New York City

After spending a wonderful year back in the USA, Nick and I decided to celebrate our first anniversary by spending a weekend in NYC! We booked an early morning bus and a room at The Manhattan at Times Square on gotobus.com for $385. Not too shabby.

We left early on Friday morning and arrived at the hotel at 5:30am. Luckily, they had a room available and we were able to nap for a few hours. The room was fine, definitely not as nice as the website would suggest, but not too bad. They claim to have an "oversize" bathroom in all the rooms, this was not the case. It was a standard bathroom and a room comparable to a Best Western. What is it about cheap hotels that all have the same ugly beige color covering the walls, doors, and curtains?

Though the room was average, we soon found that it was well worth the price because of its location. Located on 7th Avenue and West 51st street, it was right in the middle of all the excitement. Turn right and you're in Times Square, or turn left and hit Carnegie Deli just a few blocks away from Central Park.

After waking up refreshed on Friday morning, we grabbed breakfast at Carnegie Deli. The breakfast was pretty good, but definitely a bit expensive. We did end up leaving with a cheesecake, which I would highly recommend!

Nick and I then headed to the 9/11 memorial. We had to reserve free passes before entering. After picking up the passes we had about an hour before our reserved time. We walked towards Wall Street stopping first at Saint Paul's Chapel. Built in 1764, George Washington worshiped here after his Inauguration. Today, you can go inside the church and see Washington's Presidential pew as well as memorials to 9/11 victims.

We continued walking to Wall Street, passing by the Stock Exchange and Federal Hall. You can go inside federal hall and see exhibits that include the bible which was used to swear George Washington into office. Just down the road is Trinity Church which was constructed by the Church of England in 1696. It was later destroyed in a fire, and after being rebuilt the second structure was torn down and rebuilt into a third building in 1846. It is a beautiful church, but there was a service going on so we were not able to walk around or get pictures of the inside.

We headed over the 9/11 memorial site, and after going through airport-like security were able to walk around the beautiful park that now takes the place of the twin towers. At the site of each tower there are now reflecting pools with the names of all the victims carved into bronze around the outside. There is also a park around the pools.

After reflecting and sharing a moment at the memorial, we walked south to Battery Park. We briefly walked around Castle Clinton and along the waterfront. It was a pretty cloudy day, but we were still able to see the Statue of Liberty.

We left the park and took the subway uptown to the New York Public Library Main Building. In the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building they have many exhibits. The "Celebrating 100 Years" exhibit includes the first Gutenberg Bible acquired in the Americas. My favorite part of the exhibit was the display with the original Winnie the Pooh stuffed animals!

For those of you who don't know, Christopher Robin was a real boy! He was A.A. Milne's son. He had gotten the Winnie the Pooh bear (which was originally Edward Bear) on his first birthday. He later got the other animals (excluding Rabbit and Owl, who were made up for the books) and his father teamed up with an artist named Earnest H. Shepard to create the books.

This was just the beginning of the nerdiness =). After leaving the library, and me being excited at having seen the real Winnie the Pooh (which I loved as a child...and might still now), where else would have been the perfect place for both Nick and I? Nowhere better than the Hershey's store! We were both immediately drawn to the Resses Cup corner! We were very tempted to buy one (or two) of everything in that section, but eventually settled on a coffee mug and pint glass, each with a bag of reeses inside! I did get a free resses cup for taking an in-store survey too!

Our child-like excitment continued when we walked across the street to M&M world! The first display we saw fit Nick perfectly, Star Wars M&M candy toys!

We headed back to the hotel just a few blocks away and took a nap before heading out again and going to Discovery Times Square. We went to see the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit. We were not allowed to take any photos, and there were a lot of clay pots and information I already knew, but it was really cool to see the actual scrolls at the end of the exhibit. They explained and translated each section that was on display. My favorite to see was the Minor Prophets which were written in Greek.

After the exhibit we took a taxi over to the Primehouse for dinner. It was a really nice place with a great menu. We each got a steak and shared some Truffle Asiago fries. The steaks were pretty good, but I would not recommend those fries! It was a nice atmosphere with good drinks and steak.

Day 2

Saturday morning we woke up, grabbed a quick breakfast at Dunkin Donuts and enjoyed a stroll around Central Park. It was such a peaceful park and was really nice to see the city in the background.

After Central Park we took the subway down to the Empire State building. We got approached by a ticket vendor outside who was selling tickets at about the same prices I remember seeing on the website. Unfortunately, in this impulse buying I forgot to ask about getting to the 102nd floor observation desk and instead we got tickets to the Skyride and 82nd floor observation deck. The vendors are legit, just be sure to know ahead of time what kind of ticket you want.

The Skyride was the worst tourist trap ever!! First there was a presentation of the top 10 things to do in New York...10 things that everybody goes to New York for anyway. Then a presentation about the building, but we were hoping for a bit more history. Then a simulated airplane ride above the city, which jerked way to much and made me sick. I DO NOT recommend the Skyride to anybody who visits New York, it is a waste of money! The only upside to this was that we got to go straight to the elevators and skipped the lines (though If I had been thinking when I bought the tickets, we would have gotten the express tickets anyway). We spent very little time waiting in lines and it was not very crowded on the observation deck.

Just around the corner from the ESB is Korea Town. I was so excited to have a real Korean lunch. We had lunch at Miss Korea. We ordered some marinated short ribs, and Dak Galbi, a dish that I have been craving for the past year. The Dak Galbi was not how I remember it being in Korea, but it was definitely all delicious!! It was a fantastic, authentic Korean lunch. =) I was so happy.

Full of Korean food, we decided to walk it all off to pass by the U.N.

Then over to the Rockefeller center. We went inside the NBC shop and picked up a few souvenirs, and walked around the plaza.

We took a nap and got ready for what would be the best dinner we had ever had! We had reservations at August. It was a small place, but it was so pretty inside. The food was fantastic. We had amazing drinks. Nick ordered a steak with bone marrow, and I had the pork chop. For dessert we had the best Warm Chocolate Cake. The food, the service, and the atmosphere at August were fantastic. I would highly recommend this place for a nice dinner in NYC.

After dinner we grabbed a few drinks at Tonic bar and walked around Times Square before returning to the hotel for our last time. We left Sunday morning feeling very sad to leave, but satisfied that we both had a great time!