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Published: April 19th 2022
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Times Square
Makes Piccadilly Circus look a bit crap. I was, again, awake extremely early, but I couldn't face heading anywhere too far away, so I just popped out to the nearby Times Square for some early morning photographs . It's surprisingly difficult to get decent pictures of, given how bright the screens are. I gave it up as a bad job once I had been asked for money once too many times. Given the time in the morning, it was surprisingly busy.
My daughter is a Starbucks fan so we went there for coffees and then (sadly) to McDonalds for some breakfast. The lady supervising the seating area was not impressed when we tried to get past with our Starbucks coffees.
We then walked along Park Lane to look around some shops, including a browse in Tiffany's (I was justifiably concerned) and the very impressive underground Apple Store, with its huge glass cube beside Central Park. My wife and I had a walk around Central Park whilst our son and daughter did their own thing. They're now old enough to make their own way round New York, which is actually quite easy given the grid of numbered streets and avenues.
The park is certainly well used,
Apple Store
The glass tube entrance to the Apple Store near Central Park. with walkers, cyclists, scooterists, skateboarders, horse carriages and all manner of other ways of getting around. A downside of the carriages is an intermittent smell of horse shit, although that did actually make a pleasant change from the ever-present smell of weed.
We spotted some turtles basking in the sun by the lake.
Another one of our favourites is the Flatiron Building - the one that looks too thin to be for real if you view it from the right angle. Sadly, it was covered in scaffolding, which was a big disappointment. We walked back along Broadway to Times Square and our hotel, where we met back up with our son and daughter. She had had what she called "a very successful" day of shopping, which was slightly worrying. Fortunately it was mainly clothes and make-up, and did not involve a return to Tiffany's.
We went to the Hard Rock Cafe on Times Square for something to eat. They were fully booked with an hour to wait, that is until my wife said whatever it is she says and they managed to fit us in near the bar. I wasn't sure what beer to order, so I
Tiffany & Co.
Time to be worried. pointed to someone else's on the bar. Unfortunately, that was Miller Light, so I had to quickly back track and think of another beer to order.
We saw some screens with what looked like live feeds from other Hard Rock Cafes around the world, including Moscow which was surprising as we would not expect it to still be open. We realised that it was obviously not a live feed, given that it was daylight and it about 5.00am in Moscow.
I think they managed to fit us in because we had promised to be quick as we had booked to go to a new viewing platform called the Edge, which is in the newly developed Hudson Bay area.
Again, we had aimed to get their for sunset, but this time we did not have the express passes, so sunset was well and truly over by the time we got up there. It wasn't helped by the compulsory stop for a green screen "experience photo" - does anyone actually buy those? The viewing platform is actually on an extension that juts out of the side of the building and part of it has a glass floor to look
Turtles
The turtles, lake and skyline in Central Park. down on the ground below.
We noticed that a lot of the buildings are lit-up in the blue and yellow of the Ukrainian flag.
My daughter had bought a cocktail glass from the Hard Rock Cafe, which we managed to drop and break, although they very kindly replaced it for free.
We got back to Times Square and the "hop-on, hop-off" bus touts and switched over to pushing comedy shows. There were also a lot of people queuing for all the various Broadway shows, which we hadn't considered as we're so uncultured!
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