NYC – we ❤️ you

Our last 48 hours New York has been a little cray cray!  Who knew we would behere for an eclipse and how crazy it would make the city….

We have all been to Central Park- in a different way due to both Diane and Wendy not being 100%. Wendy did a bus tour and Di, skips it all together as she really is unwell and later in the day ended up calling the house doctor, but her lovely cab driver takes her on a ride through the park on her way to the Metropolitan Museum right beside the park!

Lindy and I join Lyall on a tour of Central Park via a bicycle. For a few hours we cycle around the 6 miles or roughly 10k’s at a leisurely pace as we duck and weave through green wooded tree areas the sheep meadow, Bethesda Fountain and Terrace, the Strawberry Fields Memorial to John Lennon, which is supposed to be a peace park but is now home to a lot of homeless people who now make a living sitting up there selling stuff and singing and playing guitar for the crowds that arrive to view this gorgeous mosaic and generally not being very peaceful, but we don’t know any different so it doesn’t bother us!

Our ride ends with actually riding out of Central Park with our guide through 2 streets of Manhattan back to the bike shop and all I can say is thank goodness we didn’t have to ride any further, pedestrians don’t care about the don’t walk signs they just jump on out in front of you!

We meet Wendy back at the Plaza Hotel  down stairs in the  ‘ Shops at the Plaza’ and have a quick ginger beer before we lift and separate and Wendy and Lindy head off to Katz Deli and Coney Island, I head back to my photography store and then head to the East Village and visit a few favourites ABC store, Fishs Eddy ahhhh I really could live here……

As I mentioned earlier every human and a few dogs are out in the sun for the Eclipse, with their hawker bought cardboard glasses, or a home made box to view the Eclipse – I even saw one couple with a yellow colander that they had attached a handle to and had created little eclipses all over the pavement ???

An ice coffee from Eataly gets me through the arvo….. It’s a Shot of coffee over ice  and then they pop whipped cold skim milk on top ~ to die for on a hot day when you are seeing Billy Joel at the Garden that night.

Madison Square garden is the equivalent to our Acer arena, and I have seen Ice hockey played here previously but tonight its Billy Joel up close and personal with 18,000 fans filling the arena.

We pretty much knew all the words, he’s 67 ish and has an awesome band and was quite entertaining telling stories of albums, and songs and how they came to be…. He even let the crowd choose by cheering between a couple of our favourites.

Today we were up early for breakfast at a kitschy diner down in the meat packing area for a yummy breaki before the gang climbed the stairs and walked along the high line. A wonderful green corridor along the Hudson River high above the streets on an old railway line that has been converted into a peoples park.

Our afternoon was at leisure and a couple of us have been out and bought new suitcases, while the some walked the 3k’s back from the meat packing area and another one of us went to the photography shop and that person wasn’t me this time! Before our last dinner at Bryant Park Grill.

This morning we were up early to jump on the subway and head to the upper East side and caught the cable car to Roosevelt island between Manhattan and Long Island, followed by breakfast and a quick last minute shop before we head to the airport .

Well this will be my last blog until we get home to Sydney this Friday….. we leave  tonight  for LA andSydney town Friday lunchtime or there abouts.

To all our loved ones, thanks for letting us hang out together for 2 weeks, we have had a ball and although we have now ‘done’ New York, a few days in Hawaii on the way home to break up the crappy 20 hours would have been nice,  except I’m not really that fond of Waikiki and don’t have another week to travel out to the islands so home we will go…..

Till Next time

Mrs Wong xx