Day 18 - Exploring New York

Waking up totally refreshed from a great nights sleep. We get ready and head downstairs in search for some breakfast. We avoid the hotel restaurant and go out and around to Tick Tock for an all American breakfast. I was smart in avoiding the watered down filtered piss that has been passed off as coffee and grabbed myself a tea instead. We both got the "wild mushroom omlette with hash" option. Yes..."Wild mushrooms" in a diner....What came out was about a dozen eggs scrambled together with mixed canned mushrooms and a block of cheese that has somehow turned into a solid form with a big scoop of pan fried potatoes drenched with oil. We heap on the "Ketchup" and scoff it down.

Good old healthy American breakfast - "Wild" Mushrooms omlette and hash

Feeling all greased up, we walk back into the hotel lobby to try and find some tourist information. A souvenier shop was open so we popped in and paid $6US for a map of New York. With the map in hand, we decided to WALK to Planet Hollywood.

Let me give you a quick run down of how new york streets work. Most streets are in sequential numbers so all you have to do is follow the numbers and you'll get there. Avenues run from West to East (Number gets larger) and Streets run from South to North (Numbers get larger). When giving directions, ALWAYS give the nearest cross street. Its like saying "Could I go to so and so on Parramatta road thanks". So we were staying at 34th Street and 8th Avenue. To get to Planet Hollywood, it was basically up 11 blocks to 45th Street, then about 2 blocks across to Broadway which kinda Intersects with 6th Avenue.

When I first told Moishii this, he freaks out at the thought of having to walk 11 blocks. I convinced him that its not that bad, the blocks from Street to Street are short. Its from Ave to Ave we have to worry about. He finally agreed to walk to Planet Hollywood when I suggested that we should go to the Soup Nazi's for lunch because its only "up the road". By up the road, it meant going from 34th Street to 55th Street. It was only a 21 block walk...That didn't go down too well, so we settled for Planet Hollywood and "then we'll decide". hehehehe

We start walking, and being the tourists that we are, stopped to take photos of yellow NY cabs, NYPD cop cars and other stereotypical NY stuff.

Broadway

Where is Cherry?

The Nissin ad is just ingenious!

Stay tunes for the Virgin story

We get to Broadway and immediately start taking happy snaps of anything and everything around us. There were jazz bands playing by the side of the road, across the streets were a bunch of bus city tour people harrassing you to join their tour. Everywhere you look you will see a hot dog and pretzels stand, tables and stalls set up with people selling photos and paintings of the sight of new york, cheap handbags and sun glasses. And the best one? DESIGNER JEWELLERY for $2 each!! HAHAHHA

We spot Planet Hollywood across the road and ran across New York Style. Through a red light and stopping taxis from running us over. Before our trip, I managed to purchase 3day New York passes at discounted rate of $96USD as opposed to $120USD+. It may sound expensive, but when we got the pass and checked the booklet, we end up saving a good deal. Tickets into the Empire State building + Audio tour would be $30 already. Plus we get things such as tours of the Statue of Liberty, CNN studios, NBC studios and Rockefellar Centre tours included. All of them atleast $10-20. We check the book and managed to find a concise version of a map of New York rendering our $6USD map useless.

We walk out of Planet Hollywood and spot a market. They had closed off one of the main streets for about 10 blocks and had stalls everywhere. You all know how I can't resist a market. We jumped right into the crowd and started running from stand to stand looking for things to buy. The first thing I spot is this.....

Footlong Shish-Ke-Bob? Americans and their spelling...

Maybe size really does matter and they're telling me to go back to Greece? We continue roaming until we came across a stand and started going nuts with these soft toys. I bought 2 bears. One bear is in the Statue of Liberty costume, and one is in the New York Fire Department costume. I just couldn't resist!!! Feeling better that we had done some shopping, we sit down at a Star Bucks to work on the plan of attack. We circled all the things we wanted to do over the next 3 days. We then listed the attractions that are closest together to minimise travel time. Think we're well prepared? Keep reading....

First stop is Madame Tussauds Wax Museum. Picking our ticket up from reception (Which is close to $30US) we walk up the stairs only to be greeted by a huge wax version of the Hulk. Everyone who goes through gets their photo taken and then they can choose to purchase it when they leave. First shot was just us standing infront of the Hulk smiling. Nice shot. Then the guy yells "OK! Scary face!!!". We both laughed at the thought of having to pull faces. The guy starts counting and we continue laughing...and lets just say that we agreed that we weren't going to buy the photo, but the minute we saw that photo, we both had to buy it! Due to the nature of the photo, it will only be shown on request subject to approval.

We made our way through the Wax Museum taking photos and videos of everything we saw. Some of these wax models is so freaky, you half expect them to blink when we stare at them!!! And of course, us being us, took some very candid shots which has been censored from this site.






We spend a good 2 hours in there and it was way past lunch time by the time we were done. Since we were only 10 blocks from the soup nazi, we walked up on up expecting to get 2 soups each for lunch. From a distance, we spot the International Soup Kitchen. We run up to the store in hunger, only to notice that it was closed! NoOOooOOoOoooo!!!


