Day 2 - New York!
We had a lovely swim
in the hotel pool before we got going into the city! Our hotel was on the opposite side of the
Hudson River in Jersey City so all the sites were across the river but it was
so cool looking over at the Manhattan skyline from our side of the river. So we were unhappy with the room with the
walkway and people peering into our room so we pack up our bags and request a
change of room. They will put us into a
different room when we are out!
Skyscraper on our side of the River Hudson if you look closely just left of the skyscraper you can see a pointy bit on the skyline that is the Statue of Liberty
The
distant view of Statue of Liberty
And
there we are the famous Manhattan skyline, amazing sight this is when we had a
reality check, we were actually in New
York!!
Jersey
City memorial to all victims of 9/11
Memorial
to all Jersey City people who lost their lives on 9/11. On this memorial was a picture of the skyline
before 9/11 with the twin towers showing.
Looking at the skyline the tallest building there with the spire to the
right of it there is a gap that is where the twin towers stood (just above
Amy’s elbow) and that is where the memorial pools are now. We are heading to the 9/11 memorial next
The
PATH train is closed at weekends during 2014 so at the weekends you need to
take the ferry across the Hudson River, pretty cool way to see more scenery
Towards uptown
skyline from the ferry port with the tallest building in the photo being the Empire State
Building
Manhattan skyline
The
buildings appearances change with the clouds and the sky ever changing,
beautiful and mesmerising
Our hotel
We
are off the ferry now and walking to the 9/11 Memorial which was a 5 minute
walk
We didn’t have
supplies in the room for breakfast so we stopped at a 24 hour bagel shop for
brunch. Colin had the best bagel so far
on our Big Holiday Adventure I am sure there will be more opportunities for
bagels on our way!! And for pudding the
biggest muffin ever seen, it was scrummy!!
The
gap where the twin towers once stood
This is the North
Pool memorial. The names of every
person who died in the 2001 and 1993 attacks are inscribed into bronze panels
edging the Memorial pools, nearly 2,983 people on 9/11 and 6 from the World Trade
Centre bombing in February 1993. This
is a bit strange that I took this photo of this specific section I have just searched
to see which pool this was and found that this is the start of the names for
the Marsh employees (Colin’s previous employer ooooh that feels a bit weird
typing that, previous employer as Colin has worked with Marsh since 2000 when
we left Aberdeen to go to Bermuda and then subsequently in the Isle of
Man). Plaques number 3-12 are all Marsh
employees names on the memorial all 295!!
It was a very sombre and humbling experience to visit the memorial and
took Colin and I right back to where we both were right at the moment when the
aeroplanes struck the twin towers. It
felt weird trying to explain to Amy what happened on that day and the impact it
had on everyone especially airport security as that is all that Amy has known
and ever experienced at airports. Amy
just couldn’t comprehend how some people could be bad enough to kill so many
people and themselves but I suppose that is what we all wonder too about
terrorist attacks!
The
Memorial’s twin reflecting pools are each nearly an acre in size and feature
the largest manmade waterfalls in North America. The pools sit within the
footprints where the Twin Towers once stood, wow!!
Building
works going on right next to the sight.
The curve building is going to be the new PATH station and is part of
the regeneration of the World Trade Centre area
It is Fleet Week this week in New York so the Navy
have docked and have let the public onto the ships to have a look around for
free. Some navy crew paying their
respects at the South pool
The regeneration of the World Trade Centre is to
consist of 5 new buildings to replace the 7 that were lost at 9/11. This is the One World Trade Centre, Freedom
Tower which has now become the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere
standing at 1,776 feet tall and is the new icon for the Manhattan skyline. One World Trade Centre is also the fourth
tallest skyscraper in the world. It has
104 stories compared to the 110 of the twin towers but is higher than the twin
towers due to its spire on the top. This
building is due to be opened in September this year with an observatory deck at
levels 100-102.
We
thought we would ask someone to take a photo of us in front of the One World
Trade Centre but they didn’t do a great job really as we have only a section of
the skyscraper!!
The
Silverstein Park dedicated to those who survived 9/11 – a balloon flower
FBI
headquarters
Different
view of One World Trade Centre
We
headed to St Paul’s Chapel, the sign says it all really
Inside
the chapel, the chapel is now a museum to 9/11 as this was where the workers
slept during the rescue and clean-up of ground zero
The
beds the workers slept on after their 12 hour shifts on ground zero. The sign said they all made up their beds
ready for the next people to sleep after their 12 hour shifts as the beds were
used constantly and they always placed a teddy on the bed
The outside of St Paul’s Chapel, not the best view
but the only one I could get due to the trees around the chapel
We
then walked along Broadway!
