I'm in love with New York City

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The day dawned bright and sunny after full 24 hrs of rain. So I decided to visit New York City again and this time alone as it’s a weekday and sanjit is working.

Empire State Building

One of America’s biggest landmarks’, the Empire State Building is an absolute must-see. You cannot come to NYC and not climb to the top of the Empire State. As it happens, a lot of other tourists think that way too…so I have to wind my way through a queue for nearly an hr. finally the elevator takes us from the 2 nd floor to the 80th floor in less than a min. here I collect my “Tony audio view” which is a hand held remote through which you get an audio guide of the view. Tony is a fictional character of a 50-yr old cabbie who tells you about NYC in his own funny, dry humorous way. Quite an enjoyable thing, and I highly recommend it.

From the 80th floor another elevator takes us to the 86th floor which is where the observation deck is. As you step out into the open air, you are left completely speechless by the 360 degree view. New York is awesome when u’re walking on the streets but viewed from a height of 1050 feet it is just breathtaking. You can see far out into the atlantic ocean on one side, the state of new jersey on the other, the state of new york on yet another side not to mention the New York harbour, Statue Of Liberty , Hudson river, Brooklyn bridge , and all the important and not so important high rises of New York. The cherry on the cake is the beautiful weather (though of course there is a very strong breeze on account of the altitude ) spent an hour there. I think the best one hour I’ve spent so far in America.

Came down and headed to meet an old classmate for lunch down a few blocks ( long live the internet for putting us in touch with people whom we have forgotten even exist !!)

Madame Tussaud’s Wax Musuem

Post a very pleasant lunch I again headed out alone for my next stop. Which was the Madame Tussaud’s Wax Musuem. This time to explore it from the inside. The place is a tad expensive but a lot of fun. You can see wax statues of the who’s who of America…both past and present. Some of those wax works were really, really neat. At one point I saw a person taking a picture of a wax statue and waited politely for him to finish so I could move on. After waiting for abt 2-3 mins, I suddenly realized that the person taking the pic was a statue too ….;-) thankfully there wasn’t anybody around to witness my stupidity…

All in all, an excellent day very well spent and now im back in our apartment to tell you this tale…and oh did I mention that i toured all these places entirely on foot …

Ciao guys, keep reading and thanks a lot for all the comments you all have been posting. Keep ‘em coming…

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Photos

north view from the observation deck
If you click on the picture and enlarge it, you can clearly see the Chrysler Building(one with the spire) and the Metlife Building

New York Public Library
Just a few blocks away from Empire State

Empire State Building from the ground
It is impossible to capture the entire building in one frame

Manhattan, Manhattan
the street which you can view down below is Broadway

chatting up Johnny Depp
at Madame Tussauds

Moment Of Pride
Bapu is the only indian at Madame Tussauds

Comments

[anonymous]

Dear Swati, Very good pictures with your keen observations. Please keep sending this. Love Ratan Kumar Daady

[Ma]

Excellent write up and pictures. For a few moments it seemed as if I was in New York travelling with you. Really good and enjoyable.

[Namita]

hey babe firstly, i'm once again thankful to the technology gods to faciliate this interaction. now may i add that i'm utterly amazed to find out that you toured the city entirely on foot ;-p....truly impressive it's great to get a first hand view from you - keep on posting take care and have lots of fun cheers

[swati sanjit]

Hey namita, thanks for the post !!
ha ha , i too am amazed at myself for walking so much. and this long island iced tea is an interesting thought !! will check it out and tell you..