New York New York

What are our impressions of New York? Noise, yellow cabs, blaring horns, pedestrians everywhere, buses, steam coming out of vents, Broadway Shows, police cars, bicycle rickshaws, and did we mention the yellow cabs? We reckon there are more cabs in New York than any other type of transportation and they all drive with their hand on the horn!! The tour guides call them yellow cockroaches. We are very centrally situated on west 49th Street, just a block or two from the neon signed, lively Times Square. It all happens here at night, shows, restaurants, and people everywhere.

Times Square at Night

So what have we been doing in the Big Apple? We have taken 3 bus tours, this is a great way to get an overview of the city. Have been driven along 5th Avenue, down Broadway, to Little Italy and Chinatown, Greenwich Village, East Side, West Side, Harlem and The Bronx. We have viewed impressive buildings such as Empire State, Chrysler, Macys, United Nations, Rockefeller Centre and the Wardolf Hotel. And seen the Brooklyn Bridge, Madison Square Gardens and Museum Row.

We have enjoyed two "cruises". The first was the New York City Waterway Cruise, which gave us a different view of the New York skyline, and a close up to the Statue of Liberty. Then we went underground on the local subway all the way to Battery Point, where we jumped aboard the free Staten Island Ferry.

John Lennon Memorial

Other highlights have been taking a walk through Central Park. Squirrels, birds, families, joggers and us enjoyed the views, the lakes, the trees with the impressive skyline in the background. Imagine...... there was the tribute to John Lennon at an area called Strawberry Fields, a must see on our visit to the park. The Beatles, and John Lennon of course were part of our teenage years.

Another moving experience was our visit to Ground Zero. Construction has started here and we were lucky to be guided to a building overlooking the site where we had very good views through a large glass window. We well remember 9/11 happening. It was Robin's birthday home in New Zealand (NZ is a day ahead of the rest of the world) and we were out at a birthday meal with our friends from SLG. The terminals for credit cards were not operational and it was not till later that we found that all credit card transactions were routed through the Twin Towers, so that was why it was not working.

We enjoyed a wonderful meal at Stardust restaurant, billed as the home of singing waitstaff. The waiters and waitresses sang their hearts out as they delivered the meals. Seems that are all looking for the big break to get on to Broadway.

This is our final evening in New York. We can not believe that 9 weeks have gone by so fast. Tomorrow we face the long air journey home ( 6 hours plus 14 hours), so that will be a tiring day. Then we must finally go back to work!!