harryfat1

After about 10 minutes at the red steps, you noticed something on your face/head. Water drops – rain. Dang. And it kept coming as the NYC rain isn’t like California rain, which starts as a trickle and slowly ramps up before it’s a full blown rain. NYC rain ramps up fast. In less than 30 second, it’s a pouring rain as you see a mass exodus of people from the red stairs/plaza to take cover underneath the building/scaffolding covers. However, we knew the rain was coming and we brought umbrellas and were prepared but not everyone had umbrellas and they were getting pretty wet from it.

There’s a set of staircases – the red steps that many people try to go up/set on to observe this mass glob of humanity. I assure you that it was not easy trying to squeeze your way up the steps with people standing/sitting at each step. It was a lot of walk and stop and wait for someone to move and then walk and stop and wait some more for the next opening. A lot of effort to go up to the top of these stairs You have a new appreciation for the phrase - stop and go and stop and go.... Right at the top of the picture is where they drop the ball on New Year's Eve to celebrate the New Year. Hard to believe, but they have more people on NYE than in this picture.

Doen with M&M store and let’s head out to the Time Square plaza that many people have seen as part of the New Year’s Eve celebetraion on TV. Yeah, that’s a lot of people...

We have been to the M&M store on the strip at Vegas years ago and want to check out the NYC version of the same store. Some area in the store you can't even walk through as there are people everywhere

OK. We made it to Time Square. Load of people even at 9 PM. Oh, yeah, the weather app says rain will be coming later tonight so we all packed umbrellas in our backpack. The NYC version is like the Vegas version on a sugar high. People everywhere you turn.

If you are trying to decide on where to stay at NYC, there are hotels at the Time Square area. Orgianlly I was going to stay there but after talking to people who have been there, they suggested we should be a little further out from Time Square to be away from the hustle/bustle of the neon lights. But if you are the type who wants to be “right there” in the middle of all the action. Hampton Inn has a hotel 1 block away.

So it’s 9 PM, time to call it a day as we already did enough walking and stay in to watch Netflix in the hotel? Of course not. We are heading out to see the world famous Time Square. It’s a straight walk from our hotel of 0.7 miles. NYC celebrating Pride month with colors of the building as well as banner at the Oculus from the other day.

Dinner at the hotel tonight. Good to have a kitchen aera to keep leftover food and drinks cold. Bento boxes that we bought earlier and some leftovers from the Kirean restaurant the other night

Done with shopping. Time to go back to the hotel to drop things off. Fifth Avenue with loads of people and cars. We were running low on water from the tours the past couple of days so time to re-stock in going back to the grocery store to get more.

Nancy, Thanks for reading along. No worries. The trip report will always be here. We all have busy lives. Drop by whenever it's convenient.

The store is on multiple levels so it’s much bigger than your average Uniqlo store. Supposed to be their flagship store in the US in terms of size/selection. They even have seating areas for bored moms/dads like yours truly to sit and waste time on their phones while the boys find their clothes. This was my hangout spot while the wife shopped with the boys

Alrighty, it's time to rest in the cold AC room and cool off with some iced tea. After a couple of hours of rest/nap in the room, it was time to go out again at 5 PM to do a little shopping on Fifth Avenue (aka visiting uncle in prison). No, not at the end stores such that if you had to check the prices, you can’t afford it. They do have some major chain stores like Uniqlo and H&M along 5th Avenue the young people like my sons like to buy their clothes without taking out a second mortgage. The benefit of having a hotel in the Midtown area is you can go back to rest and then come back out to the major tourist sites without using the subway. Huge line of people lining up to wait to go inside the Nike store Inside Uniqlo's flagship store in NYC/US

Anyway, back to the hotel. Similar to the Caribbean cruises where they would have flavored water waiting for you at the pier, Residence Inn had free flavored water at the lobby daily during our stay and different flavors daily. It’s a very welcoming site to see after a hot day of walking around in the NYC humidity feeling the AC of the front lobby and drinking cup(s) of water Another thing similar to the cruise is coming back to the hotel room (cabin) after a long hot day and being happy to feel the AC and plopping down on the sofa/bed after a lot of walking in the heat/humidity. The only difference is some of the hotels nowadays only make up the rooms every other day so while we complained the cruise ships no longer make up the cabins 2 times a day, some land-based hotels only do it once every other day. If you need fresh towels, just call the front desk on the seldom-used hotel room phone to make that request.

