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