Safe to say after our 42 hour journey from cairns we were a little jet lagged when we arrived. Completely flipping our sleep cycle. Anyways after a quick nap we forced ourselves to take the tube and go and see Central Park and Times Square. I can't believe the sheer size of central.! To think there's a park that size in such a built up city. And walking through it it didn't even feel like you were still in a city at all. That was one of the things that amazed me, the sheer size of the place. Manhattan alone would take about 30/45 minutes to get through by the subway, not even including Brooklyn, the Bronx, queens and surrounding areas. Another thing was I hardly felt like I was looking where I was going... Constantly looking up at all the buildings and all the sky scrapers. Such amazing building work around and throughout New York, not just buildings like the Rockefeller but places like Greenwich. A cool little suburb in Manhattan, with little cafes and restaurants, felt like a little hipster area.
On the second day we took the tube down into Brooklyn to walk back over Brooklyn bridge. Have to say all the bridges into New York are pretty impressive, not just the Brooklyn bridge. It took us over half an hour to walk from one side to the other. The sheer size of the thing was staggering. And also the number of tourists crossing didn't help much. At the other end embraced my inner tourist and had myself a hot dog from from one of the cheap hot dog carts. It was everything I imagined. Cheap and rubbery.. But had to be done.! After, we walked over to the ground zero site where all the world trade buildings are. Can't imagine how tall they must've been next to each other as they were twice the height as the surrounding buildings. At the base of both sites they've built two massive square fountains with everyone's names engraved around the side. Once they've finished building the new world trade centre the area will be really nice to visit and walk around.
After visiting the Statue of Liberty which was pretty impressive and taking a quick stroll down Wall Street we headed for the flatiron Building, famous for its unique design, a long thin building, could've only been 15m wide but about 50m in length. Anyway what we didn't know was that it was national gay day... Literally tens of thousand of people parading down the street on big kitted out floats, reminded me a lot of Nottinghill carnival with everyone dancing and music blaring. Although not everyone at nottinghill was dressed as rainbow unicorns or worse... Probably the most uncomfortable I've felt in a long time. Anyway it took us over an hour to walk about 5 blocks to this building, trying to get through everyone and most of the roads were roped off. Was worth it in the end, and not everyday you get to see something like that.!
Later we went to the Rockefeller centre and took the elevator up 100 or so floors.. And they thought having a glass roof would be a nice touch for the tourists... Not me.. Just glad it wasn't a glass bottom! The view from the top was amazing.! To see all the buildings lit up at night.! Although next time I'm in New York I'd do it in the day, easier to make out which buildings were which.!
Everyone said the subway in New York was a nightmare to navigate but after using it a couple of times it was pretty easy. Except not knowing a couple of times that certain trains either didn't run on a weekend or stopped after a certain time at night. Or knowing which side of the subway you should exit, coming out the wrong side could mean exit coming out 3 blocks a different exit to where you thought you should pop up.
I would definitely come again to New York. There's so much that we didn't get time to go see or properly explore. Like head up to the Bronx, see a little more of Brooklyn or even visit Coney Island. Got plenty of time for another visit.!