Took the subway from Brooklyn back to Midtown Manhattan, but before going back to the hotel room, we stopped by the Japanese grocery store, Katagari, from the other day and bought bento boxes to eat for dinner that night as well as the rice balls. They make fresh rice balls daily and you can smell the seaweed wrap as soon as you walk into the store with the workers making hundreds of them daily. Another one of those – only in NYC sites as the Japanese stores in CA don’t make them in such high quantities daily. Bentos boxes. We bought this – called the “bomb”. It’s easily their biggest rice ball as it’s almost the size of my palm. Trying to take this on the plane and if TSA opens your backpack and sees the word “the Bomb” on it, do you think they will question you or scan it multiple times to see what’s inside? 🤪

OK. Done with Brooklyn. Time to find a subway entrance and head back to the hotel and rest as we had done a lot of walking for the day. Similar to going back to the ship to rest after daytime excursions. From here, we took the subway going underneath the East River and transferred around the Oculus area to go back up to Midtown. A few pics of the NYC subway experience. Not a pretty subway compared to other large cities as it’s old but we never felt unsafe at any of the subway stops/rides. Maybe we were just on the tourist routes/stops where there are many fellow toruists on board with us. But the one thing friends said to us when we were visiting NYC was “Be careful on the streets and subway”. We never felt unsafe. Just like any large city, be careful of your surroundings. I have seen many videos of pickpockets in Paris, That looks a lot more scary compared to NYC who wants to scam your money instead of stealing it. Transfer point in Manhattan to go uptown - no line to use the restroom here versus the long lines at the TimeOut Market

My wife loves to use panoramic photos, here's what it looks like. Super wide shot to include as much scenery as possible albeit distorted

They have a merry-go-round at the waterfront with lots of kids riding it. Too old/too cheap to pay for merry-go-round a la carte. Either ride the mini one on the Oasis class ships without extra cost or at Disneyland as the price of admission. Lots of places to sit and watch the scenery/people on a good weather day. I highly recommend coming here.

Do note the area is next to the waterfront, many people use the restroom at the food court so long lines can develop. Yeah, this is the line to use the ladies room... After lunch, it was time to walk around the waterfront to check out the scenery This area is popular with the locals as well as tourists we saw some professional photo shoots happening as everyone wants the bridge/Manhattan background

Instead, we went to the Food Hall at Time-Out Market by the waterfront. The place was super crowded as expected at lunchtime on a Saturday. Found a table at the rooftop area. The area being high tech, you scan the phone to get the menu of various eateries. Order on the phone and ID it with the table number and they will deliver the food to you…Beats standing in line to order and then trying to find a table

A couple more pictures and then we are all done with the tour. Time to pay/tip the nice man and we are on our own to roam around. The tour guide and many others online fols suggest lunch at Juliana’s but one look at the super long line from across the street, as they say in NY - Forget about it or as real New Yorkers say it "Fuhgeddaboudit" as that's a one plus hour wait at the minimum on a Saturday at 12:30 PM.

My mind works in weird ways – but seeing these 2 young ladies walking across the street, the first thing I can think of is the Cover Album for the Beatles – Abbey Road. For the younger crowd, no need to Google Abbey Road Album Cover, here it is: As such, let’s throw in a song from the album:

Got a rare glimpse of QM 2 in port today as it’s docked at the Brooklyn Cruise Port ready to take passengers to England for a Transatlantic cruise. I can never do a TA cruise. Too many sea days would bore me to tears, not to mention potential seasickness, but I know that runs contrary to the popular opinion here on CC where many cruisers can't have too many sea days.

Onward with the NYC trip report: So we were at the Brooklyn side of NYC and then we got to probably the most scenic part of the walking tour where you can see the Manhattan skyline from the Promenade: My wife said the area reminds her of the facade at the New York, New York hotel in Vegas. Except this is much larger and real Lots of New Yorkers enjoying their Saturday

Hi Dani, Thanks for reading along. Much appreciated. NYC isn’t what it was when I was younger. Back then, there were more worries of being robbed at gunpoint or being stabbed. They have since cleaned up the city (at least the tourist areas) to make people feel safer. There are still scammers out on the street trying to cheat you out of your hard-earned money but we never felt unsafe during our visits to the major tourist sites.