Central Park

Central Park is HUGE and our friends decided that they would like to explore it by hiring a bike and spending a couple of hours pedalling around to admire the sights. They invited us to come along with them and we thought that it sounded fun so we met them where the bike hire hawkers pester people walking on the footpath and looked for a suitable place to hire from. One of the hawkers came up to us as we were waiting for our friends to arrive and he seemed like he had a good deal for us. Once our friends arrived we discussed the deal further with him, settled on a decent price and followed him to a weird little shed that was overcrowded with like-minded people to fill out the paperwork. Once the dude got to his manager to start the paperwork, she decided that she didn't like the price that he had told us because "they were running out of bikes". We got a little bit peeved at his trickery and tried to bargain some more until finally he told us that he could get us bikes elsewhere. We humoured him for a while in between grumbles and whinges about the fact that he had told us a certain price, wasted 40 minutes of our time and we still didn't have bikes. It kind of reminded us of being back in China or India and trying to bargain for souvenirs. We followed him "just past the statue" and saw him talk to this guy who had no bikes and eventually decided that it seemed like a dodgy deal and just walked away to find out how much the bikes at the legitimate bike hire stall were.

The bikes there were much more expensive but they were a lot more trustworthy stall and we kind of wanted to teach the guy a lesson for stuffing us around so much - all though, I'm not sure it made much of a difference to him because he just set to work finding another customer.

So we finally had our bikes and pedalled our way around the giant, crowded park. There was some kind of fundraising (breast cancer) walk going on which was kind of entertaining because they were walking on the designated road/bike path and there were thousands of people walking and others cheering them on. So we were sharing the path with lots and lots of people.

Our friends decided that it would be amusing to ride along holding hands and when they saw a jogger coming towards them, they wanted him to duck under their joined hands. The jogger wasn't too happy about it and instead of just trying to avoid them and shrugging it off he decided to yell profanities at them, "what are you, f*cking idiots?" (in a very thick New York accent - which made it even funnier for us). 

We came across the same jogger further around the park and he was jogging straight towards Roy and I on the bike path. Since it was a designated bike path, Roy and I didn't make too much of an effort to avoid him and when he didn't move, I said in a very monotone voice and unhappy face "bike paaaath". I'm not sure it made too much of an affect on him and his choice of path, but it was quite amusing.

This guy was practising his cross-country skiing.

Nice views from the HUGE lake in the middle.

We went to Central Park again towards the end of our trip just for a wander and to see if we could spot any famous sights in the park. We found the fountain that appeared in the movie "Enchanted" (and probably heaps of other films) and I thought that I might pose next to it.

Like my attempt at making her dress with my scarf? Pretty awesome if you ask me :-P

It doesn't quite look the same but it was pretty fun.

I don't think the novelty of seeing squirrels running around will ever wear off.

The John Lennon memorial near Strawberry Fields.

It was nice to explore the huge chunk of green land amongst the concrete jungle. No wonder it's a popular jogging and picnic spot. It's nice to get out of the hustle and bustle every so often.

Something that we got a kick out of

There's no shortage of convenience stores or delis in NYC and very conveniently, there was one located just next to our hotel which made snack runs super easy. One thing that Roy and I got a little giggle out of was the fact that most stores - while buying a beverage of any type, put said beverage into a small, can/bottle-sized paper bag along with a straw for ease of drinking. While we were in DC, I did a quick google search to see what the rules for drinking in public were and saw a few forum posts from various sources saying that drinking in public in NYC had a few grey areas. The general consensus was that if the police couldn't see exactly you were drinking, then everything was okay - hence the paper bag (I'm guessing). Roy and I are pretty thrifty (some people call it stingy - I call it practical) when it comes to purchasing things and we tend to opt for the best value for money. Why go to an overpriced bar and buy overpriced drinks and have to yell at each other over the too-loud music when you could go to the convenience store, buy a beer for 50 cents and drink it in the park or hotel room where you can hear each other speaking and save money to spend on other things.

A small side note - while we were doing the "buy a beer from the store and drink it in the park" thing, we happened to spy a certain famous person kicking a soccer ball in the park opposite our hotel. Does "GET IN MY BELLY" or "Yeah baby, yeah" ring any bells? I didn't believe Roy when he told me that Mike Myers was hanging out in the park in the dark until we got a little closer - which spooked him a little bit. The actions I was doing, I can imagine, looked a little bit like taking photos and as he was picking up his belongings to move further away I wanted to yell out to him and say "No, I'm not taking photos.. I'm just trying to open my beer man". Not sure what would have scared him more to be honest.

