Take me on a trip I'd like to go some day, Take me to New York 2008 - Day 8

[Steven]

Day 8 - May 17th 2008.

Location.. 43rd floor of the hotel.. Woke up about 9am. ( had alot of sleep )BOY am I glad I did!! Opened the curtains and look what I saw??????? Yes blue sky and sunshine.... but look what else !!!







Ground zero. It's so hard to comprehend that a 110 storey skyscraper was once there. Very sad..


Freedome tower..

50" plasma with a dramatic background.


Now it being about 10am.. Time for the Empire state building - My sole reason of being in NY!



Aaarggh we queued up for an hour. ( German family pushed right in front of hundreds of people.. grrr) , there was at least another 2 hours queuing to be done, so we just called it a day. We had our tickets valid for 2 years.. So we'd come back tomorrow at opening, 8am.

Now walked out starving for food , we headed across 5th Avenue to Wendys. Mmmmm

5th Avenue.



My Wendy's kids meal. Yum!


After the ESB - We bought 3 day tickets for a hop off hop on tour bus. They were everywhere. We chose Greyline. Some good routes and saved us for taxi's uptown!!!



Took it from uptown down to Battery park, where we saw the globe which was in the forcourt of the World Trade Centre.



The queues for the ferry to Liberty island were sooooo long! The temp hit 23c, so nice and warm. The New Yorkers must of been enjoying the weekend sun!!!

Statue of Liberty from Battery park - You can see a Royal Caribbean cruise ship docked in cape liberty. Woot!



Was way too busy down there, so decided to head back to the hotel, for half an hour. Bought a I heart NY t-shirt woot!

Dunno what this is , it's just a statue lol


We had a junior suite - This is my half - parents is the one with the TV! I get the sofa bed,, boooooooo! But then again I got a lovely Queen sized bed back in Orlando...


I loved the mini bar - all sensored , I didn't touch a thing - HONEST!

View over ground zero..


We noticed on of the cruise ships was heading back up the river - So we tried to make a quick dash around ground zero , to the water front. On the way passed a road closed off,... a photo shoot. Don't know who he is??



Damn missed it - by 2 mins, I literally ran down the road.. ####.. Saddo!



Now we walked back up behind the hotel to broadway - to get the greyline bus uptown...

Was messing with my camera waiting for it. We waited 30 mins.. Should be there every 10. The staff said they'd be here in a sec.. THEY?? haha just like the UK, never on time and then 3 turned up.





Then the bus turned uptowards China town - Woot! View of uptown and the chrysler building.



A nee naw.



The empire state needle - All I could think of was two things.. 1. I'd be up there TOMORROW and 2. James and his giant peach lol.



Very impressive UN building. First building with Air conditioning...



We had to duck here - the trees were so low!!!


I love this picture.



LOL look at all them fake Prada, Chanel, Marc Jacobs, Gucci, D&G etc. ( More of that tomorrow!!)


Timesquare/Broadway from the bus.



Timesquare - Oh look, NO RAIN! YAY! It was amazing.



Now i've always wanted dinner in TGI Friday's timesquare. The amount of times i've watched people outside of there from the earth cam camera...

Had the bread sticks to share, followed by 3 mini burgers for me and the green beans mmmmm Damn TGI for stopping them in the UK!!!!







Now we went to queue for the night tour...





The night tour took us through Manhattan, across the Manhatten bridge and into Brooklyn. The bus driver stopped for us to take pictures of the breath taking skyline.



More skyline...


Whilst on the bridge coming back.. we hit a torrential unexpected down pour.. It was terrible!!!!!! There was water running down the bus stairs!!!!!!!!! The driver had to pull over so everyone could go downstairs.. But not me.. I sat in a puddle on the seat in it.. it was FANTASTIC! Better than any rollercoaster in Orlando!!!!!!!!!!


ESB from outside Macy's.



Bus dropped us off in Times square, it was raining still, 11 pm on a Saturday night, guess what ? No taxis available! People waving for them everywhere. We walked down to Macys and back up to times square and by luck a guy got out of one, so I jumped in it.. We then headed back to the hotel - The view.



Impressions of the day ?? I LOVE NEW YORK! It's an amazing place , soo diverse, so big and just amazing.


Tomorrow - Chinatown - Central park.. Empire state building.. staten island ferry and more rain LOL.

[Tink]

I love NY. It is one incredible city. Everyone from every where. Anything you want any time. Beauty and tragedy all in the same breath.

I love the smell, the look, the people, the atmosphere, even the miserable cabbies. Hell, I even love the subways.

Thanks for the great reports! LOVE the photos.