Saturday, August 31, 2013

New York Trip Day 3: Memorial And Rockefeller Center




On our last day in New York we decided to visit the Memorial Museum World Trade Center. This originally wasn't one of our planned destinations to go to in New York but it turns out we were low on budget (too much shopping, lol) so we decided visit there because admission was free. They only require you to pay an optional small donation to enter the place. We also went there because it was close to Century 21 which is an outlet mall that sells brand name clothes, bags, shoes, watches, sunglasses, etc at a cheap price. I didn't buy anything at Century 21...mostly just accompanied my friends to shop since I know I'll be jobless when I return to Toronto so I didn't want to end up with a huge debt. 





After some long crazy shopping at Century 21, we decided to have dinner at a fancy restaurant for our last meal in New York. I forgot to take note of what the restaurant was called so I don't have the name. 






We ended our New York trip with going up the top of the rock at the Rockefeller Center where we got to see the skyline of New York City. Couldn't have ended our trip in a better way. It was such a beautiful view looking at the city up 70 stories high! I'd definitely love to go back to see the city again during the day. And that concludes my 3 day New York Trip. A fun and memorable experience. Hopefully I'll get to visit it again soon sometime in the future! =) 

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

New York Trip Day 2: Brooklyn Bridge And Forever 21

I'm starting to forget what I did on my second day in New York as I am blogging this even though it was only just a week ago. Talk about having a short memory huh? Or maybe I am just getting too old to remember things now. lol. T_T

For our second day in New York, we went on a bus tour called "A slice of Brooklyn pizza tour" which we have already booked online before our trip. Basically it was a tour where we got to see all around Brooklyn and the Brooklyn bridge. We also got to see places where some movie scenes were filmed in Brooklyn as well as some houses that were used in movies and houses bought by famous celebrities. I didn't get to take any pictures of all this because we were on a bus and it was constantly moving all the time that it was really difficult to take any good pictures. But it wasn't anything special, just you know ordinary luxury looking houses that you'd see in movies.  




The Brooklyn Bridge! I managed to take a shot of this without all the tourists and people in it. Seriously there was people everywhere and I just wanted a nice shot of the bridge and city view alone. Soooo happy that I got this clean shot! 




And I didn't realize this until I got home later but this was the exact same view of the Brooklyn bridge in Yamapi's Loveless PV! Oh, I just love referencing everything to him, hahaha. =P Totally not planned for and merely happened by coincidence, lol. But well I guess there isn't many places in Brooklyn where you'd get to see the best view of the Brooklyn bridge like this. 





This tour was called "A slice of Brooklyn pizza tour" for a reason. Other than getting a tour of Brooklyn and seeing the Brooklyn bridge, we also got to eat pizza at one of the best pizza places in Brooklyn at Grimaldi's.  The pizza was really good and I'd definitely want to go back for some more. I like how it was made very thin, very different from the "thick" pizzas you normally get. We got drinks and 2 slices of pizza included in our tour so we didn't have to pay extra for it. 





After the pizza tour we also went to the Coney Island broadwalk where there was a small amusement park with rides. It was such a nice sunny day that day. Perfect for the beach! 






After the pizza tour at Brooklyn, we headed back to Times Square for some more shopping at Forever 21. I took these images from google because I forgot to take pictures while I was at the store and there was just way too many people to take a clear shot of the store itself. One of the prettiest Forever 21 store I have ever been to and what's even more awesome is it has 4 floors! So for all the Forever 21 lovers out there, definitely check this store out in Times Square. We spent about 2 hours shopping there. I didn't really get to buy much there though, only bought 2 things because most things I want didn't have my size. =( 

Thursday, August 22, 2013

New York Trip Day 1: Times Square and Statue of Liberty


Grand Central Station was the first place we went to after we arrived in New York. We took a shuttle bus to the station from the air port and then we took a taxi to our hotel from there. The most beautiful subway station I've ever seen. I wish we could have stayed at the station longer though, we were only there briefly for 5 minutes because we had to get to our hotel and drop off all our luggage.  




