We began today with breakfast in the cafe in the hotel where we are staying. Not only convenient, but a free kids meal for each adult meal, and kids’ meals come with juice or milk and only cost $3.89.
We then enquired at the concierge booking desk for a recommendation of a sightseeing bus. There are several to choose from and all have salesmen standing around Times Square and surrounding streets trying to coax you onto their bus. The concierge recommended Skyline, an orange bus that has only been operating for the last month and has some introductory pricing for their hop on hop off tour. We bought a downtown loop, walked the 15 blocks to Times Square where the tour began and spent the next two hours enjoying the scenery and commentary. We “hopped off” at Ground Zero where I had reserved visitor passes to the 9/11 memorial for 1pm.
The 9/11 memorial is a powerful place. The reflection pools where the North and South towers stood are the largest man-made falls in North America. Despite the massive crowds the place is quite serene. I spent a lot of time explaining in hushed tones what had happened here to the kids, seeing as Tim was only 6 months old at the time and the younger ones haven’t heard about it. We walked past a woman crying who had just left a flower and happy birthday message on top of the name of someone listed at the North pool. That was quite confronting for the kids and really brought home to them that people had died here.
Wall St is on the next block, so everyone humoured me by walking down that street. Jarrod refused to get in any photo with me though in case he was called “nerdy”…oh please, as if a photo on Wall St will be the cause of that!… The New York Stock Exchange is sadly not open to the public, and is heavily protected by security and police. Actually, the police and security presence is large and obvious throughout the Financial District area. We then walked past Tiffany and Co – alas, a photo of the front door was all I was allowed to get. Ross couldn’t walk past there fast enough!
We then hopped back on the bus to get back to the Empire State Building. Another worthwhile touristy thing to do – we started with a “Skyride” which was a little documentary about NY and the building’s history and then went up to the 86th floor observation deck. Zac and I both felt quite queasy from the Skyride, which was a virtual tour on a screen in front of you while you were moved around in your seat. They are updating the ride, which sounds great – next time I am in NY someone can tell me how the ride has changed – I won’t be experiencing it again!
From there we wandered back up to Times Square for dinner. The boys have been wanting “Five Guys Burgers and Fries” for dinner since we arrived in the US, based on some hilarious YouTube video everyone bar me has seen. While I couldn’t enjoy the joke, I had to admit the burgers were delicious. Our long walk home took us through Hell’s Kitchen which was an interesting experience.
One thing we are not doing well with is keeping regular hours and regular mealtimes! After only having two meals yesterday and the day before, we assured the kids at breakfast at 8.30am our regularity and organisation would improve…..until the 9/11 memorial took so long we didn’t get to lunch until 2.45pm, and the Empire State Building timing meant dinner wasn’t until 8.30pm!! It just takes so long to get around this city, and while everyone is in a hurry, tourists just can’t be. There are 8.3 million people in the 5 boroughs, and Times Square is apparently the most visited tourist destination on the planet. That’s ok though, it’s all worth it! 🙂