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Salaams and hello from my last destination New York,
The best bit about coming to New York was that I met up with 3 of my nieces, who'd flown in from the UK the day before I arrived on Sun 21 Mar. It was early evening when I reached the hotel and so we decided to have something to eat, have an early night so that we could be up 'bright and early' the next morning to start our sight-seeing and do some window shopping in Bloomingdales !
Monday 22 March - We had chosen a great location to stay (Time Square, New York) and were in walking distance of some of the places of interest. As we left the hotel, we headed down 8th Ave and turned the corner into 49th East St, then another turn took us into 42nd Street were we found the first place of interest - the New York Public Library (those who watch Sex in the City, will know about this place, and of course a number of photos were taken on the infamous staircase) ! The internal design of the library was very striking with beautifully painted drawings on the ceilings. The Main Reading Room has numerous lamp-lit desks scattered around and the room is surrounded by thousands of reference books neatly stacked in bookcases!
After the library, we spent some time checking out the internal design of the Grand Central Terminal. The fabulously decorated main concourse has enormous arched windows on two ends of the hall and has a huge clock sitting proudly above the Information Centre in the middle of the concourse.
We then moved on to Bloomingdales where we did a lot of window shopping and a bit of real shopping ! Whilst there we got chatting to one of the employees, only to learn that he was a backing singer to the American Rapper "Ludacris" - hey man, that was great !
Tuesday 23 March - Today we walked to Rockefeller Centre and the Avenue of Americas. Outside the Rockefeller Centre is an ice rink and the whole area is surrounded with flags from all the countries of the world. Whilst in New York, we just had to catch a Broadway show and managed to get some tickets for that evening to see "Chicago". After dressing up and enjoying a lovely meal at Saigon 48 (Vietnamese Restaurant) we headed to the Ambassador Theatre to see the show.
Wednesday 24 March - We visited the Empire State Building, and saw the Manhattan skyline with Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty in the distance. We didn't stay up there for too long as it was not only cold, but very very windy ! We rounded off the day by taking an Uptown city tour on one of those touring buses, which covered Upper East & West Sides, Harlem and Morningside Heights. We ended the day with another lovely meal, this time at a Thai Restaurant near our hotel.
Thursday 25 March - Our 3 day tour bus ticket included a ferry trip to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, so that was our mission for the day. Seeing the Statue of Liberty was probably the highlight of my trip to New York. I've seen this statue so many times at the beginning of many american films so seeing it in the flesh made it special somehow.
The rest of our time in New York, was spent walking in Central Park and just enjoying the time together!
It's the end of my 5 months vacation and time to say goodbye, but I will write one more entry when I get back before I finally sign off............ x
- comments
Shareen Had a fab time in NYC, couldnt have gone with a better crowd!!!! Will miss our laughs (especially at bed time!) Mwah.xx