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Published: August 14th 2009
NY - Few Days of Wandering! 08-12-2009
By: Aref Hareb
IF you raise your head up to the sky, and the buildings are blocking the sun. If you are walking as fast as you can and you feel that you are too slow. If you are looking for a place to sit at and find no place but the side walks. If you take a look at the streets and you find that the “Yellow Cars” are covering them, then you are definitely in the middle of the Big Apple, New York City!
I planned to visit NY in the summer of 2008 and discover the most exciting city on earth. The plan was to stay there for 6 nights, unfortunately though my plane arrived late in the evening. There was also a slight change in the plan; that I had to leave the next day to Pennsylvania for 1 night and come back to NY.
The alarm went off at 7.30; I have a plane to catch to Pennsylvania, the only thing I did in NY till that time was to steal a glance at Time Square from the 22nd floor of the Marriott Time Square, and
it was exquisite! (Unfortunately we were moved to the 8th floor later).
I was so excited to come back to New York to begin the quest. A quest for novelty (if I might say) was my passion at that time as I promised myself that I would do something new that year. When I arrived, there was no time for me to rest. The city was ahead of me a meal at Ruby Tuesday’s with my cousin (my travel partner at that time) was what I needed to begin with New York, then we had a little walk in Broadway looking for a show to attend, but we were too late to attend any.
Photographing New York is a joy that I’ve never felt before; I’ve always thought that photography is framing beauty and that beauty to me was nature, people, wildlife or a moment! But here I am, standing in the middle of “the city that never sleeps” taking photos of buildings and cabs, I’ve never thought that it would be this beautiful or this interesting.
To begin with, a first-time New York visitor would want to visit places that he’s seen or heard about in
NY from the Top
A view of NYC from the top of the Empire State Buildingthe movies or the news, such as Time Square, Central Park, Fifth Avenue, Brooklyn Bridge, The financial District, the Empire State, the statue of liberty… etc
We started our first day by having a quick breakfast at Starbucks (everything goes quickly in Gotham), heading to the tourism buses that you will find everywhere in Time Square, distributed people with yellow T-shirts and caps with “City Sights NY” logo on their backs. The tour goes around the city’s historical and cultural places such as New York Post Office, Madison Square Garden, Broadway (we saw the street where “Don Vito Corleone” from The Godfather was killed)and so many places that you can take off at. We took off at the Empire State station and wanted to climb that massive building. Being at the top of the empire states reminded me of “King Kong” when the Giant rescued the lady. The view of NYC from the top is breath-taking, you can see the effect of people being on earth, and you can also see how people used to build in the sky rather than extending their buildings on the land, because the skyscrapers stretch as high as people could build. It’s true
what they say “need is the mother of invention”.
We decided to take a walk in “Central Park” as I wanted to live the moments of the pauses in the most famous series “Friends”, and it really felt like it, I stood in front of the lake and thought of some of the memorable scenes in “Friends”. To be frank, we lost our way in the park; it was one of the times when you enjoy being lost! We were wandering in the park until we reached a hot-dog stand in one of the park’s corners, and that was it, that was the moment when I felt in love with the “street hot dog” of NYC! After that we headed back to Time Square, the icon of NY and the symbol of Manhattan as I happen to believe. At night, Time Square is covered with lights form the animated Advertisement Boards and the theatres of Broadway, it’s an indescribable scene. People are walking at night as if it was the rush hour, workers continue working and the sidewalks are filled with people showing their talents (artists, photographers, singers, partially nude people showing their bodies to take photos with), a
visitor to Time Square may celebrate with people who he met for the first time in his life, and celebrate while he doesn’t even know what he’s celebrating about. This is simply the feeling that Time Squares brings to you.
If you visit NY, you ought to think about shopping, and that’s why the well-known Fifth Avenue street is stated in the center of Manhattan, the street that has been ranked by “Forbes” as the most expensive street in the world for having the world’s most expensive retail spaces. In Fifth Avenue, we found all of the luxury retail stores, such as Gucci, Armani, LV, Sephora, Ralph Lauren and every other retail store that comes in mind!
The two most successful stores in Fifth Avenue were the Apple Store and Abercrombie & Fitch store. We also saw the famous and beautiful Donald Trump Tower, which was located in the middle of the Fifth Avenue. Before I close the door on Fifth Avenue’s topic, I would like to say that Apple Store is the most amazing Store I have ever visited, very Creative, I bet that the person who came up with this idea is a genius, having this
beautifully-designed glass building with Mac Logo on top of the ground, and the whole store under the ground.
After a long day of shopping we rode on a cycle driven by a foreigner who offered us a ride from Fifth Avenue to Time Square Marriott, and we accepted gladly, we had no other choice, we needed a quick way back home and our feet were about to die from all the walking. Despite all that, we had to complete the day with a worthy meal, therefore, we went to the Red Lobster Restaurant, located next to Time Square, and for those who are seafood fans, guys, don’t miss this Place, We had the best seafood Pizza ever!
A visit to NY, wouldn’t be a visit if we haven’t seen the Statue of Liberty in front of us, therefore we went on a ferry to land on the little island, and there was our unplanned mistake, we took a wrong ferry that only goes around the Island and does not allow us to land on it. So take care when you are planning to visit the Statue of Liberty. Apart from that, the view was amazing, we enjoyed the
ride, the Statue Lady looked so small from distance, but as the ferry gets closer and closer, the statue started to grow bigger and bigger, and even more beautiful. It was a shame that we couldn’t land on the island and visit the crown!
To overcome the “Liberty Disappointment” we decided to visit Chinatown and then dine at Little Italy. Chinatown is just like any other china town in the world, where the streets are narrow and people are calling from the doors of their shops promoting their goods. Dinner at Little Italy is a must for New York visitors. There are so many Italian restaurants with beautiful seats on the edge of the sidewalks. I mean, who wouldn’t like an Italian meal in the streets of New York!
We left the last day for wandering in New York, and that was another mistake we made (I feel like if we followed the plan we would reduce theses mistakes), anyway, wandering in New York is actually sight-seeing and its another part of your New York trip that you don’t want to miss. There are a few more things that visitors don’t want to miss, such as:
1. Riding
Mac Store
Mac Store is Located in the 5th Avenue.. in a “Yellow Cab” in NY streets
2. Using the underground subway
3. Watching a show in Broadway (unfortunately I missed that)
4. Planning well for the Statue of liberty visit
There are also places and things that I regret not doing:
1. Visiting the financial district (wall street)
2. Visiting Brooklyn Bridge (Oh My God how did I miss that!)
3. Visiting Metropolitan Museum of Art
4. Visiting Columbia Business School (MY Dream!!!!!!!)
That was our few wandering days in New York, we felt like we’ve gone through scenes, New York has different scenes, Art has a scene, history has a scene, action has a scene, people as well have scenes there, and a traveler to “The City” should put all of the scenes together to come up with an extraordinary experience, fortunately my beloved camera was with me the whole time, and as we were at JFK international airport, I waved good bye to “the capital of the world”, and whispered, “See you soon New York”.
check out the photo Album - forgive the quality, I had to resize the photos.
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Soul
non-member comment
I love your blog! Especially this piece because I was visiting New York at almost the same time during that summer . Funny that I went to the same places and I was amazed by them. Really beautiful pictures, although I request to see some pictures of central park if they’re available. Regards,