we found a different store a block away from Time Square selling the same stuff but for half the price! We looked into tickets for Wicked but the cheapest ones we could find were $301 each!! We decided that those prices for a matinee was just crazy!
We caught a train and a bus (due to the World Trade Centre construction site) downtown to the south ferry to catch the ferry over to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. While we were waiting in the security queue (yes, you have to go through a metal detector and have your bags searched before you can get on the ferry), a steel drum player was walking by the queue asking where people were from - Clare yelled out "Australia"and without having to think about it, the steel drummer played "Waltzing Matilda" - how could we not give him money after that! I am sure everyone else in the queue had no idea what he was playing but it made our day. Cruising over to the Statue of Liberty, it was amazing to see her, face to face. I had read online that some people had been disappointed to see the statue was smaller than they had expected - I don't know what they were expecting because she was just as marvellous as I had imagined.
Back on Manhatten Island, we were walking through theBattery when we came across the WTC "Sphere". I didn't know that it had been moved here after the 9-11 attacks and I couldn't get over how damaged it was yet still recognisable. We continued walking, passing the Battery Tunnel Authority Building (secret entrance to the MiB offices), arriving at the WTC site. I couldn't believe the size of the buildings currently under construction. They want to have the reflecting pools open in less than 2 months but I can't see it happening at this stage. It is sad that after 10 years they haven't finished any sort of memorial.
We ventured into China Town and the first choice we had for dinner had a queue outside the restaurant, so we went to our second choice, Dim Sum A Go Go where the food was delicious! Afterwards, we had ice-cream from The Original Chinatown Icecream Factory which was like heaven in a cone! We walked through the backstreets of Chinatown, which felt like a Hollywood backlot, before walking through little Italy.
We had read that the queues at the Empire State Building were crazy during the day, taking hours just to to the elevator to go up to the observation deck. We had also read that because of the queues, the best time to go was late at night. Taking our travel reference book as gospel, we arrived at the building at 1am. We saw the entire floor of the building dedicated to herding the long queue of people, but guess what - no people! Walking straight up to the ticket booth, then straight to the security check point (they seriously trust no one) and then straight to the elevator. After a short wait for the elevator to arrive, we quickly found ourselves on the observation deck. There were a lot of people around, certainly more than I would have thought for 1am - this really is the city that never sleeps! Even though my fear of heights stopped me from going to close to the edge, I still enjoyed it immensely - the view was amazing! Talking to one of the security guards, he was telling me that the observation deck is too high for any birds to fly up to!
Back down on the ground, we decided to experience NYC from street level (rather than in the subway). We rode back to Time Square in a bicycle taxi (human powered tuk tuk) which was a blast. The bike rider was not only fit, but he must have been doing this all day as his body oder was... unique. And as we were behind him, we were down wind which made the trip one we will never forget!
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