The flatiron building in Manhattan. After we dropped off our luggage at the hotel, we decided to roam around the city and shop for a bit before we catch our boat cruise around Manhattan and see the statue of the liberty. This building reminds me of the one we have in Toronto at Front Street. 










Boat cruise tour around Manhattan and the statue of Liberty! The boat cruise was 3 hours long and I almost felt so sick after that I just really wanted to go back on land! After our boat cruise we wanted to explore the city more and roam around Times Square but we didn't know how to get there. Luckily we met two kind fellows on the boat cruise who are from Australia and they were also heading to Times Square and my friends and I tagged along and followed them, lol.  









Roaming around in Times Square where we passed by the Sanrio store and people dressed up as cartoon characters. Spotted Hello Kitty and 3 minions from Despicable Me. Soooo cute! 





And that concludes my first day in New York. Boat cruise around Manhattan and roaming at Times Square. We headed back to our hotel after and took a shower and went out for dinner in the evening to Shake Shack where we had the best burgers ever! I forgot to take pics of our food because we had dinner pretty late and I was super hungry!! Shake Shack was actually a pretty popular place and we waited in line for about 30 minutes to order our food. Overall it was a great day filled with lots of sight seeing. =)

Monday, August 19, 2013

New York Trip: Holiday Inn Express Hotel

It feels like it's been sooooo long since I last blogged...2.5 weeks?! That's probably the longest time that I have not blogged for since I started this blog. I sincerely apologize for the lack of blogging and updates. I've been busy since my work contract ended trying to find a new job. I applied to like 20+ jobs in the past 2 weeks and so far no luck in getting any replies back yet. Then I left for my New York trip from August 15-18th and I actually just got back home yesterday morning at 8:30am. So I was super tired as I didn't sleep the entire night before since I had to leave my hotel to go to the airport at 2am in the morning and got there around 3:30am and waited half an hour to get checked in and go through security and it was just brutal! The first thing I did after I got home was eat some food and SLEEP FOR THE ENTIRE DAY!!! Sleeping on my own bed has never felt so good before. 

Anyway, for my first New York trip post I just wanted to talk about the hotel I stayed at which was a pretty awesome hotel by the way. Great location in downtown of Manhattan at Madison Square Garden where I stayed at the Holiday Inn Express Hotel located on 232 W 29th Street. It was really close to Times Square...just about 2 subway stations away!

And since I failed to take any pictures of the actual hotel while I was there, I had to search for these pictures from google. But I can assure the hotel looked exactly like what it was in these pictures. I really hate it when hotels post really unrealistic fancy photos of the to make it look somewhat attractive and it's like the complete opposite when you go there. But these pictures are actually what the hotel look like when you see in person. 






A day and night view of the front of the hotel. I like how there's a patio where you can sit outside. 





Our hotel room and the bath room. We got a 2 queen size bed room with 3 people and we each took turns to sleep on a bed entirely alone for the 3 nights that we stayed there.





The cafeteria where we had our breakfast buffet. It was included in our hotel fee so breakfast was free. One of the best hotel breakfast I ever had where they actually served you real breakfast food! Everything from pancakes, muffins, bagels, bread, omelettes, bacon, hot dogs, yogurt, fruits. There was actually quite a wide selection of food to eat. Also coffee and tea was served all day! We actually stole some snack food like yogurt, bananas, apples and muffins to take out with us in case we get hungry throughout day and we wanted something to munch on, lol. Hey it's free so why not make use of it, right? XD 




There was also a free gym facility and computers with printers. We didn't use much of these facilities because we almost never got back to the hotel every night until past 11pm, lol. 

Overall it was a pretty good experience at the hotel and I'd definitely go back to stay there again. I'd rate this hotel a 4 star! A really clean and nice hotel at a great location too right in the downtown area. I'd also highly recommend it to anyone who plans to visit New York City. =)
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