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.