NYC 2016

From muggy Florida, our next trip was to New York City where the forecast was cold and rainy, waaa. This was one of our biggest challenges in our trip, the change in weather.

We were going to be in NYC for 4 days. Too short, we know. When we landed in Newark, it was raining. We were supposed to take one of the Circle Line Sightseeing Cruises as soon as we arrived but we were sure we won't be able to see anything with the rain. Hence, we decided to bond with hubby's uncle and aunt in Queens before checking into the Courtyard by Marriott-Chelsea.

We arrived at the hotel at around 6PM. After freshening up, we decided to go to the Empire State Building after checking Google Maps and seeing that it was a 15-minute walk. We were freezing though! We were there at past 9PM, it was windy and cooold. The upside is that there are no long lines but there were still people coming in even when we left close to midnight.

By the way, SIL bought us New York Passes so we can skip long lines.

Sooo cooold.

My shots are taken with my iPhone 6 only. 

With a heavy toddler, I no longer attempted to bring my own camera.

The next day, we were off to the sightseeing cruises. I think we took the Landmark Cruise because it was the one available when we arrived. It ran for 1.5 hours. You can buy food inside the ship. You can go out the deck to take pictures, but again, it was freezing. P and I went out for a few minutes for photos.

 

It was lunch time when we finished with the cruise and the plan was to go to Times Square. We were Google Maps-ing during the cruise, and I saw that there was a Shake Shack nearby. There was a loong line when we got there but it was not a long wait for the food. However, we failed to get seats together and just sat where we could haha. Hubby, FIL and hubby's uncle were not even able to sit down, I think, haha. Later on in California, we got to try In-N-Out, I think the latter was yummier.

Times Square

It was a bit surreal to me to be in Times Square. I know it's a tourist trap but it's so iconic. There was a Sephora right there and P and I ducked inside to defrost haha, but I was not able to go around, boo hoo.

Then, we went on a walkathon along Fifth Avenue to Central Park.

Rockefeller Plaza

H's uncle told us that St. Patrick's Cathedral is nearby, and as we rounded the corner to Fifth Avenue, it was like BAM! there it is. Or, more like, "WHOA!" We literally sucked in our breath when we saw it. It's a pretty church in pictures but seeing it in person for the first time was just jaw-dropping. We went inside for a few minutes to say our prayers. I even breastfed P there for a bit, heehee.

St. Patrick's Cathedral

Yaya's day-out infront of Tiffany & Co.

Apple Store Fifth Avenue

Horse carriage and birds in NYC

So, we finally arrived at Central Park. However, our companions were tired from all the walking so they did not want to enter the park. Hubby and I spied a bridge and we thought that was the famous bridge in most movies set in New York (i.e., Spiderman) so we said we'll just take pictures there.

Turns out that the bridge we saw was Gapstow Bridge but the famous one is Bow Bridge, haha. The boulders fascinated hubby because of the indications of glacial activity in the area, hence, this picture.

How cute is my baby here?!

Our companions settled far from us so we did not know how we could take a complete picture of us. I prodded hubby to approach someone sitting nearby, and it turned out she was Pinoy, yay! She begged off though, and called her niece who was better daw with pictures. Thank you, kababayans!

So, hubby wanted to try an authentic NYC hotdog and decided to buy from this cart outside Central Park. There was no menu or indication of prices but he just went ahead and ordered one. He got the shock of his life when he learned it was $20.00, haha. There goes our food budget.

SO. I just read this and I conclude that hubby was scammed. Yikes. 

Hubby's uncle then brought us to Jackson Heights to have dinner at Ihawan, a famous Filipino restaurant in the area.

The next day, we went back to the Rockefeller to go to up the Top of the Rock. We were supposed to go up the previous day and use our New York Passes. However, there's a need to reserve the slots pa rin pala and you can only line up minutes right before your slot. Anyhoo, just another cold spring day in NYC.

Top of the Rock

Our next stop was the Museum of Modern Art to see Vincent Van Gogh's The Starry Night.

How my toddler feels about The Starry Night. :P

It was a rainy day so we just took quick photos at the 9/11 Memorial site.

We also made sure to visit the Grand Central Terminal. It made me want to put on a dress with a petticoat, cinched in the waist, curl my hair and tote a suitcase. Haha. Why can't our train stations look like this???

 

That night, hubby, SIL and I were off to the Eugene O' Neill Theater to watch The Book of Mormon. So, there was quite a funny story (in hindsight) here. We were leaving the two kids with the grandparents and we had to buy them dinner before leaving. We also planned to take a train to the theater. However, as life is with kids, the schedule went haywire and we could no longer take the train. At first we decided to Uber, but then a yellow cab dropped off a passenger infront of our hotel. So we boarded it and told him we had to make the 8:00 P.M. show. We got a taste of NYC cab-style of driving we see in the movies but it was traffic. We were afraid that the theater doors will close on us. The kind driver let us off a street near the theater and told us to run, and we did! Waaa. There was still a long line going on though, a few minutes after 8:00 P.M.

I was surprised to see that this theater was small. I expected a humongous theater haha.

 

So funny!

We didn't have time to eat dinner before the musical. We wanted to try The Halal Guys but it was less than 10 degrees celsius after the show so we settled for a nearby Sbarro. The pizza slices were huge! 

Our hotel was near Madison Square Garden and I discovered that there was a Magnolia Bakery in Penn Station. However, there were out of the famous Vanilla Cupcake so we got the chocolate ones. The cake was okay, the frosting was delish.

We were up early the next day to catch another plane. It was a short but sweet trip, we missed a lot of landmarks and food hehe. I hope we can go back in this lifetime.

Bye, NYC. It's been real... really cold! :D