Day 16

---

We got up and packed up to check out at 11am, and luckily we were able to keep our bags at the hotel for a couple of dollars, as we weren’t going to our next hotel until later that evening.

We jumped on the subway, and headed for the Bronx, to go to the Bronx Zoo. I wasn’t nervous at all – it was the middle of the day – however Carl was slightly worried when we were the only Caucasian people on the train =P

In the Bronx the trains go above ground, so you actually have something to look at whilst waiting to reach your stop. The zoo is a fair way into the Bronx, and is only about a 4 minute walk from the station.

The zoo was pretty quiet, being the middle of winter and half the exhibits being closed. As we were buying our tickets, there were 2 girls complaining to a manager that they thought there should be more signs saying that nothing was open, and they’d been walking around for 20 minutes and hadn’t even seen any animals, which made me start to worry slightly, but we hadn’t come this far to not go in!

As we went through the zoo I got more and more annoyed at those girls, coz there was SO much to see and do – we spent 4 hours in there and still didn’t get to see everything – even with half the exhibits closed! Our first stop was through the jungle/rainforest exhibit. There were otters, tree kangaroos, different types of monkeys (including a very cute baby one which was climbing all over the other monkeys and annoying them!), a Malayan tapir and even a leopard!

From there we went to look at the bears – starting with the Grizzly bear! Quite cool, but then the next we saw was a Polar bear, and he was absolutely gorgeous. He was playing with a little toy, and it went onto the ice, and he was scratching the ice, and pressing on it with his front paws, so as to see if it was strong enough to walk on. After watching him a bit, I noticed he wasn’t bending one of his back legs, and kind of limping… The poor thing, he was also alone, I hoped he had a friend that was just hiding somewhere!

We then saw a snow leopard which was very playful, running around and skidding in the snow. We saw a rhino, who was also looking a bit lonely, and smelt horrible =P

We went into the Monkey house, and there were some very cute little monkeys, all running about, and then there were two that were hugging – it was adorable!!

Next were the tigers, with 3 cubs, who were born in May last year. They were pretty big for only 8-9 months old!! Also very cute, they were lying on a rock, all on top of each other!

My favourites came up next – the sea lions! They are pretty much just seals, but there are slight differences like their ears, as well as a couple of other things! They were showing off, and very playful, and after watching them for about 15 minutes, some trainers came in and they did a show, where they were doing tricks and being rewarded with fish. The smell was disgusting, but the sea lions were so clever, and so obedient. There was also a sea lion cub sitting on a rock, which didn’t do anything the entire time, but we were told as it was only a year old, it’s still feeding from its mother, so it hasn’t started training yet.

We were pretty hungry at this point, having not eaten all day, so we found the only café that was open, and grabbed some chicken fingers and chips. We were talking about those stupid girls again, all that we’d seen today for only $16… How they walked through “everything” in 20 minutes I’ll never know, but I can probably guess they weren’t the sharpest tools in the shed =P

After we’d eaten, we were going to go into another exhibit, but the park was starting to close, so we had a quick look in the gift shop, and then headed out, back to the station.

Carl made us pretty much run back… but we got to the station just as a train was pulling up, so it was quite handy!

We still had a little while til we were meeting up with Carl’s friends from Delaware, Aaron and Jen, so we caught the subway to a little place called Dylan’s Candy Bar. I went there with Michelle on my last trip to NYC, and wanted to take Carl to show him. It’s brilliant in there, so colourful and bright and smells sooo good!!

We spent a little bit of time there then headed back to our hotel, and sat in the little waiting area for about half an hour before collecting our bags and doing the 3 block walk down to our next hotel, the Westin.

We met Aaron and Jen, and went up to our room, which was AMAZING! The kind of hotel I probably won’t ever stay in again! Aaron was able to get it using some sort of points that he gets through the business he runs, so we didn’t have to actually pay anything, which is amazing because the room was something ridiculous like a grand per night…

We headed out to the Hard Rock Café for dinner, which was packed as it was a Friday night, and the service wasn’t the greatest as a result, but the food was still good!

We walked around Times Square for a little bit, just watching everything that was going on. There was a huge line at the entrance of Foot Locker, and we were wondering what it was, and it turned out that there was a new type of shoe coming out at midnight… Not going to lie, I thought that was a bit ridiculous waiting for shoes… But whatever floats your boat =P

It was almost midnight at this point, so we decided to call it a night!

---