Thinking it was closed on Sundays, we decided to walk the 10 blocks back to Broadway and look for food. We looked around and the only thing we saw was fast food chains, hot dog vendors, Planet Hollywood and Hard Rock cafe. Not wanting to have Maccas again after last night, we walked towards Hard Rock Cafe since we had a discount with our New York Pass. This is when we spot a Pizza place next to it. So pizza it is! The way the shops work is that they have the pizzas on display, you pick what you want, they reheat you a slice. So we looked at all the different types of pizza they had on display and decided to get a Mushroom and a Chicken each. When we got our two slices of pizza each for a "snack".......this is what we got......

That one slice of pizza is bigger than a Pizza Hut small pizza!!

Its not like we didn't SEE the size of the pizza before ordering, but we still freaked when we saw the size of them on a plate FOR US. I always thought people were exaggerating when they tell me the size of a slice of pizza in New York. I truely believe them now because I later realise that what we had ordered, were the smaller sizes.....

After our "snack", we decide to head to the CNN studios to do their tour. We walk from 46th St towards 58th St, even further than the Soup Nazi's kitchen (Why we didn't just go there directly I don't understand). We had walked half way there when we suddenly decided to check the map in the book and also confirm the address. This is when we realise that they close at 4pm on Sundays! It was already 3:30pm! We would never make it on time. This is when we decide to head back towards the hotel and dump our stuff (Only a 20 block walk) before hitting the Empire State Building. This time we checked the times and made sure that it was still open.

As we were walking to the Empire State Building (ESB), we walked past Macy's and of course, we had to drop in and see what it was all about. Its basically a Myers, but larger. We probably spent about 20mins in there before walking out. Half way there, we see a whole bunch of showgirls get out of a limo with the full headgear. Of course, photos were taken. This is before we saw a bunch of Elvis's on motorbikes. Apparently they are doing a promo for Las Vegas. We're still not sure if its Las Vegas the city, the TV show or a night club. We still took photos anyway. Only in New York aye?


We round the corner to the Empire State Entrance and who do we see? King Kong himself!!


We go in and find our way to the ticket booth, collect our tickets and audio tour passes and make our way up the ESB. Since the ESB is so high, you actually have to catch a number of elevators to get to the top. We're half way up the building when we get stuck in a line to have our photos taken. Just like Madame Tussauds, you get your photo taken and then decide if you want to buy it or not later. We get to the front of the line when we both realised that the backdrop was shit and we're not going to buy it regardless. We stand infront of the camera, barely looking at the guy and get our photo taken. We pick up our audio head sets and continue to the top of the ESB.

The view is absolutely breathtaking. Yes theres no harbour or mountains or any other natural sceneary (Except for Central Park that we see in the distance), but New York really is like a forest of Sky Rise buildings. The amount of traffic and people is hard to imagine unless you're actually there. Despite how crowded New York is, they seem to have their own rhythm of chaotic harmony. People are always busy and always on the move. That could have something to do with the fact that there is always something happening in New York. To stand ontop of the EBS brings back memories from movies such as King Kong and Sleepless in Seattle. Listening to the audio commentary, they point out famous land marks such as the Chrysler building, the Trump tower, the port where the Titanic would have docked had they not sank. And of course, where the Twin Towers used to stand. That is probably the one disappointing thing about the trip. To see the Twin Towers in the distance would have been magnificent. And to know how many lives were lost during September 11 is truely depressing. To make matters worse, it was September 11 when we were standing ontop of the ESB, and somewhere in the distance, where the Twin Towers use to stand, was thousands of people mourning for the lives of their loved ones.

The Skyline seems bare without the Twin Towers

Chrysler Building

Taking photos of the bustling city of New York, we head back down to the bottom of the ESB and walked across the foyer to join the Skyline tour. Well, "tour" was really an interactive ride. You go in, sit down on these rollercoaster like seats, strap yourself in and they play you a video. Basically they take you through a tour of New York via "Helicopter" which somehow gets into a "timewarp" and end up in space or something. The whole time the seats and jolted left and right and you get continuously sprayed by jets of air for realism. It was definately fun, but it was probably something we would not have paid for if we didn't have the NY Pass.

We leave the tour and walk into their rest lobby. This is when I spotted THE machine that started the obsession. What machine you ask? Its a penny presser. You put in 1 Penny (1c) and then 2 quarters (50c) and you crank the wheel on the machine. The machine then presses the penny into a souvenier piece of copper metal into a design you choose. In this instance, I turned my penny into an oval shaped slab of copper that had the head of the Statue of Liberty embossed into it. I picked the pressed penny up and was going on about how cool it was! This was until Moishii screamed at me "YOU JUST PAID $1 FOR THAT PIECE OF CRAP!!!!"......true......but I STILL WANTED MORE!!!!!!!!

We were tired and sticky, so we headed back to the hotel, grabbed a shower and took a quick nap and caught up on reruns of The Golden Girls and The Nanny. When we were fully rested, we got changed and headed out. Next stop, Tom's Restaurant. For those Seinfield fans out there, yep! It was the Seinfield Restaurant!! WE WANTED A BIG SALAD!!! The restaurant was all the way up near 112th Street so there was no way we were walking there from 34th Street!!! I know it was night time, but we decided to catch the subway.

