WOW...! Is the only word needed for the Big Apple, New York New York...amazing.

We were no longer backpackers in this city, nope, we were flashpackers as we checked into our 5* Marriott Hotel in the middle of Times Square...for free!! Yep, on the rewards that dave won last year, we decided to treat ourselves on our last few nights travelling - even having the all day breakfast ($60) included as well! Check in did take a little longer as usual as the receptionist looked at us like tramps before disappearing into the back room for 10mins to check our vouchers were actually real! Smug.

After a few trips up and down the see through glass elevators we stepped into the night life of Times Square. It was about 1am in the morning, but it could have easily been daylight with all the lights illuminating the sky from the neon signs and after grabbing a quick bite to eat we headed back to the hotel and crashed.

The following 2 days we could have probably walked about 20miles. Unfortunately with it being Christmas the weather was terrible with thick white snow falling everywhere. We visited the Christmas Tree at the Rockafella Centre and looked from above at the Ice Skating Rink, Statue of Liberty (which we couldnt see due to the snow storm), Macy's, Empire State Building (which again, we couldnt see the top of due to the weather) drove past central park, caught a yellow cab, and of course met up with the guys we met on Tioman Island, John, Maddie and Greg - cant believe it's been over 6 months since we last saw them!

Of course, we tasted our first ever proper American Hot Dog - well it was that good we got 2!! Had an original New York Cheesecake and ate pizza.

After getting a little bit drunk on our last night and depressingly celebrating the end of our year rtw trip we finally set off home, well this is after we sat on the runway at JFK for going on 3 hours waiting for our plane to defrost!!