New York Trip _ 14 - 16 Dec

Day before NY trip, Sat, 13 Dec

Yay, after almost 2.5 months after our Niagara Falls trip, we are finally on the road again to New York City, the big apple of US. I was in charge of packing all the stuff needed for the trip and cleaning up our apartment before we left cos we got our apt manager to clean the carpet for us when we were away. Of course, we had to pay him forty bucks for his work but we still think it is worth it as K wouldn't have to spend a day of backbreaking work to do it and the timing is just nice as we would vacate the apt and allow time for the carpet to dry up before we are back.

So after all the packing and clearing of stuff from the floor, it was almost midnight before K and I went to bed on Sat. Before we turned in, K jokingly commented that dunno whether there would be anymore unlucky events for our trip to NY as for the past 3 times that we had been in NY state, there were flight delays, so we had always jokingly associated NY as a unlucky place to go to. We agreed that we would wake up at 5 am so that we have enough time to leave our apt at 6.30 am and putting away the last of the few items on the floor. Then K went ahead to set the alarm on his handphone for 5 am.

NY Day 1, Sunday, 14 Dec

Guess what happened when we woke up the next morning by the alarm? The sky was bright and cheery and when I checked the clock, it was almost 7 am. We were supposed to be at South Station to take our bus to NY by 7.15 am latest. So we quickly rushed through our errands, packed our breakfast and rebooked the tickets online for the next bus at 8.30 am and rushed out of our place within 30 minutes. On our way there, I jokingly chastised K for making the joke the previous night and thus jinxing our NY trip. Fortunately, we made it in time for the 830 am bus and off we went to NY city in a 4 hour bus ride.

We reached NY Penn Station around noon and so the first thing we did was to look for lunch. We went into a tiny shop nearby that serves Chinese buffet where one can get 5 varieties of dish for $5 in a lunch box. To our surprise, the food was pretty good and Ry ate quite a bit of the food. It is no wonder my friend here, LC always commented that NY has better and cheaper food than Boston.

After lunch, we walked from 32nd street (Penn Station) to 48th street (Times Sq) to our hotel- Paramount Hotel. It seems like it is a long walk of 16 blocks away but in fact, it is only a 15 - 20 minutes walk only. For those who had been to NY should know the exorbitant hotel rates they have during the holiday season and peak periods. So this time round, I only booked a room with a full size bed for the three of us, which already set me back $420 for 2 nights stay. I have already known that the room will be small but I was pretty surprised that the room was even smaller than those in Hong Kong. But the room was clean and really made efficient use of space that we can fit our luggage into the closet and our stroller in without any problems.

This shows how small the room was that I did not even have space to move back to take a picture of the whole room.

For this trip, we decided that we would do the most touristy thing by taking up the Grayline double decker bus hop-on and off sightseeing tour since I'm getting pretty heavy and with the short time frame we were there, we figured out that this would be probably the most efficient way of getting to know NY. Moreover, K is not interested in buildings and the art museums that NY is famous for. Therefore, it made more sense for us to join the tour.

On the top deck of the covered tour bus, which was good as we were shield from the wind and the cold and yet can see the streets and buildings below.

The first thing that we did was to hop onto the Uptown bus tour which brought us to Harlem and Central Park. There was a guide on the bus who will point out the attractions to us and made reference to movies or famous people in association to the buildings. So, I guessed it wasn't too bad since I would not have known which building it was that John Lennon was shot if we would to walk around on our own while jostling our ways through the crowd on the streets and the subway in the cold.

Ry was definitely a bit bored during the bus tour and he promptly fell asleep halfway through the trip. After the bus tour to uptown, we decided to walk around Times Square for a while and to go to Toys R Us there for Ry to have some fun time at the indoor Ferris Wheel. It was a huge crowd at the store and I could have never linked the busy crowd to recession as everyone was carrying huge bags and baskets of toys. I did not dare to venture far alone with Ry in the store with the huge crowd so I stood at a place with Ry, looking at the Ferris wheel while K went to get his much needed coffee for the day even though it was already evening. When K came back with the coffee, we toured around the whole store before proceeding to the 1st floor to get tickets for the Ferris wheel ride.

Took this picture of the indoor Ferris wheel in Toys R Us while waiting for K. Ry kept pointing excitedly at it but unfortunately, we never got to the ride.

However, to my disappointment, when we went to get the ride , the tickets for 6 pm to 7 pm were all sold out even though it was only 545 pm then. I did not know the procedure of buying tickets for a specific timing as I thought that it was the usual way of buying the tickets and queue on the spot. So by the time we went to get the ride, we had already finished touring the whole store so in the end, we decided that we would not take the ride and left the store.

Letting Ry had a little fun time with the trains and tracks at the Toys R Us. It was so crowded that we left shortly afterwards. K joked that the people there were buying toys as if they were free but I guessed this was because it was the peak Christmas shopping weekend since it was only about a week away to Christmas.

It was still early so we decided to walk to Rockefeller center to look at their famous Christmas tree and the skating rink they have for Christmas every year and probably have our dinner nearby. It took us about 30 minutes to make our way there and we couldn't figure out which was the building that housed the Christmas tree. We thought of following the huge crowds in one of the directions as we figured that that maybe the building we were looking for but we were also worried that we may not find any restaurants or dinner places as well. So, in our good sense, we walked the opposite direction and went in search for a dinner place and later hopped onto the Holiday night bus tour that was in the package we booked, figuring out that the bus would probably take us past the Rockefeller center as well. The whole holiday night bus tour was another 2 hours through the heavy traffic but it brought us to all the places that have the beautiful Christmas lighting and displays like the flagship stores, Macy, Lord and Taylor, fifth avenue and Rockefeller center.

