What a beast of a city, this is. We felt it important to provide blogs in 'parts' so that we don't miss any details of the trip that we need to share with ya'll. New York City is one of those cities that you instantly feel the wairua once arriving. It's an energy that is kinda mystic - you've seen NYC in the movies, on the news, in the video clips and music clips and all the songs. It's concrete buildings and old history, it's melting pot of every culture, language and religion on the planet in one small place.
New York is a wonderful, alive and inspiring place to be in...
So we arrived from the sunny Cayman Islands of 35 degrees to NYC and snow on the runway and about 10 layers. JFK airport was intense - waiting inline for an hour and a half for customs... Luckily our customs officer was super nice (first time ever!) and talked to us about Broadway shows and at the end says "Happy Holidays". Boom, we are instantly feeling christmassy! The iconic yellow cab takes us into Brooklyn where we've booked an apartment through AirBNB. Our apartment is not far from Bedford Ave in Williamsburg. A quaint part of Brooklyn that is now known for it's hip, chic bars and cafes and boutique stores. The grungiest, Cuba Street looking people live here and it's a nice taster of NYC. Our apartment is great. Big white walls, with a white duvet and curtains and your standard brick wall that are featured in most NY lofts.
The next morning we venture out at 730am trying to capture Brooklyn at that time of the morning when hustle and bustle of people scurrying to work and making their way to the subway, grabbing coffee and a bagel on the way and dressed extremely fashionable. We took two subway trains to Times Square. A good start for Tu to check out the lights that is Times Sq! After picking up our New York Pass tickets, the tummys begin to rumble and we find a cafe for some American breakfast. Bacon, eggs, homefries (fried spuds) and an omellette between us - Boom. We're ready for sightseeing.
Our first stop is Rockafellar Centre and the Observation Deck called 'Top of the Rock'. Since we have the NY Pass we get to skip all queues and get into 100 attractions for free, including this one. We took a lift up 63 stories where we could see vista views of NYC. It was a clear (but still cold) day, so we had some blue skies and sun. We especially wanted to get to this attraction first, as we had an agenda to take some good photos for our 'Save the Date' photo we wanted to use to inform our whanau and friends on the date of our proposed wedding! Exciting :)
It's truly breathtaking being at the top of one of the tallest buildings in NYC. You get to see Staten Island where the Statue of Liberty stands, you get to look directly at the Empire State Building, the Chrysler building, look over Central Park (dressed in white snow) and all the other boroughs of Manhattan and beyond. After this sight, we visited MoMA and saw some beautiful art followed by a wine & cheese tasting hehe. It was quite magical. We then took a walk into Central Park and found ourselves at the New York City Zoo haha. This was my idea to go see the animals :) reminded me of Madagascar when the lion, giraffe, zebra and hippo all escape for their homelands lol. After this, we decided to venture back to Brooklyn. Remembering this is the first day in 11 days that we're actually doing any physical activity - Caymans we had it too easy lounging all day and swimming, so we were pretty smashed.
We headed back to Williamsburg for a pinot noir, some pulled pork sliders and mac cheese and then went and saw the Hobbit! Peter Jackson you never cease to amaze me... Hobbit was amazing. Feeling very tired, we popped into a wine store, grabbed a Brancott Estate Sauv (NZ in the house!) and then headed home for the night. Day 1 - DONE & DUSTED!
DAY 2
Our second day of sightseeing was much more efficient as we knew exactly where the subway was, what sights we wanted to see and where we should eat. We kicked off the day with some OJ, coffee and NY bagels from Bagelsmith in Bedford Ave - YUM. After a light breaky, we took the subway into town and straight to Madison Square Garden. Our pass enables us free entry to take an all access guided tour around the garden checking out the stadium itself (the NY Rangers were practising for their game that night, I believe they're the ice hockey team here lol). We missed the Knicks practising unfortunately, but it was still cool to be at the famous garden! We got to check out all the different sights around the place including lounges and suites that all the richies own. After the garden, we took off to the MET museum where the Te Maori exhibition was held in the '80's. Tu especially enjoyed this museum knowing his papa and the other kaitiaki of our taonga Maori that came over on the tour were once here. We ventured through the museum seeing greek, egyptian, medieval and african art and lo and behold we find a small corner of taonga Maori. It was Tu's radar that lead us to these tupuna and we said our greetings and spent some time with them; mere pounamu, hei tiki, and whakairo. They were housed next to some Hawaiian artifacts, so they were in good company :)
After the museum, we raced back to town to the Radio City Music Hall where we bought tickets to the "Radio City Christmas Spectacular!"... this was of course, my idea ha. I have been feeling xmassy since we arrived, so this was to top it all off! And it was amazing. A 90 minute theatre production of dancers, Hana Koko, a dynamic and amazing stage, props and settings that used the entire theatre and a beautiful story of christmas. We left feeling pretty joyful and walked straight outside to see the Rockafellar xmas tree and hark herald angels (just like on Home Alone). Dream come true!
After this, we decided to return to the Top of the Rock to see NYC from the top of the building at night... saw the xmas lights special on the Empire State Building and appreciated NYC lights at a 360 degree view - breathtaking once again.
It's 730pm by now and we are knackered... Brooklyn bound for a pinot noir and some spoken word poetry at a local bar for a night cap before returning home for the night. NYC Day 2 - did it.
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