New York – Day 2

Well we covered a lot of ground today so this is gonna be a big one…

After experiencing life without aircon the previous night the first thing we did in the morning after breakfast was go to the store and buy the biggest fan they had, it scanned incorrectly and we got it for $11USD, YAY! After Setting it up in the room we went for a walk to central park, it was only a few blocks away from where we were staying. We passed some elephant water park on our way which was pretty cool. When we got there we were really impressed with how nice it was, a huge park on the middle of the city, we walked to one end where there was a lake and then back along the other side through some gardens. It was just weird walking through a big park with a river and you just turn your head to the side and see huge buildings right next to it.

We found a cinema on my gps and walked there to catch the Simpsons movie and kill some time before we go to Time Square The Simpsons Movie was good, I guess as good as it could be considering it shouldn’t have been made. Australian popcorn tastes better than American popcorn. After the movie we got some Hungry jacks. Their drinks are massive, the large that came with my meal was a decent size bigger than a HJ’s large, pictured next to Marina’s head for scale. There was one more gigantic one which was huge cinema drink size with which you keep the cup. We walked for a while and stopped at a Starbucks for coffee, everyone loves them and there are hundresds of them everywhere in NY. When we stepped out of Starbuck’s we cracked up at the gay city news.

We kept walking towards Time Square, which is on 42nd and Broadway. We had started on 101st st, and had already walked about 40 blocks down 8th Ave. The blocks are a lot smaller here though, but we still had a long way to go. Nothing overly memorable happened until we got to 42nd & 8th Ave. First we passed Grand Central Station and decided to take a photo. Then we stumbled onto a cool park area with a cafe and bar. We just sat to relax and checkout the stage, which we found out screens old movies on Monday nights when a weirdo with fluro hair and a dog walked by and was charging people $1 for photos. Marina couldn’t resist, as you will see, afterwards she cleaned her hands with antibacterial hand wash which she luckily had with her. We then pushed onto Time Square, where there was much more to be seen.

We were in a hurry to get to time square and book a tour bus for the next day, when we encountered a guy selling tickets on the street just like the citybus guy the day before, but less scammy. We bought tickets which were valid for the next two days, a bus passes time square every 10 mins which we could hop on and off for. We wondered time square while waitingg for the night tour to begin. While taking photos this black guy said hey wait, I’m America and jumped in our photo, he then took a photo of us and proceeded to give us some story about the charity he is with, we gave him a couple of dollars and were on our way. We went for a stroll in the M&M’s store, and there were some cool things but everything was so overpriced, all we bought were some raspberry m&m’s and almond ones, they were both good.

Well after our wandering we cought the last night tour bus and were on our way. It covered a good portion of Manhattan and Brooklyn, we passed a couple of bridges and there were some great views, as you will see in the photo’s it was really really hot and humid, even in the open top bus. After the tour we happened to pass the CBS theater during our stroll, we took note of where it is and the time that the audience applications open up. It was then time for a cab back to our stinking hot hotel room, which was much more bearable thanks to the fan.

 

New York – Day 1

Well after the 5ish hour plane trip to new york we finally got there in the evening. We were thinking of catching a shuttlebus (a mini bus that drops you off at your door, like a taxi) but Some guy who looked all official told us we should catch that bus which will drop us off at grand central station and we can catch a cab there because no shuttles will drop us off in Manhattan. He assured us it would be cheaper than cabbing it from the airport and it would take longer for the shuttle bus to come and get us if we used that. We bought tickets and waited for the bus, then he started yelling citybus,citybus,citybus which kept us entertained while we proceeded to wait what seemed like forever. When it finally arrived it looked like some old bomb that was ready to fall apart, but by that time we were just glad we were on our way. The bus driver was a maniac, i kept thinking to myself *TAKUMI*. I wish i had an initialD sticker i would have stuck it on the back when i got off The buses suspension was stuffed, it must have been years of taking this punishment. Anyway all these people on the bus were told by the citybus guy that it would stop at heaps of diff places, but it just went straight to near grand central station, and we all had to cab again from there! people were pissed, we were also pissed when we later found out that the flatrate for a taxi to our door would have been $45, which is what we paid to get stuffed around, but we got there anyway so…

When we arrived to our accommodation in Manhattan. It was on a street running parallel to Broadway between 101st and 102nd st. Which was *only* about 60 blocks from time square. When we got there the girl at the counter gave us the key and said we should have a look at the room before we pay for it, hrrrm that cant be good we thought, it looked ok when you first walk in and the pictures on the site looked ok but it was an old building. We caught the elevator the the 6th floor, it was an old style elevator with a swing open door. When we got to the top and walked through the hallway it looked pretty crappy with patches of gap filler smeared on parts of the wall, but there was no renovating happening. We got to our room and started laughing, it was absolutely tiny, it was painted a horrible pink, the tv had no antenna running to it and the worst thing possible considering the temperature and humidity in New York, it had no aircon!!!! We turned off the light for a second and it wouldn’t turn back on, we both started laughing uncontrollably and after flicking it on and off 50 times it finally came back. We decided meh its still in a good area, we will only be sleeping here and we cbf looking for other accommodation.

We opened the two windows in our room and went for a walk to the convenience store and fruit & veg store along Broadway and sat outside for a while drinking our powerades, soaking up the feel of the city while waiting for our room to cool down. We started talking to some french people who sat on the bench next to us, they were friendly and it turned out they were staying at the same place, we all had a laugh at the accomodation situation, they decided to call it a night, we went to the fruit & veg store, got some food and went to sleep.