This was only the tip of the iceberg. The crowd at Times Sq that Sunday was much more than this. Couldn't even imagine New Year Eve when the countdown takes place.

The Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center.

The Christmas display outside Macy.

At the Hershey's store after the holiday lights tour, Ry was having a lot of fun playing with the wheel and refused to leave so he ended up crying when we carried him away.

Ry still sulking and probably tired when we moved on to the M & M store, so we decided to call it a night after this.

NY Day 2, Monday, 15 Dec

After a good night rest, we went out in the morning to have our breakfast. We realised from our previous 2 bus tours that in almost every 1 - 2 blocks within the city, there seems to be one McDonald and Starbucks. In comparison, Boston has fewer MacDonald and more Dunkin Donuts instead. So, no surprise, we had McDonald for our breakfast nearby before taking the bus tour for the Downtown loop that will bring us to Eastwich village, Chinatown, Wall Street, site of World Trade Center and the South Street seaport where we boarded the complimentary water taxi in the package to see the Statue of Liberty.

At the South Street Seaport Pier where we were waiting for the boat.

The only whole family portrait we had throughout the whole trip.

On our way to the Statue of Liberty.

A view of the Brooklyn bridge, Manhattan skyline and the Statue of Liberty in the same picture.

We were blessed with a wonderful weather that day. The day warmed up to around 15 deg C and it was all clear skies, so it made the 1 hr boat ride to see the Statue of Liberty very enjoyable. After a quick lunch at the seaport food court, we hopped onto the return route of the tour bus so that we can alight at Central Park to go to American Museum of Natural History.

It is no wonder that New Yorkers prefer to walk and taking the subway because we were stuck in the traffic and later, the bus got detoured from its route, so we never get to make our way to the Central Park stop. In the end, we alighted near Times Sq at 47th street and decided to walk all the way to 79th street to where the museum is. It took us a whole 40 minutes walk to reach there but since the weather was great, we really enjoyed it.

The gigantic T-Rex fossil.

At the ice-age exhibit gallery.

By the time we reached the museum, it was already 3 p.m so we only had about 2.5 hrs to tour the whole museum before it closed. It is a really big museum with 4 levels so we figured out we would not be able to finish seeing everything and need to be selective in the galleries. We decided to follow what the Frommers guide book recommended and went to see the Dinosaurs gallery first. The museum really has a great collection of dinosaurs fossils like T-Rex, Brontosaurus and a whole lot of others that I do not know of. Ry had a good time running around in the museum after being in the stroller and bus for so long. We put Ry on a leash that is linked to cute teddy backpack that he carry and everyone around us often stopped and looked at him and commented how cute it was.

Next we toured the Biodiversity gallery and later the Primates, Native Americans and Asian galleries. We left the museum when they announced they were closing in 30 minutes time. By then, we were famished as we only had a light lunch before hand. So we decided to trek backwards to Times Sq to look for a dinner place. We managed to find a decent looking restaurant that looks kid friendly near the 56th street and we just went in there. Indeed, the food was great! K had a baked halibut and I had a spaghetti with meatballs casserole. The portions were huge but we managed to finish everything. Ry also enjoyed the food tremendously especially the cheesecake we had afterwards. Yummy! We felt that the cheesecake was much better than those at Cheesecake Factory here in Boston.

NY Day 3, Tuesday, 16 Dec

We had a bad night sleep because the air con in our room was faulty. Instead of blowing cool air, it started to blow out steam near midnight. Although the engineer sort of got it fixed, the air con went bonkers again near 6 am. By then, we had enough so we decided to open the window slightly to let the wintry cold air in instead. It was 9 am before we managed to wake up, so we decided to just pack up and check out of the hotel.

We decided to walk to Grand Central Terminal for breakfast and to look at the architecture there. It is a really grand terminal and K said that it reminded him of Paris with all the complicated motifs and sculptures on the ceiling. I wanted to go to see New York Public Library where Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City movie had her wedding but we were refused entry because we were not supposed to bring in any luggage. So I only had a picture of its exteriors and never get to see its grand halls and stairways. After that, we made our way to Macy and the nearby shops for some last minute shopping and look around.

Ry on the leash at the Grand Central Terminal and passer-bys just loved to stop and look at us.

One of the things that I train Ry to do is to hold on to handles of the luggage or the sides of the stroller while walking if I have no hands to hold him especially when I go grocery shopping and his stroller is used to carry the bags. So this is one picture of him holding on to the luggage handle when I asked him to do it while we were waiting for daddy.

The weather that day took a huge turn back to the winter weather with temperatures hovering around 1 deg C and the sky was all gloomy and dark. We were so glad that we had the good weather the day before. By noon time, it started to snow heavily so we quickly went into a restaurant in the Penn hotel opposite Madison Square Garden / Penn Station for lunch and to stay out of the snow. We heard from the locals that it was the first snow day in New York this year and we can see that the locals were pretty excited about it. By the time, we finished lunch, it was almost time for us to board our bus back to Boston. So goodbye New York City!

Ry goofing around at the lobby of the Penn Hotel while waiting for daddy to buy fresh milk to top up his vacuum flask before we board the bus home.

4.5 hours later due to the bad weather, we were finally back in Boston and the temperature was freezing. We quickly made our way home. When we opened the door to our apt, we felt that we were in a brand new apt because of the lemony detergent smell that still lingered in the air after the carpet was cleaned and the carpet felt so clean upon stepping on it! Home sweet home!