After dropping more than $150 on taxis in the past couple of days, we thought we’d try the public transport route when arriving in NYC, especially as it only needed two different trains and a very short walk.
The AirTrain was easy enough to navigate, but we couldn’t work out how to buy tickets, as I’d forgotten you pay at the other end when transferring to the subway.
The subway itself was fine – we got on the train at the beginning of the line, so found seats easily. The train filled up a lot before we hit 14th Street though, which was our stop. The stairs were the biggest issue, so it’s a good thing we have strong arms!
The Incentra Village is lovely – right on Eighth Ave, so very convenient, with a yummy smelling cafe next door, a liquor shop across the road and lots of subway stations within a couple of blocks. The room itself is reached by some very narrow, steep stairs which were tricky to navigate with all our bags! The room has two beds – a double ensemble and a futon mattress on the sleeping loft (rock hard, so be prepared!) a teeny triangular bathroom and a little kitchenette (very handy, with fridge-ette, kettle, microwave, toaster and sink). The room is ‘character’, with old-fashioned furnishings, which makes it quite homey. The bathroom looks like it’s been reno’d recently, too.
Once we arrived and threw our stuff down, we headed out for a quick explore. We decided to wander up to Mood Fabrics, high on my list of places to see. The Friday afternoon rush hour was just beginning, so quite a few people around. A few people helpfully pointed us on our way, and we made our way up to the third floor if the correct building without mishap.
Although the place was filled to the brim with all sorts of amazing fabrics and trim, I managed to keep myself restrained to only getting some sparkly brooch/appliqués, which will be great for a costume. I even stayed away from the $100/piece ones! Also saw Swatch the dog, and bought some Mood merch for the fans back home.
Next up was a much-needed visit to Whole Foods – gourmet and health food emporium – to fill the cupboard. They have a nice range of GF products, including GF cinnamon raisin bagels! (Guess what I’m having for brekky?)
After an early night, we got up early to catch some of the touristy things, hopefully before they got too busy.
First up was Wall St, to gaze on the Stock Exchange (and to pretend to have ‘breakfast at Tiffany’s’) on our way down to Battery Park. We also went past the Native American Museum. Battery Park, like so many of the attractions at Niagara, was mainly closed for renovation/construction, but the boat trips out to the Statue of Liberty were still running, even though landing at the islands is still off because of storm damage from Sandy.
The boat took us up the side of Manhattan island to view the new World Trade building and to see the skyline and Brooklyn, before turning to go past Ellis island and her Libertyness. I was glad we were on the earliest boat – everyone rushed to one side of the boat to take pictures, and while its obviously built to not tip, there was a definite list to one side! I can’t imagine how it would go with a full boat!
Then we went along the other side of Manhattan to view Brooklyn Bridge, an amazing feat of engineering. It’s pretty spectacular.
Once off the boat, we headed north again, past the Bull of the financial district and another gorgeous spring flowering garden (The Bowling Green?) which was mass-planted with red tulips. Wow! I certainly need to add some tulips to my garden now!
On our way to the 9/11 memorial, we found a juice/smoothie van which had spinach on his list! I’d been missing my morning green smoothies so I grabbed a banana, spinach and beet one. The beet did take over the flavor a bit, but it was still tasty, and yay veggies!
We hadn’t booked tickets got the 9/11 memorial, but just wanted to walk past it. There were queues of thousands of people! Don’t know how much quiet reflection happens with that sort of crowd…
Next stop was in Nolita for the John Fluevog shoe shop. Ohhhh the Mecca of shoes! I hadn’t experienced the wonder of comfort and style that makes these shoes so amazing, but I’d perused D’s collection and had been told in no uncertain terms by both D and K that we were going there! With this in mind, I knew we were in for some intense retail therapy.
After narrowing my choices down to four, I ended up with a gorgeous pair of Pilgrim winklepickers and a Kitschy Kitschy Boom Boom Liz (they had my name *on* them – how could I resist??). Unfortunately neither my bank balance nor my luggage would have been happy with more, even if I would have been ecstatic! K also bought two, so it was a well-retail-therapied pair who headed back on the subway uptown to the Empire State Building.
Now I’ve never professed to be a fan of heights, so the very aggressive up sellers here were pretty close to turning me off the whole thing, but I’m glad Miz K was so keen – it was amazing! Once you got past the many many queues and “would you like upgrade for xyz at only $$$” x100, the building itself is a marvel of Deco gorgeousness, and the view from the observation gallery on the 86th floor was breathtaking. Wow.
And then please exit through the gift shop, where you can buy overpriced merch, like the bargain of the day, a $20 snow globe. No, thanks.
We had lunch at a Mexican version of Macca’s, Chipotle, which do yummy burrito-in-a-bowl type food. Tasty!
Next stop – the frenzied colour that is Times Square. Another wow moment – and it felt like we’d been transported back to Vegas with all the flashing lights and huge crowds of people. We found the TKTS booth eventually, but the queue was horrendous, so we resolved to look for tickets online (which we did successfully later on) and to head further north to find some peace and quiet at Central Park.
Not that Central Park was at all peaceful or quiet! First there’s the gauntlet of bicycle renters and carriage rides to get through, and then it seemed as if half of Manhattan was there enjoying the weather (it probably was, actually!) the park itself was lovely, and we sat on the grass to soak up the atmosphere (and might have had a nap in the sun) but there were so many people around it wasn’t really relaxing.
Since we’d heard some good news from home about R winning a prize, we decided we needed some bubbles to celebrate. The shop across the road from the Incentra didn’t have a large range of chilled bubbles, so when we saw a reasonably priced bottle of Veuve, my fave bubbles, we decided we should celebrate in style!
– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Location:8th Ave,New York,United States
Two Weeks Away 