We get off near Central Park and get totally lost trying to find out where we are. They had contruction work going on and all the street names got blocked. For some reason, we asked a homeless dude where we were and only got a drunken response that no one understood. This is when a guy walking by decided to offer us help. Why is this worth blogging you ask? This guy was carrying a queen size bed head, in the middle of the night through a park. After he offered us directions, he then asked us for money to catch a subway. We gave him a few dollars and then made a quick get away. I know we're heading in the right direction when we finally spot some street signs. We get onto 112th St and start walking towards the Broadway intersection. This is when we end up in some tiny little residential street that doesn't look like it'll have a diner anywhere along the road. We bumped into a guy and asked directions. This is when we found out that 112th is 2 seperate streets and they don't link. We had to go back the way we came, go back to 110th St, down to Broadway and then up to 112th again.



30mins later we spot Tom's Restaurant. It looks just like it does in Seinfield. Not wanting to look like tourist, we stand on the other side of the road to take photos without the flash so we don't attract attention. We then walk in and grab ourselves a seat in one of those booths. The decor inside is totally different from what was in Seinfield, but it was definately a typical American Diner. There was no big salads, so we opted for a burger, fries and a salad. As we were waiting for our food, we secretly try to take photos of the inside without attracting attention. Our food came and now I know what they meant by "salad". Theres a few pieces of lettuce, a slice of tomato, and a HUGE pickle. I soon realise that Americans love their pickles. And when you look at a menu and it says that it comes with vegetables and/or salad, 80% of the time it would mean that you get a pickle. Sometimes they throw in a coleslaw as well. But good luck trying to find the vegetables within the mayonnaise and cream and butter. We finish our food and just as we get up to leave, we're blinded by multiple flashes. So much for us being discreet about our photos. This couple walks around the restaurant with their huge SLR cameras with a flash big enough to blind a bat taking photos of everything. They even stood outside the restaurant and started going nuts with their camera.

We grab our own photos and get out of there. Across the road was a subway and we quickly cross the road, narrowly being hit by a taxi and race down the stairs because we heard a subway pulling in. This is when we realise we were on the wrong platform. The bad thing is, this guy had followed us down, and when we realised we were on the wrong platform and we ran up, he had to follow us again! We somehow manage to get back to our hotel safe and sound by 10:30pm.

Ever since we started on the holiday, it feels like I've never had clean clothes. Could have something to do with me spilling a bottle of body wash all over my clothes causing me to do a dodgy handwash job on them and not letting them dry properly. Or it could be the volcanic ash that has somehow contaminated our entire wardrobe....but we were desperately needing some nice clean clothes that has NOT been hand washed. We refused to pay $10 euros to get our clothes washed, so luckily, the hotel has a coin operated laundramat that we could use. (The hotel has a student accomodation section). We grab all of our clothes and strip down to the bare minimum amount of clothes we would have to wear before we get arrested.

We walk down to the basement to find the laundromat where we spot a whole row of pay phones! Prank calls! But the place selling phonecards were closed so we decided to come back the next day. We walk into the laundromat and immediately start arguing over which washing machine to use. Theres a small cheaper one which we didn't think our laundry would fit into, and theres an economy sized one thats twice the price but will definately give our clothes a good wash. After much arguing, we decided on the economy sized one. Next was choosing the laundry powder from a vending machine. More arguing over whether we should get one with a softener, or bleach or colour resistant powder. We ended up grabbing a random brand after noticing an empty packet on the ground. If someone has used it before, it can't be that bad right? Next problem. We had no change. I send Moishii up with a handful of notes trying to find a change machine and he came back with barely enough quarters to even do the washing let alone the drying. Luckily, we scoured the floor and found a few quarters. We shove everything into the washing machine and set it to the high powered cycle.

We head back up to the room and watched TV for about half an hour. Went back and checked on our laundry and found out that everything I had shoved into a laundry bag had suddenly exploded and now all our underwear is mixed together. We start screaming and yelling, debating over whether we should stop the wash cycle to stop our clothes from contaminating each other. The rinse cycle started so pulling the door open now would probably flood the place. We give up and go for a walk instead. We ended up back at Duane Reades to grab more snacks. Guacamole flavoured Doritos, choc chip cookies and other junk was purchased before we headed back to the hotel. We shoved everything into the dryer and set it for 30mins. Will and Grace was on which was the perfect show to go with our snacking. Originally we were planning on going to Tick Tock at 3am in the morning to get their buffalo wings and have their coffee. We could barely keep our eyes open whilst stuffing our faces, so we shelved the idea. A few more drying cycles later, we finally collect all our laundry only to notice half of them have shrunk! Some of the tshirts looks like it wouldn't even fit my nephews! We quickly gave them a quick tug and stretch and most of them *almost* returned to normal size. By this time it was 12:30 and we were exhausted. We have a full day ahead of us so we just pass out.