911
Emergency, how can I help you? Can you fix my car please!?!
View
down Broadway looking onto One World Trade Centre and St Paul’s chapel spire
We jumped on the Hop On Hop Off Bus tour next to see all the sights of New York or atleast try and see the sights!
The
Charging Bull or the Wall Street Bull surrounded by tourists!
The
National Museum of the American Indian
Wall
Street
Sneaky
view of Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridge
Under
the Brooklyn Bridge
Manhattan
Bridge
Chinatown
Down a
street with the yellow taxis
A food
supply for the less fortunate on the corner of this street, lovely looking food
and a very long queue of people
Looking
across the river
The Trump World Tower, one of the many!
Weird
and wonderful shaped skyscrapers
Street Festival
The
Waldorf Astoria Building on the left looking onto the Helmsley Hotel all on
Park Lane
The
Rockefeller Centre with an observatory on the 70th floor
Do you
think that we are in America??
Fountain
next to a café in the Rockefeller Centre
We have spied a Lego shop!!! Let’s compare the Atlas sculpture with the
real thing in a few photo’s time!
Amy spending some of her US Dollar’s on
Lego!! Fill the tub up for $15.99 plus
TAX!
New
York Statue of Liberty magnet, tub of lego = one happy girl
And
the real thing!!!
Looking
down to the Empire State building
And
guess where we have found!!!!
Amy's favourite shop Build-a-Bear or Rip off Ron shop!!!
And
here we go let’s get the bear stuffed!!
Getting
our New York Build-a-bear dressed
How
cute, meet Yorkie! We were in the
biggest Build-a-Bear in the world!! Amy
was in her element but just not sure Colly was ha ha!!! There are two stores out of the 12 in New
York that sell a New York bear and we are in one of them so we had to get the
bear for New York with an apple nose and New York City written on her paw,
really cute and we had to buy New York City t-shirt set too!!!
And then the heaven’s opened, no thunder or
lightening thankfully just RAIN!!
As we are walking along and we spy a camera shop,
as you can see from the blog my camera is showing the strain of taking all the
photos and my battery isn’t holding its charge the same either. So I convinced Colin that I could get a new
camera for my birthday as I think our pennies will be tight in September!! The girls are happy as I now have my new
camera, woop woop!!! The best bit was I
got it cheaper than the UK and I got a discount as it is Memorial Day weekend,
happy happy!!! New camera and Yorkie = two happy girls XXX
This street is nicknamed Bed pan alley, just rows and rows of hospitals and dental hospitals,
made me chuckle!!
So we
go along and see Despicable Me characters and Elmo so Amy stops and gets a
photo then the hands are out to get some money from them, oh what so we hand
over a couple of dollars in change but they want dollar notes instead of change
and all 3 of them want something in their hands, gosh didn’t realise that was
going to happen!!! There were other
people wanting money for photograph’s too like a guy with only his American Y
fronts on showing his muscles with his guitar singing to his heart’s content, a
few Elmo’s, Batman, Catwoman, a naked lady only with a thong on but she was
painted all over with the American flag as Amy said ‘she is showing her
boobies!’ and the guy got ‘that looks a bit wrong for playing the
guitar!’. Thankfully we saw them after
the rain as the paint I don’t think would have been waterproof!!
Times
Square selfie!
We headed to Hard Rock Café but then we arrived
and found out that the waiting time for a table was going to be 1 and a half to
two hours, oh my gosh we are hungry now didn’t realise we had to plan that far
in advance for our tea!!
Here we are we have made it back on the subway to
our ferry stop. Skyline where our hotel
is Jersey City
Our
hotel the Hyatt
Beautiful
Manhattan skyline
Beautiful xxx
So we
changed rooms from this morning as we were on the first floor and we were right
on the walkway outside so we asked to change so we could sit with the curtains
up and enjoy the view without people looking in! So here is our new view with the Empire State
Building spire lit up
I went
out for a wander to capture the night-time skyline looking at the Empire State
Building
Night-time
skyline of Manhattan
Our hotel pool that when you swim up the way you
look over the Manhattan skyline! I
forgot my camera in the morning so thought I would photograph the pool when
no-one was in it!
I got back to the room and Colin and Amy were both
snoring!!! Time for my bed too!!!!
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