New York City 7/28 -- 8/1/2012 [New York Gallery] [Back to Photo Page] [Slide Show]

New York City is no doubt one of the greatest cities in the world.  It is the largest city in the U.S., and is an architectural marvel with plenty of historic monuments, magnificent buildings and countless dazzling skyscrapers. Besides the architectural delights, New York is an urban jungle that has everything to offer to visitors. The city is home to numerous museums, parks, trendy neighborhoods and shopping streets. From Statue of Liberty to Empire State Building, Wall Street to Times Square, 5th Ave to the Metropolitan Museum, everything is so "New York" that people can easily recognize them.

Getting there ...

We continued the trip from Toronto.  However, there was a storm around NYC, so our flight could not take off until it cleared up (we actually got on the plane, but were asked to get off to wait for further notice).  Although there was almost 2-hour delay, the kids had a good time at the airport.  When we got to LaGuardia Airport, the sky was gradually clearing up.  We decided not to rent cars in NYC, but rather to take public transportation around the city, which is a much more efficient way to travel in New York.  We also got 3-day New York Passes which allowed us to go to many attractions in NYC.

[Day 1/2] [Day 3/4/5]

Day 1 ...

• Times Square
  After we checked in the hotel (at 8th Ave and 43rd St) and had a quick dinner at Chiptole (my brother's family had never eaten Chiptole and enjoyed it so much they wanted to eat it again), we walked to the Times Square to experience the crowds in NYC. We stopped by at the M&M factory where my brother's daughter and Iris both customized their own M&M's. When we headed back to the hotel near mid-night, the streets were still busy and full of people.

Day 2 ...

• Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum
  Commissioned to service in 1943, the aircraft carrier USS Intrepid is now a wonderful museum and a National Historic Landmark parked at Pier 86.

• Water Taxi
  With new New York Pass, we got a free ride on the Water Taxi, which is located just beside the Intrepid at Pier 84.  We took the ride around the lower Manhattan, and got off at Fulton Ferry, Pier 1, DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) at the Brooklyn side.

• Brooklyn
  The skyline of New York from the Brooklyn side (just under the Brooklyn Bridge) is quite impressive. Unfortunately we did not have enough time to walk on the Brooklyn Bridge. 

• Rockefeller Center
  After lunch (...), we took Metro back to Manhattan.  Linus and I decided to go to MoMA while the others wanted to do some shopping on 5th Ave.  It was actually raining hard during the hour when we were inside MoMA (so it was not that lucky for the others who were doing shopping on the street...).
  We re-grouped and met at the Rockefeller Center at about 5:30PM, and went up to the Top of the Rock, which had an incredible view of the New York City especially when the sky finally cleared up after the afternoon shower.

• Yankee Stadium
  One of the special events for this trip was this Red Sox vs. Yankees baseball game.  Many of us were Yankee's fans for some time.  Visiting this new ballpark and watching this rivalry game was definitely an exciting experience.  Note: buying tickets for this game online was not so easy.  We had total 9 people, but there was a limit for max 8 tickets online purchase because Red Sox/Yankees games are considered as "premium" games, and group ticket minimum is 15.  It took me a while to get the tickets as I needed to buy them via a 3rd party website....

[Day 1/2] [Day 3/4/5]

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