Day 3-NYC

The day actually started around 12:01 AM...I booked us Reserve seats for the Statue of Liberty. You have to pay for the ferry ride, but then it's free to go onto Liberty Island and Ellis Island. You can pay extra for any tours (most are audio I think)...but we were trying to see as much as we could in a short amount of time. So I booked the tickets, then it was an 8 hr nap for us. 

We were in walking distance to the ferry, so off we went Monday morning. 

This place, Trinity Boxing Club was on a corner close to our hotel, and Jon was quite enthralled with it. It has a bit (a lot) of history to it and was actually pretty neat even if you weren't really into boxing too. They had a door (I'm sure to be ADA compliant, but otherwise you could just hop in and out through the big open window.)

Stopped for some breakfast...pretty local to our hotel too.

 Then off to Battery Park where the ferry is docked. There are a lot of statues and monuments in Battery Park to see...and some dead rats too.

We see her! Miss Liberty. Maybe I'm sentimental or whatever but it's really neat to see in person and what it stands for.  And just thinking of what a couple million people maybe where thinking when they were arriving in the harbor.

We didn't stay long on Liberty Island...got off the boat, snapped a picture and got back on to go to Ellis Island. We knew we didn't have much time and still had more to see, but it would be nice to hear the audio tour or explore a bit more. 

Ellis Island tho, is really neat too!

We toured through the rooms read a lot of the signs (not all because that would have taken a few hours, there are also audio tours as well). We did see a 45 min presentation/movie about arriving at Ellis Island and what would happen over the next 3-5 hours that a person was there. Very interesting and helped to see that since we didn't stay very long...maybe 2 hours.

For the people that were given "clearance" to America, if they wanted to go to NY, then they were brought over here (back at battery park now) and it provided rest/shelter/food before they started their journey on the next day.

 This structure was in one of the Towers on Sept 11 when they collapsed. It is temporarily here until the memorial building is ready. But you can see the damage...imagine a building falling down on it. Wow!

The following pictures will have the neighborhood and then a few pictures for that area. We were just trying to get through all the neighborhoods that we hadn't visited yet...this was what was supposed to take place from a van on Sunday-remember the guy that didn't show up??? Also, we didn't have a bus map with us (what were we thinking?) so hadn't really figured the bus system out...that would have saved my aching feet a lot of pain, and would have helped getting around to more of the area...which we ended up skipping some parts of the neighborhoods. I just wanted to know where to find the celebrities, haha. Oh well...got the subway system down (except for that one time).

We ate lunch here. Across the street was DeNiro's Grille.

 

Here was my breaking point. 2 1/2 days of walking around in chaco's my feet were killing me. My only pair of tennies at home were now grass stained from using them to push mow the lawn (i was needing a new pair anyway), so luckily there was a Lady Foot Locker close by and I bought a new (on sale of course) pair of running shoes. Oh, the relief! Now I was ready to go again!

 

This was the cutest little dessert/smoothie (the sign says beer, i know) restaurant ever. It had 3 wooden tables and then the counter. That was the extent of it. But that's how many restaurants are in NYC. I almost bought a smoothie here just for the fun of it (but we had just eaten).

Little Italy

When we were on the airplane coming home and looking through the pictures, we noticed the guy in the background. Didn't see that at the time! haha. 

 Chinatown

Wasn't sure what this fruit was, but it's very sweet the sign says.

Chelsea

High Line
High Line was an old abandoned railroad track that the locals fixed up for a nice walking path. You can sit up there and eat, read a book, take wedding pictures...

 After High Line, we found a bus that took us up to the SW corner of Central Park. We were on that bus faster than a native New Yorker.

 There are those people with bikes that give rides around areas (or to and from places)...anyways my feet were hurting (i need to get out and walk more often), so we wanted to see Central Park but knew our hours were numbered and it just sounded so nice to be able to have someone pull me around the park. This guy was good. He knew what the statues were, gave us information and details about the park. He knew what buildings around the park the celebrities and famous people lived/stayed when they visited.

 It was a pretty chilly day by NY standards, so the park was pretty empty...but on a nice day there are generally over 3,000 people in the park.

The story goes that the builders ran out of money and couldn't afford to build the 4th tower.

 Recognize this fountain? Friends

John Lennon memorial. It was in front of his house, then it was moved to Strawberry Fields inside the park.

John Lennon's residence...or was...now Yoko Ono lives here. She has guards outside her door. Our tour guide had a picture of her on his phone and we got to see.

Closing time, but we made it into Tiffany's and to the 4th floor.

5th Ave has buses and going in the right direction (south)...so we hopped on one (love the metrocard) and rode it down to 31st St.
ps...in NYC, 20 blocks is 1 mile. I'm curious how many miles we traveled.

Recommended by someone...Korean Way. All Korean restaurants. We did a Steak and Chicken BBQ...very interesting. Some of you may be interested to know I tried Spicy Tuna Roll...I liked it a little too...but only had 2 rolls this time.

 Dessert at Hill Country restaurant. Felt obligated to buy a shake since Jon used their restroom. It was a country restaurant in hip NYC.

 Just some food booths set up in Madison Square Park. They were closing down. But pretty neat! Love the spice/season table below!

 Outside our hotel at night. Tower 1 lit up. There is a small building in between these two buildings in the middle. If you look closely you can see the American Flag.