So good they named it twice! After the laid back atmosphere of Martha's Vineyard, Friday was the day that I went to the big city. Not just any big city but NYC,

Spring in Central Park

said by many to be the greatest of them all. Stacey and I took a train in and emerged right in the middle of Manhattan at Penn Station. I knew it was going to be big, but it was huge! Way up the street there was a bridgeway between two very tall buildings. At that distance the thing looked like it was drawn on to the sky. At first we had planned to take the subway to Times Square but I really wanted to experience the city so we walked it. The square was pretty busy with tourists posing, car horns tooting and people gazing upwards at the impressive light show above, there was no sign of the naked cowboy though.

Park Avenue, New York

   From there we walked down to Rockefeller Center and on to 5th Avenue. We saw the Empire State Building from a distance but decided that the queue to get up there would take too much time out of our day. 5th Avenue was pretty nice, but I preferred Park Ave because of the green strip down the middle with trees and flowers coming into bloom. Central Park was sooo much bigger than I thought it would be. We mucked around for a while making a 360° photo (4.1mb)

The Lake, Central Park

and then had lunch (yay I am in America so I can eat Subway without feeling guilty about ignoring the local cuisine. I am still McDonalds free though) and walked through the park for quite a way. We passed some nice boating lakes and went through The Ramble

"Bird Watching" is very popular here

at which point it is easy to forget you are in the middle of one of the biggest cities on the planet. The Met is about halfway up the park and time was ticking on. Unfortunately we didn't have time to look inside (that would take all day) so we plodded on to the subway and came out at Little Italy.

The side of The Met

Apparently the Italian area (centered around Mulberry Street) is getting smaller but it seemed to be going strong that afternoon. The street was lined with Italian restaurants and echoed with pretty convincing accents as they tried to call in anyone passing by. One odd thing I noticed there was the walls were covered with photos of clientele, it was too hard to look at for me, but they all seemed to do it.

The heart of Chinatown

   Right next door is Chinatown. There are loads of restaurants and even more t-shirts and other-assorted-gift stores. We ventured into a shop that appears to be selling a variety of Chinese sweets,

Dried Fish Nibbles

which it was, in addition to a pic-n-mix selection of dried fish and seafood. We each took a turn trying the samples and quickly decided that as much fun as it would be to bring some home, we really couldn't inflict that on anyone. What we did do though was choose a few sweets ('candy') with confusing labels with which we could play the all new Mystery Chinese Candy game (video 5Mb). Hours of fun to be had.


   It was getting dark as we walked through the financial district towards the former site of the World Trade Center. We walked quite a long way away from it due to our (my) bad map reading skills, so when we got there it was all flood lit and very quiet. I was surprised to see the Path (Port Authority Of New York and New Jersey) Rail station was running. I suppose workers in the area still need to get in and out, and it as been 2 1/2 years since the towers were brought down. I've noticed an extraordinary number of American flags on this visit, and much more 'All American....." than I ever saw in California, and I attribute that to what happened here on September 11th, 2001.

Times Square at night

   We did one more visit to Times Square (video 2.8mb) before leaving and I am glad we did. It is a much better sight at night as I hope this video shows. No wonder you can't see the stars from inside New York.