New York Days 1 & 2

The first two days in New York has been very busy. Before we left NZ we purchased NY Passes which included three days use of the Hop on, Hop off bus.

The first day started at around 0800hrs with a walk up to catch the bus for the Down Town Tour. The tour takes around three hours but is a good way of checking out what you want to do as it goes past all the top attractions and the tour guides give you good ideas as well.

Other than Times Square, which we did on the first night we were here, out first attraction was the Rockefeller Centre, Top of the Rock, which tested our fear of heights. This building has 70 floors, the 70th, 69th and 68th floors are all observation decks. The 70th floor has 360 deg views of all the Boroughs of New York and was just amazing! The lift takes 45 second to reach the 68th floor.

Then it was a walk back to the hotel to drop off our purchases and to have lunch. We then walked back up to the bus to take the Up Town tour of Upper East and West, Harlem and Central Park. Upper West Side we saw many very expensive properties including the building where John Lennon was shot and where Yoko Ono still lives. On the way back down Madison Ave (Upper East Side), at around E 72th Street Jude and I got off the bus and walked back through Central Park to the Brooklyn Diner for dinner then it was onto Madame Tussaud's to get up close with some celebrities.

After all this we were bloody shattered and headed for home and a cup of tea and then bed.

Day 2 started a little later at around 1000hrs. Again we headed for the bus at around 1100hrs to go down to Battery Park to catch the Staten Island Ferry for a close up look at Ellis Island, the Statue of Liberty and Govenor's Island.

Back on terra firma we headed for ground zero. This is the memorial to all those people that died during 9/11 and Feb 26, 1993 terrorist attacks and has been erected on the site where the twin towers of the World Trade Centre stood. The queue here was long and the security the same as the airports but it didn't take long to get inside the park to have a look. The one thing that Jude and I have both noticed is the amount of police about the streets and the amount of security cameras. We have been told that NY is now the safest city in America; we certainly feel safe and not afraid to move about the streets during the day or night.

After the WTC Memorial it was a short walk back to the bus to return to the hotel and put our feet up for a well earned rest.