Yet another dream came true, I finally got to visit NEW YORK CITY. What better time to go than Christmas to New Year. The original plan was a snowy getaway to Hokkaido Japan but after calculating the flight, accommodation and expenses, the total was exuberant. Lucky for a travel conscious best friend Hakimbo, he managed to source a great deal to New York via Air China for a much lower cost that the flight to Sapporo.
Day
1:
After a 6 hours flight to smoggy Beijing, 4
hours layover and a gruesome 13 hours flight, we’ve finally made it to John F Kennedy
Airport without much hassle on flight. As this was my first US entry, I was
held back due to the immigration code B10, which is a flag for a common name of
wanted personnel. Luckily the officer was kind enough to explain the situation
and made my detention an ease, which might also be due to the festivities of
Christmas.
After almost an hour of hold up, I was
reunited with my best friend at the baggage claim and we took the yellow cab
over to Manhattan, which cost us 52 USD. Do bear in mind that there is a tax
charge of 0.9% to the bill. Something
new to me was the tipping of 10% of total bill; hence we paid a total of 60 USD
for our cab.
We rented a room via AirBnb at East Village
for 140 SGD per night. The host, Alex was very accommodating and his place was
very convenient to numerous eateries and subway stops. We had access to the roof, which has a magnificent view of the skyline. However, the room we
rented was quite constrained with minimal floor space to open up our luggage
and moving around.
Since we did not had any itinerary planned
for the first day, we basically walked from East Village to Uptown, walking
past Union Square to Grand Central Station and sideways to Times Square. Since
it was Christmas day, majority of the stores were closed. It was practically a
dead town except the people wandering around, presumably tourists like us.
Christmas in New York had the same situation like Lunar New Year in Singapore
where majority of the businesses were closed.
So looking for food was tedious as the places were either closed or packed to the brim. We had to get out of Times Square,
which was madness to find a place to eat. Luckily Hakimbo was like a
native New Yorker knew his way around. He brought me to search for a Halal
fried chicken store, which was not that bad. We ended the day by walking back to
the apartment before visiting the groceries to stock up on some munchies.
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| Times Square so crowded, EVERY FREAKING DAY!!! |
Day
2:
It’s the day after Christmas and hoping to
catch some great deals, something like Boxing Day Sale in the UK. After our
brunch at a local diner, Kitchen Sink near the apartment, we made our way to
the Port Authority to book a return coach to Woodbury Common Premium Outlet. The
return ticket cost us 42 USD with a specific departure time and a return based
on the available bus schedules. The coach ride took us an hour before arriving
to the shopping mecca. I was too busy window-shopping for bulkier items on the
first round to even take pictures or checked-in. After a second round and
getting more stuffs, I ended getting a luggage to store all the damages. The
luggage was a planned purchase, as I needed to replace my over-utilised
American Tourister. I had to bid adieu once I return home. We had a late lunch
at Shake Shack.
OMG!!! SHAKE SHACK is a bomb. The burgers
are SOOOO GOOD. The beef patties are so juicy and tasty and their cheese fries
are amazing. I was wondering why Hakimbo mentioned that we had to share the
cheese fries as it was quite filling. I could SOOO complete it on my own. I then
realised that having a double Shack, a cheese fries and a cup of shake couldn’t
be devoured completely.
I still managed to shop for more items and
was pondering how I would pack my luggage on packing day. That was a problem
for another day.
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| Hauls from Woodbury Common Premium Outlet |
We planned to leave the outlet and catch
the returning coach at 1930hr but the queue was snaking along the road. We
realised that everyone was hoping to catch the post Christmas sale. It took us
5 scheduled coaches until it was time for us to board, which was at 2130hr. The
coach company realised that the queue was overwhelming to pick up based on
schedule timing that they called in more coaches to pick up near 2200hrs.
Upon returning to Manhattan, I was already
exhausted and had to bash through the Time Square crowd with a huge and heavy
luggage in tow just to take the subway across the street.
Both of us knocked out once we returned
back to the apartment with the luggage of goodies chucked away 1 corner.