Anyway, back to what I was talking about. Beer in a paper bag! I kind of just wanted to share a funny photo and I thought that I might share a little story with it too. Enjoy the photo!

Empire State of Mind

Okay so I stole the name of a song for the name of my post but it was inevitable and just be glad it wasn't the cliché "New York, New York".

Roy and I had been smiling cheesily at each other for the months leading up to this trip saying to each other "we're going to New York!!". We were both pretty damn excited about going to such a culturally diverse and very famous city in the United States. And the excitement didn't wane once we finally arrived in the Big Apple.

It was a fairly long subway trip from JFK to Manhattan - at least it felt like a long time since we had spent a long time in the airport at DC waiting for our delayed flight. Once we had arrived at our destination, our feet hit the pavement, our eyes saw the lights, our ears heard the bustle and our excitement was just the same as it was when we were booking the tickets months before. We were in New York, freakin' city!  Since it was pretty late we decided that we would be best to put our heads to the pillow and get some sleep ready for the days ahead.

After some much needed sleep, I decided to brave the morning and try to find some breakfast to take back to Roy who was doing some homework. I wandered the busy streets of Chinatown in search of something resembling breakfast. I walked into a few different bakeries only to find the typical sweet chinese style bakery goods that you find in most bakeries in every other chinatown. I wasn't too keen for such sugary, oddly-too-yellow pastries but I didn't want to venture too far from the hotel by myself and decided to settle on something that slightly resembled a croissant and an american-small "cup o' joe" to wash down the pastries with. I'm guessing that most of you know that nothing comes small in the USA. I love my coffee but there's definitely such a thing as too much of something - especially bad coffee.

After we fuelled up for a day of adventure, we hit the pavement and wandered lower Manhattan in search of interesting things to see, do and eat.

Some kind of sidewalk aquarium/cage thing.

All of the walking made us hungry so we stopped in at our favourite noodle joint - Ajisen Ramen. YUM!

An interesting funeral home. 

Brooklyn Bridge! 

Near Pier 11.

Brooklyn Bridge. 

Double-decker car parks.

Wall Street.

The New York Stock Exchange.

It was pretty quiet since it was Saturday and also they had blocked off the roads to prevent "Occupy" protests from happening.

Beautiful weather!

The lighting becomes really beautiful of an afternoon on a fine day. The sun peeks through the small gaps between huge skyscrapers and shines itself on little sections of other buildings. 

After cramming as much into the day as we could, we met up with a colleague of Roy's who was also taking some time out in New York with his wife and their friend, for some dinner. While walking up one of the streets or avenues to our hotel, I spied a nice looking vegan restaurant called Wild Ginger, which I suggested we check out for dinner. We arrived there and realised that it was a fairly small place, on a Saturday night and we were a party of five without a reservation. We had no hope of getting in right there and then. We left our name and number with them and they said that they would phone us when a table came up for us, so we headed down the road to have a few drinks while we waited. I was starting to fret thinking that I had suggested this place, we have to wait a while, it's getting late - this place better be good or it's on my head. Finally a table came up for us and we sat around a cosy table and perused the menu. I was in heaven. I was able to eat ANYTHING on the menu (something I don't often get the pleasure of doing). Since I was the most experienced vegetarian/vegan eater, our party of five left the decisions of meals to me. It was an asian style restaurant so I figured that it would be nice to share.

I took some recommendations from our overly-happy waiter and chose a few others to suit the mood of the night. Our starters arrived, I explained which was which and the others took a tentative look at the spread and slowly picked up their chopsticks to take a sample. The pressure was on. I had just encouraged three brazilian meat-eaters to hang up the meat (so to speak) and take a look at what vegetarians like to eat. I've got to say, I think they were rather impressed! The food was delicious, wholesome and I think it broke down a few of those "tofu is nasty" and "vegetarians only eat lettuce" stereotypes. While I don't think I converted them to vegetarianism (not my intention), I do think they genuinely enjoyed the food and were happy to have eaten something so tasty that didn't involve the slaughter of an animal. This place was so good and conveniently located close to our hotel, we returned another two times to try some more off their menu. Needless to say, I walked out of there each time with a full and happy tummy. Delicious!