New York - Manhattan Day 2 Part 1
So much for updating quickly. My internet in the apartment became extremely slow after the first day because everyone else adjusted to the time here and started to use it so it kind of overloaded and the speed just plunged. It took me like 3 days to upload 2 days worth of pictures.
Throwback Day 1 where we were stuck in a whole crowd of people during dinner time in Time Square. Credits to Mike and his corrective camera.
Well, so we ate the (in)famous Mcdonalds for breakfast on our 2nd day. I had a hashbrown and a bottle of chocolate milk (like a little kid). I took the 2 above pictures because Singapore has a problem with people studying in Mcdonalds and I have to admit, I'm pretty guilty of it as well (just not in Mcdonalds because their tables are greasy). So to actually see a 'time-limit' sign comes to somewhat my surprise because it is not something we see back in Singapore even though we probably need it more considering that the Macdonalds we entered was practically empty. Maybe it's just because it was quite early in the morning though.
We went on to buy fruits from this mini mart. Strawberries, Blueberries, raspberries and peaches. Basically, the fruits that we consider expensive in Singapore are cheap here; but the fruits that we consider cheap in Singapore are expensive here. They go both ways.
We then walked for a long time down Times Square to find a Subway to take downtown. We were meeting someone downtown (Ground Zero) at 11am, and it was only about 8+am when we were done with breakfast. But because of my father's amazing sense of direction, we spent so much time just looking for a subway. In his defense, subways here are really not that obvious. Unlike the one in the picture, Subways can be ''hidden'' in random buildings with just a dark stairway leading down.
To be very honest, for such a sophisticated and metropolitan city, they have a very bad subway system.
We got double charged on our fares because of the inefficiency of the machine where it claimed that we either swiped the card too fast or too slow yet the money in the card is taken any ways without letting us in.
The trains are extremely noisy (I swear to god, they drive me nuts.) and there is often trash and puddles of water on the tracks.
Half the time, counters at the stations has no one working, and we had to figure out on our own how to purchase cards and how much we are to pay (they are all the same price; no distance fare. So the closer your stop, the less worth it the ride is). In that same manner, we have to figure out which train to take, and ended up taking an express train instead of a normal one by mistake (and taking another train backwards again).
We often take our own MRT system for granted (even though they do break down from time to time), but honestly, the Subways in Manhattan drives me nuts just from the noise alone. Then again, it seems like not many people take the subways there. Most of the time, when we board the subways, we almost always get a seat. Even if we don't, we still do not resort to squeezing like sardines unlike in Singapore at times. One positive thing about the subways is that people here actually give their seats quickly and willingly to others compared to the Singaporeans that do all sorts of things to avoid leaving their seats.
Since we were still early for our appointment at 11am, we boarded at Wall Street and took a way around the financial district.
I'm being looked down upon :( hahaha. Credits to Mike once again. Most of the pictures that actually has my face in it is taken by Mike.
We stayed there and took our pictures while eating the fruits we bought earlier. Somewhere along our munching, we found this little fella on one of our raspberries
That's my mum in the background. I can't get over her expression hahaha.
In Italy, my mandatory shots are of the sun. In New York, my mandatory shots are of the road signs. The sky here is also very beautiful, so I probably post many of them along the way as well.
A very large and beautiful church in the middle of Wall St and next to a cemetery.
Mandatory shots!
Below the Broadway sign writes: Canyon of Heroes
New York has many of these ''No Standing Anytime" signs. The 1st time I saw it, Andrew and I joked that if we are not allowed to stand, we'll sit there. Basically I think it equates to our ''No waiting" signs?
We went to meet Kenji-san's son, to see how an American apartment looks like (my parents have career attachments issues). The apartment itself was a 1-bedroom, but what is impressive are the facilities. Singapore apartments have relatively bad facilities as compared to those in Manhattan and HongKong.
These were taken on the rooftop where there were sundecks with people sun tanning above the entire city.
I really love how blue the skies are here. Singapore's skies are almost always white and cloudy. Blue skies makes me happy.
This is the library:
Entertainment Room:
The gigantic gym which the boys complains is larger than the gyms basically anywhere in Singapore:
They even have a dance/yoga room at the back.
So after our not so short tour around the apartment, we decided to eat! We have been eating a lot this trip - it is almost constant.
The pizzas were delicious but maybe because we are too used to homecooked food, everything here seems a little strong in taste. It feels like everything has too much salt and too overwhelming for our taste buds.
We bid farewell to Kenji-san's son (Utah-san?) from the restaurant and walked down to the 9-11 memorial. We did not enter the museum but toured around the area where the twin towers once stood instead. In recognition of the fall of the towers, 2 fountains were built instead of constructing new buildings. My mum feels like this creates hatred in everyone's heart and makes them remember forever that bad that has been done but I feel that it is more like a recognition to remember the lives that were lost from the attack and building something there would be a little disrespectful. Well, we have been clashing ideas quite a lot recently.
With the Liberty as our destination, we started walking again. We walked through this park along the sea(?) to get to the Piers that could bring us to the Liberty Island.
Unfortunately, we went to the wrong pier and continued walking down along the water in search for the right one. At the same time, we got to enjoy the scenery and the flowers in the park.
We even saw 2 little squirrels and fed one our leftover fruits
I seem to have reached my picture limit for this post. Plus, it is 2 am and I have to get up at 8am tomorrow so I'll post the rest next time. Till then, Ciaos!
Labels: Manhattan, me, NY, Pictures, travel, USA
Obviously in construction at the moment... or maybe forever because I'm lazy like this ;)
Visit Montana, Yellowstone National Park