For quite sometime, I was longing to go on the double-deckered bus and visit the whole of newyork in a single day. We had been to all the places of interest before. Yet visiting them in a 2 days trip is different.
On the first day..
Got up lil late. We had plans from 8:00Am.. But we cudnt start that early. Slowly we got ready and left to the starting node of the trip - to the grayline service hop on point for the uptown loop.
I thought the uptown loop wudnt interest us much as we had planned for some museums and art galleries. But to my amazement, i enjoyed the first day trip a lot. The bus moved thru the street towards the colombus center - Only from this point the distance from newyork to any part of the world is calculated. Our guide, an afro american, spoke in a very clear tone, explaining a lot bout a lot of buildings in the city. Thru the streets around broadway our bus moved slowly that we cud take a lot of snaps. We passed the Lincoln center, the art school. Robin Williams had come from that school. Lot of people took snaps of the lincoln center. We crossed the Natural History Museum.
We had plans to go to Jewish Museum, but we werent in a good mood to get down there. Our guide told us a lot of stories about the most expensive apartments in the world, the Dakota apartments.. He listed all the celebrities living there. He pointed to one of the building and said Merryl Streep is in that apt. I am a big fan of Merryl Streep, so i cud recollect only her name from the looong list he gave.
The driver maneuvered the bus along the central park streets. Flabbergasted by the beaty of this man made park, I stared at the arboreal landscape with silent prayers to stay in this beautiful city for ever. Newyork may be one of the largest and populous city, may be the city with largest vehicle population. But cannot be compared with Chennai in pollution and population. Everytime me and my hubby talk about America and India, we inevitably feel jealous of residents of America for keeping the city clean. I live near a park in NJ and we go for a walk everyday. Its very refreshing. We chat all the way to the park and strut in the park for a while making our evenings very pleasent. I stayed at much closer distance to Natesan park in Chennai. Never felt like going everyday. This city is clean. I feel healthier everyday breathing in a clean air. Ok.. Back to the trip. Central park is man made and out of seven lakes in it only one is natural. Central Park covers 843 acres, which is 6% of Manhattan and is very well maintained. Still i heard the guide saying - 'Children in NewYork is not having enuf parks to play'. I wondered what we are going to do for the children of Chennai.
We crossed the conservatory garden.. Kinda started to feel hungry.. The very thought of my puliodharai and Vazhaikai podimas kindled my hunger. We had plans to go to the Metropolitan museum of art.
I had some preconceived notion about museums. Thought nobody will be interested to have a glimpse at the baubles that are centuries old. And the only reason i acceded to stop by the museum is coz its free for our credit card. But to my surprise, the entrance of the museum was overcrowded. We went to central park to finish of our lunch. Such a calm environment gave a romantic touch to our lunch. We took some snaps there. We decided to spend one full day at the central park on a later date.
Metropolitan museum of art was nowhere near my idea of a museum. It had an exquisite collection of knickknacks from various civilizations. By the time we finished the egyptian civilization, my legs didnt budge to move further. Still we forced ourselves thru the Victorian and American art galleries. We missed the Greek and Roman though. Final visit to the museum gift shop hoping to buy some souvenir. Nothing was affordable. I liked one Ganesha idol, worth may be aroud 350 Rs, sold at $350.. The Price kept a check on my urge to buy Ganesh idols whenever i see them.
Night tour...
We hopped on our bus to continue on our NY tour. Next the night loop. Near times square we hopped off to have a veggie delight at the nearest subway. I liked subway veggie delights with honey mustard.. Hunger free, we started on our next journey. NY is excellent in the night. Timesquare- empire state - Manhattan bridge - brooklyn - Manhattan bridge again - back to time square - this is the night loop. Bunny was testing the our camera performance in the night effect. Got some nice snaps.
Around 11:oo PM, we took a train and reached home. Exhausted physically, but with a sense of achievement mentally - donno why - our first day of NY trip comes to an end.
Will continue about the second day trip in my next post..
I posted some snaps on my foto blog
http://colorfoto.blogspot.com
