After a day of rain, gray, puddles and fog, we went outside of our hotel to beautiful, sunny skies. Like I said yesterday Kualapuʻu is in New York so 1+1=2. Rain the first day sunny the next. Itʻs actually better that way because we were going to take a stroll through Central Park. That would totally suck if it was raining.
Again we went down into the train station to ride the subway. Another successful trip on the subway and we popped up at the southern end of Central Park. We got to spend a wonderful Saturday morning strolling around the park. The park is designed like art that you are supposed to see different and new things all over the place. We got to climb on Manhattan Shist (donʻt forget the s as Robert says) which is what holds up the skyscrapers we see. We continued to walk through the park and met at Bethesda Fountain which many had seen from different shows or movies. After some pictures we walked over to the rowboats.
Robert got to do a tour of Central Park from a penthouse in this building. It was purchased for 70 millions dollars! A tour of the park that they never went in....Wild
For the second time in all of the trips we got to row boats around Central Park in The Lake. We all got into groups of four and rowed around for an hour. We saw many turtles that lots of kids thought were fake. I did too the first time, they almost look like animatronics from Disneyland. Little bit different than paddling back home but we got used to it and had fun.
After continuing through the park we arrived at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. More known as The MET. This is the worldʻs largest art museum in the Americas. Some of the hits that we saw were saw were the rooftop, George Washington crossing the Delaware, Monet, ancient roman and greek statues, an Egyptian temple, mummies and sarcophagus. Had 90 minutes which is not even scratching the surface of this museum.
Took a commuter bus back downtown to walk down 5th avenue and see the shops. Nike was a popular one as well as FAO Schwarz, chocolate stores, and the NBA store. We continued walking to our dinner spot, Johnʻs Pizzaria of Times Square. The pizza place is right next to a Broadway theater playing Sunset Boulevard. This show has a part where one of the main stars and cast come outside and they shut the street down in the middle of the show but it is part of the show. A camera crew follows and records showing back in the theater. We got to see this part of the show right when we got to the pizza place. Was pretty cool.
Pizza was great, wood fired pizza in an old, converted church. Pizza and brownies were demolished. So was the salad but that was eaten mostly by anybody over the age of 12.
After pizza we took a quick trip over to the New York Public Library. I had no idea how cool that was going to be. We got to see a plethora of things. The first printed book in the world, the Gutenberg Bible. A handwritten letter from George Washingtonʻs farewell address. The stuffed animals that Christopher Robin owned that inspired him to create Winnie the Pooh. And one of the more oddest things Iʻve seen, Charles Dickensʻ letter opener. Why is this odd? Because the handle is his deceased catʻs paw! He had it attached to a letter opener so he could always pet the cat......
Before we got on the Subway we had to say goodbye to our great friend, Robert, our New York tour guide. Always so excited to see him and always a bummer when he leaves. Canʻt wait to see him again! Either here in New York or again on Molokai. Mahalo Robert!
We then took the subway back down to One World Trade so we could go up the tallest building in the Americas. A few were nervous with the height and the history of the place. Up we went to the top! The elevator ride is a thrilling ride showing the construction of New York City through time as you go up. It ends with the building being built around you. You then get into a room to watch a quick video highlighting New York City and then the screen opens up in front of you and bang, youʻre in the sky looking out at New York City.
Spent some time at the top of One World looking around. Again, what a difference a day makes. Yesterday we couldnʻt see half of the building, today we had 40 miles of visibility. Great views and scenery.
One final subway ride back up to Times Square. Many went to the M & M store and cruised around and saw street performers and the mass of humanity on a Saturday night in Times Square. Group I was with ended the night getting the last food in at Chick fill A right next to our hotel. It was really neat in that the manager loved our kids so much. They were so polite and she said it made her day. She loaded em up with food and sauces. The kids even took their picture with her. Was a nice way to end our New York portion of the trip with such positivity and kindness.
Boston portion of the trip to come soon. The uploading here at the Boston airport is painful. Iʻll see what I can do on the plane tomorrow. But I can tell you it was a beautiful few days in Boston. Couldnʻt have asked for better weather at all. See you tomorrow / Tuesday evening!
