Saturday 15 June
Another breakfast in the hotel cafe was hard to resist given some of the kids meals are free! After a hearty meal, we walked the two blocks to Columbus Circle to enter Central Park. Three playgrounds are in short walking distance at that entrance, so the kids of course had to try them all. Little did they know they were peaking too early!
Central Park is another item on my bucket list. I was very impressed with it. Despite being in the middle of such a busy city that never sleeps, it was so relaxing. I could imagine spending time there just reading or people watching in the sun if I was a New Yorker. We walked parallel to 5th Avenue down past the Central Park Zoo (but kept going due to the cost of entry and crowds lined up waiting to get in), past the Metropolitan Museum and to the Jackie O reservoir. Having left our hotel on W57th we found ourselves at the park exit on W81st St!! Look it up on Google to see how far that was!! Legs aching, we bought bottles of water for everyone and turned around to make the trek back!
On the return trip, we stopped at Belvedere Castle (which is a lookout and weather station), walked through Strawberry Fields, and stopped at the Bethesda Fountain so Belle could sing the song performed there in her favourite movie, ‘Enchanted’. Strawberry Fields is a ‘quiet zone’ and right next to the Dakota Apartments where John Lennon lived and was assassinated in front of. I was surprised to learn Yoko Ono still lives there. There is a mosaic at the entrance to that section of Central Park with the word ‘Imagine’ in its centre.
We walked back across and up to the Park exit near 5th Avenue. I had a sneaky plan to visit Bergdorf Goodman and Tiffany & Co on 5th but had tired unwilling travel companions with me…*sigh*. So instead I took them all to FAO Schwarz, the legendary toy store. Tim and Sam missed dancing on the big piano made famous by Tom Hanks in ‘Big’ because they needed a restroom, but the other four lined up for their turn. As we left there it was after 2.30pm so we bought them all an icee/slushie and donut from Dunkin Donuts in lieu of lunch. The regular and healthy mealtimes continue!!
Actually it was part of a bribe to encourage them all to have an afternoon sleep as I managed to get tickets to Broadway for everyone for tonight. After dinner at 6pm in the hotel cafe (yep kids eat free again and the dinner meals are $4.89!), we strolled the 15 blocks to the Minksoff Theatre to see the 8pm performance of ‘The Lion King’. I did see it about a decade ago in Sydney, but it was well worth seeing, and EVERYone enjoyed it. I thought I was introducing the little kids to the story for the first time, until Belle told me in the restroom at intermission that she had watched it “on Moviebox in Australia one day when all the kids were at school”. That was not a proud parenting moment for me, as it means I wasn’t there to guide her through Mustafa’s death in the movie as I was for the older kids! As we only have the movie on VHS, I have promised the kids I will buy it for them on DVD after we are home. Seeing a Broadway show, also on my bucket list, was awesome and ticked off!
As we left the theatre, the crowds in the street were so deep we could not move, and FDNY and police had part of the road blocked off. We then discovered this was because Tom Hanks, appearing in another show by Nora Ephron, was leaving by the stage door and getting into a waiting car. That made the crowds understandable, even for Tim and Ross! And as Tom Hanks’ car drove away and the crowds thinned, I found myself standing next to an actress who played nurse Abby in ER (she married Dr Luca I think…name starts with M…Tinks, help me out here!!)
We then walked the 15 blocks home again. While we have felt quite safe here, we did overhear a couple at a set of lights calling Times Square on a Saturday night “pickpocket central”. Which does not help me in my efforts to get Ross to let me go to an off-Broadway play by myself tomorrow night!!