New York - The Big Apple (Time Square, Chinatown & Broadway)

Thursday, 11 August 2011

Our basement apartment, upper Manhatten



138th Street, Harlem, NYC!

 

Wow! Waking up in the 'Big Apple' !! Here we are in a basement apartment of a typical terraced house in Harlem,Upper Manhatten.  However, in the night, Tom realised he has left his 'manbag' a lovely leather shoulder bag on the shuttle bus.  Both Rick & Tom were busy making calls to try and track it down.  It's a terrible feeling when you lose something valuable to you.  Hopefully it will turn up in  'lost and found'.

Terrence had given us instructions on how to find the subway and local shopping etc, so we ventured out to find our way to Times Square.  This is where we would pick up our City Pass and Hop-on Hop-off Bus tickets.  We have 48 hours from the time we activate them to do as much as we can in the city!!  We figured the bus tour would be the easiest way to see it!  We had to ask some gentlemen on the way the direction of the subway station, and they were really helpful.  It was really close, perhaps a five minute walk to 135th Street!  At this point, Sarah in particular was feeling very 'white', especially with her very blonde hair!  It was fine though, we found people very friendly!

The subway is a phenomenon!  It is a really easy and quick way to get in and out of the city.  It was pretty hot though underground.  In TV shows and movies, I had always wondered what the steam was that shot out of the roads, well, now I realise, it's the heat coming out of the subway system.

We easily  found Time Square, stop 42!! It's incredible how many people there are.  The city was so crowded!  We found Madame Toussand's where the office for the City Pass and Bus Tours were and realised, we do need an early start.  By this time it's about 10am, so we decided to start that tomorrow and for today, to spend some time just looking around and enjoying what we could see without any time pressure.  So, we spent the rest of the morning walking around Time Square absorbing the sight and sounds of the city.  New York City is really loud!  I guess all noise is echoed off the buildings, but there are so many sirens screaming and horns honking!!  Time Square itself is a real hub of activity.  There is shopping, restaurants, theatres, museums and of course, Broadway is just adjacent.  We all are aware of course of the yellow taxis, but to actually see them, wow! There are mostly yellow cabs on the road.  I would not like to attempt to drive here!  I think you would need to be very aggressive as a driver!

Sarah & Tom in Time Square, New York!

After lunch at Macca's on Time Square (I have never seen a more packed Macca's), we lined up for some Broadway tickets.  Rick was there earlier than needed, and just as well as we were near the front of the line which soon grew to an amazing length!!  There are many shows discounted, but we were lucky enough to get tickets all together for Daniel Radcliff's comedy show "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" for 7.00pm.

From here, we jumped back on the subway and went Downtown to find Chinatown.  We had heard this was a must to see, especially the street vendors.  We spent most of the afternoon here and had fun watching Tom in particular barganing with street vendors over price!  It's interesting to see the undercover knock-off products for sale - handbags, jewellery and perfume especially!  Sarah bought herself a silver chain necklace for half the price and Tom wangled some deals on a couple of belts, purfume for Sarah and aftershave!

Rick & Tom figuring out the best ticket buy!

Sarah happy to be here, wow! the NY subway!

In Chinatown, Tom negotiating the price on some suit belts..

Sarah, happy to pose for me in Chinatown, outside a smelly fish market actually!! (Sporting her new necklace!)

Finally, late afternoon we stopped at this Noodle Restaurant and had this delicious meal, then headed back to Broadway to see our show!!

What an experience to see a show on Broadway, New York!  It was truely wonderful.  The show was funny, cleverly chorographed and very well done!  Daniel Radcliff (Harry Potter) was superb, despite dropping his lovely English accent for a very authentic American one!! We were so glad we got to see this.

A Broadway Show in New York - that's the ticket!!

Home late on the subway, stopping for street gelati on the way.  What a full, long day.  Once we got back to 135th street, the walk back to the apartment took us past St Mark's Church, which in the middle of the night, was pretty busy.  Our aim at this point is to have an early start in the morning, to get going on the Bus Tour..

At night, the city fills up with an even greater crowd!