New York Day Four Tuesday 4/11/14

Category: New York 2014 Published: Wednesday, 05 November 2014 Written by Evilmatt

We breakfasted and then caught the bus in to Manhattan. Today was quite warm and sunny by the time we got into town and found the bus ticket place I had to remove my coat as it was getting pretty hot. We got our tickets to the open top bus that were an addon to our ny pass thing that got us into a load of attractions for one price over 5 days. The bus thing turned out to be a bit more limited than we realized it only covered 3 days and only the most infrequent (once per 45 minutes bus) there was also no time table to know when a bus might be coming. 

We exited the ticket place and walked down to the bus stop just in time to see the bus leaving. This proved to be a theme for the day. Given it was another 45 minutes till the next one we decided to walk down to central park visit the museum of New York City and get the bus back instead going on a boat tour in the afternoon.

It was a lovely day and hot sunny clear and nice. Walking through the park was great the trees were in all in autumnal colors birds and squirrels were out and begging for scraps (we also saw a rat when we stopped for coffee at the baseball square cafe). We saw one bird that looked like some sort of bird of prey with gray wings and reddish tail but it was all hunched up in a tree so we couldn't see much more of it.

We walked down past the fountain and the boating pond saw areas familiar from films and games and other media with views of the skyscrapers beyond.

When we got down to the rambles the city just sort of faded out there was just trees and grass if it weren't for the sounds of a city you could have been deep in the woods somewhere. After that we came across a statue of King Jagiello grand duke of Lithuania who united Poland and Lithuania by marrying the Queen of Poland. It was there as a gift from Poland for the help in ww2 it was next to the turtle pond and apparently that area hosts a folk dancing gathering under King Jagiello's watchful eye. 

We wandered past the great lawn and encountered the far end of The Metropolitan museum. It was about lunch time and our plan for the day was starting to look less feasible we decided to go into the met for lunch. We had a quick glance at the massive museum that is the met as we tried to find the cafeteria in its labyrinthine halls. We had sandwiches, fruit, and home made iced tea and coffee which a nice lady at the till suggested over a commercial alternative as it gave us free crisps.

Once we were refueled we realised the plan to go to the museum of the city of new york was now looking doubtful if we wanted to go to the boat tour which was at 4pm we had underestimated how long it took to walk down central park which is massive. We decided to take the tour bus back and then be ready for the boat tour. We went out and saw the bus driving off, so we had a wander down to the reservoir area of central park and saw the Guggenheim while we waited for the next one. We headed down early for the next bus and found that it was already arriving. Some running and banging on the window allowed us to board in the nick of time.

It was quite pleasant to drive through the city with an audio tour pointing out the sights when you are walking in New York you have to keep your wits about you due to traffic and other pedestrians it’s an unforgiving city environment like London or any big city. So just sitting back relaxing in the nice weather while we slowly cruised back up the island was fun. We passed the central park zoo the Arsenal that predates the park and once stored guns and ammo for New York’s National guard.

We saw the pierre hotel where they filmed the tango scene in scent of a woman and various people stayed. We saw a couple of other hotels including the official hotel of saturday night live where George Carlin lived. Then we swung up into the main city down towards time square then across to 8th avenue where we got off.

We headed down to the water front and then a few streets along till we found the boat cruise company. We were a bit early but not too bad so we had some tea to pass the time. The boat arrived and after the compulsory green screen picture we borded. 

The boat went down the hudson river stopping at the finacial district swinging around the tip of Manhattan and then up the East river under the Brooklyn and then Manhattan bridges then back down the east river docking at pier 11 near wall street out to the statue of liberty and then back up the Hudson back to where it came from.

We had good timing as it was daylight for the first loop of the trip down to the tip of manhattan with the sun starting to set just behind the statue of liberty as we headed up the east river with the lights coming on as we headed up going to full dark by the time we loop back around for the stop at wall street. It was night when we sailed out to the Statue of Liberty which is nicely illuminated and of course all the buildings were lit up for the final stretch back to it’s dock.

We got some wonderful views not sure how many good photos low light plus wave riding boat is not a setup conclusive to good sharp image photography. I think I got a few shots with some higher iso compromises but still it was wonderful to see and the timing meant it wasn’t too crowded.

We got off the boat and were told there was a free shuttle to 42nd street in the end it actually went to Times Square but close enough. Times Square was all lit up and blazing bright in the night it was quite spectacular to see.

After that we walked back to the bus terminal caught the bus back to New Jersey and grabbed some Chinese food for dinner which was pretty good and came in these little paper packages made to look like picnic baskets complete with metal handles. We went back home ate and then did some photo organizing before bed.

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