32 hours. Four timezones. Four cities. Three continents. One day. That has been the beginning of this odyssey to the good old US of A (and Canada of course). It all started of course back in Australia, leaving Melbourne and flying for 9 or so hours to the southern Chinese city of Gaungzhou for a stop over before continuing another 14 hours to Los Angeles from which we waited for our connecting flight to the big apple itself New York City.
We arrived at New York's John F Kennedy airport at around 8 am local time, current temperature, 1° Celsius! Welcome to the northern winter! We were both incredibly tired but this is New York City, the city that never sleeps, and our time here is only short so we decided that after checking into our hotel on the upper east side of Manhattan and taking the opportunity to freshen up, we'd put feet to pavement and explore the city with our final destination being Times Square.
I'd wager that on foot it's nearly impossible to get lost in New York, the streets are numbered so it's very easy to navigate. We started off by strolling the upper east side, wandering Lexington Avenue, Madison Avenue and 5th Avenue, home of companies such as Tiffany & Co. It is also where the famous toy store F.A.O. Swartz can be found. What makes it so well known? It's where the floor piano from the movie Big with Tom Hanks can be found. If you were wondering yes we did have a go on it and yes it was as much fun as it looks! It's the kind of store where if you had the means you could easily drop a couple of k there and still want to go back and buy more. From there it was on to my versions of crazy toy stores, the NBA & NHL stores. If you have little kids and are into basketball then the NBA uniform onesy's are very cool, ditto the mini hockey jerseys. We got chatting to one of the staff at the NHL store, a guy named Otto who had been to Australia and spent time in Sydney and Melbourne. One of the things that has really struck me about NYC is how friendly and helpful the people are. Yes there's the hustle and bustle of a city this size, but the average New Yorker takes great pride in their city and is more than happy to offer some good tips and advice to a couple of Aussie tourists of cool little spots that maybe off the tourist map.
Times Square really has to be seen in person to be believed. It's a symphony of lights and sound, constant colorful video images assaulting your eyes and colorful characters around the heart of the square. Our first stop was of course the Hersheys store and the M&M's store. As soon as you open the door the delightful aroma of chocolate hits you and is intoxicating. The range of products at the m&m's store in particular was immense. Pretty much anything you want can be found there branded with the logo or characters of the company. If you're a people watcher, Times Square would be your nirvana. The constant swell of people throws up some of the most bizarre people you'll see. We saw people dressed as spiderman & Mario, taking photos with tourists for tips. Elmo wasn't there this day.
Tipping is something quite bizarre and foreign to us as Australians, as is the sales tax situation here. If an item's shelf price is $24.00, you should expect to actually pay around the $27 mark. As for tipping, fair to say that that confused the hell out of us! Thank god we don't do it back home!
We finished our day with a stroll past well known landmarks as the Rockefeller Centre, Radio City Music Hall and the NBC Rainbow Room as we headed back to our hotel. It had been a long and crazy day, but so enjoyable. Let's see what you have to give us tomorrow New York.
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