New York-Monday

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Monday morning we continued our 'hop-on hop-off sightseeing tour', this time we did the Uptown Loop and it stopped at Central Park West, Lincoln Center, Dakota Apartments, Grant's Tomb (- also where the bus conveniently broke down! A replacement bus sent out to rescue the poor stranded tourists roasting in the hot sun!), The Museum Mile and Fith avenue, I'm sure there were other points of interest that I missed, anyway this Loop wasn't as exciting as the previous two trips we did..but still worthwhile doing.

It was the 18th annual 'TASTES OF TIMES SQUARE' festival where all the top restaurants in Times Square serve up their favorite dishes, so they close off a section of the road, squeeze in some 34 'mini kitchens' and then squash in a few thousand people and there you have it 'a la chaos'! and us greedy gutso's that had to try and eat something. Some of the participating restaurants were Applebees, Bluefin, Planet Hollywood, The View at New York Marriott Marquis, Ruby Voo's, Pomairre, Dervish, Hard Rock Cafe, Dave and Busters...only to name a few...
We each bought 5 tokens for $5 and then went to a 'favorite' Restaurant stand, (or just anyone you manage to find), stand in line, (or conveniently 'line-jump' or people-bash your way through) and then pick out something you would realy like to eat, (just take what is in front of you- face it..you are not going to make it to another stand) and then hand over your token (or in our case all your tokens! we thought 1 token = 1 meal..duh!).. With our 10 tokens we managed to buy 2x pulled beef sliders (mini burgers), 2x baklava and 1x bottle of water.. not bad considering some only came out with only 1 item or just a double choc-chip cookie filled with ice cream or cream, mmmmm....but I must admit the chocchip cookie option does sound better!

We then went to The Rockefeller Center to see the sunset from Top Of The Rock.. The three level observation deck is on the 70th floor (about 260m/ 850ft above sea level) and offers a 360 deg unobstructed view of New York. This gave us a real idea of just how huge Central Park and actually the whole of New York is. It was a bit hazy and photos aren't so clear but it was still a gorgeous view.
We went up when it was still light and then watched the sunset so that we could have photos of the day time, sunset and the city lights at night. It was a little full but not so bad that we couldn't find a good spot. It really was the best time to go for what we wanted.

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