Sightseeing in NY

Today was a day that Claire and I spent going sightseeing in NY. I wanted to see the Falls of New York display which are a series of man made water falls that were put in the East River by some artist. The best way to see this of course is from the water so I booked us some tickets on the Water Taxi in South Street Seaport. The actual challenge was getting TO South Street Seaport. The Seaport is all the way downtown near city hall and I got a little lost. On the way there, we did end up running into Pace University New York where Claire picked up a t-shirt. That stop was totally not planned but it was cool to actually go and Claire also was able to get a student discount even though she hasn’t been a student in a while now.

After getting my bearings we made it to South Street Seaport just fine. For those of you unfamiliar with South Street Seaport, it’s a mall on Pier 17 on the island of Manhattan. The area used to be a major market place for getting fresh fish. This recently changed and most of the actual fish market has left and gone to the Bronx or something like that. There has always been a shopping center there and I also used to enjoy the food too so I was hoping that this experience would be no different. Well anyway I digress, I did get the tickets to the NY Water Taxi since not only would they show the Falls of NY but it would also go right up to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty so I could get some good pictures of that. For me the next part is the funny part in this little adventure. I didn’t expect to see a lot of people going sightseeing on Friday morning, it is Friday morning after all! Well lo and behold, Claire and I get sucked into a tourist group. And this isn’t just any tourist group it’s a tourist group from China! I haven’t seen so many Asians in one group in a long time and the fact that they were Chinese made it all the funnier to me. You can tell that some of these guys were from the motherland, they brought out their best 1970’s era polyester and up to your man boobs pants just for the trip to NY. I guess it was fine because I was able to blend in with everyone else there and for once not be in the minority.

I got some really good pictures of the Statue of Liberty, some decent ones of Ellis Island and a lot of good ones of each of the falls and the 3 different bridges that we went under while on the NY Water Taxi. The cool part is that I didn’t get sea sick and throw up over the edge. I have a little bit of sea sickness so I’m not big on boats but this was one of the experiences that you just had to have while in NYC. It was funny to see all the little Chinese people running around the boat with their cameras taking pictures of just about everything. I know I was right there with them so I didn’t feel like a dork doing it as well. We stayed out on the water for about an hour or so and I have lots of pictures as proof. After we got off the boat we headed into the mall. One of the reasons that I love NY is that I can actually get raw clams on the half shell. For some reason I can’t get this down in Florida so I have no choice but to go northward in order to have one of my favorite foods. I of course had Claire take a picture of me eating them. I only had half a dozen but that was more than enough to sate my appetite. Claire had a bubble drink which is a drink we first encountered in Hawaii and we have been lucky enough to find it in other places.

Well that takes care of Friday morning, but it was Friday afternoon that was going to be special. One of the events that I think every visitor should do is High Tea at the Plaza Hotel. I consider this one of the high points of our trip. We even got all dressed up for it and walked the 10 blocks or so to the Plaza. Now the Waldorf is a nice hotel but the Plaza just totally kicks its ass in almost every way. Too bad its not a Hilton property, I would have totally stayed there instead of the Waldorf. You couldn’t even take pictures with the flash on your camera so as not to damage environment and the mood in the hotel. Now that’s classy! LOL! OK, now on to the tea part. There is a specific area where tea is held and we read that you should dress up a bit for it. So of course I’m in my business attire minus jacket and Claire is looking awesome in her dress. The chairs were nice and comfy, the china looked totally expensive, and there was even a harp player in the middle of the room. Some of the people weren’t dressed all that well so we put on our CT snooty noses and made fun of them for being so craptacular in such a fabulous setting. The neat thing about high tea is that the only thing you really need to choose is the actual tea blend that you want to sip on. The rest of the food is included in the price that you’re paying. The tea is brewed in a lovely china pot and they give you lots of cream and sugar to flavor it further if you so choose. I chose to only add sugar to mine but I did try it cream, just to give it that British zing. I can’t remember what the food was that we had but it was at least 3-4 different courses. It wasn’t a meal really, it was all finger food but since Claire and I got two different pots of tea, we each got our own trays of finger foods. I didn’t know how long tea would actually last but from the time we started to the time we finished, it took over two hours to finish all the tea and all the finger foods that came our way. The service was excellent, the man was attentive without being overly so. He would probably take glances of us to make sure everything as ok and cleared up plates and everything when we were just about done but also had some time to have some conversation and such between ourselves. Overall, a grand experience which I wouldn’t mind doing again in 10 years or so, maybe by then the menu would have changed.

The final spot that we did our sightseeing was at the lovely Empire State Building (which we walked to since we had to burn some calories after having high tea). In all my years of living up north in CT I never once went to the top of the Empire State building. It was just one of those things that you sort of take for granted when you’re living so close to NY. The building is there so I don’t really need to see it any time soon but when you move away you start to think of all the little touristy things that you should have done just to experience them. I bought the tickets to go to the Empire State Building before we even embarked on our trip to NYC so I was well prepared to go to the top. What was kind of surprising was the number of lines that we had to pass through and these lines weren’t short by any means. There is the security line, then the ticket line, then the line to go all the way up the elevator to the 86^th floor which is where the observation deck is. Now this is the part that slightly annoyed me and Claire about this part of the trip, we actually got stuck with another group of freakin tourists and this time they were French. CRAP! I have found during my time waiting in lines at various amusement parks and other major tourist attractions that people from Europe and people from North America have very different concepts of “personal space”. There was a family of four behind us in line and they were literally right up my ass. The father of the group kept on hitting my sneakers with his feet. His wife was no different to me and kept on trying to push us forward. The kids were alright, I assumed they were in their teens. The son I thought was hilarious, he looked like a girl! Well since they kept on bumping me, I shielded Claire as best I could from them and we started to play a little game to make sure they didn’t progress as fast as they wanted. Whenever we had to make a turn in the line, I would take the inside track and Claire would take the outside one to prevent them from coming right beside us in line or attempt to cut. To top it off we did it EXTRA slow so there was a nice gap in front of us so we had some breathing space. I know this annoyed our little friends and they kept on trying to push and we would just stand there and do nothing. Ahh how I love annoying tourists from the European continent. My major point about personal space is that we’re all in the same freakin line, no matter how much you try and push and force others to go forward, there is a shit load of people before me and we’re not going to get there any faster, so rather than ride up my ass and make me mad, back off a little, talk to the family and enjoy the wonders that is the line to get to the top of the Empire State Building. We got to the top of the building and we were able to take some pretty good pictures from the top of the building. We decided to stay there till dusk so we could get some sunset shots as well. Overall I think we spent about 2 hours roaming the deck and taking different pictures of different areas of the city. We had every intention of going to a comedy club that night but we were just too tired and instead of taking the subway back we thought, to hell with it lets just try and walk it. Man that wasn’t the best idea we’ve had to date but even though we missed the comedy club, the next day would be awesome since it would be our day in CT.