NYC & The Gates

Well, it's Monday, I'm home and had a great time in New York. It was definitely a short trip this time but next time I will stay much longer. The highlight was certainly the walking tour on Saturday which lasted 18 hours! It was great though. The hostel's guide for that trip, Jerry, was very entretaining the entire time. I'm sure a lot of tour guides for pay tours that last less than half as long would get boring after an hour or two, but Jerry was awesome. He does it every Saturday and you don't even have to stay at the hostel to go because it's free. So, I highly recommend that to anyone visiting NYC. We had a good late lunch at a place in Chinatown. I had some Tsing Tao with a guy from Australia who was on a working vacation in Canada and got to watch people try chopsticks for the time. It was good food and a good time. I didn't get to to have any local pizza but we passed a shop with pizzas that were like 28". They looked soooo good. And the people were all very nice. I met a very nice (and cute!) girl from Japan studying in Chiba. I suck with names, but I think it was Ahime. I hope. Well, if I saw her again I would recognize her. And she was traveling with her older sister who was equally as cute. Anyway, I'm getting off topic...
Sunday after I woke up from the long walk I took a couple hours and walked around Central Park to experience the park with the Gates. It was fun and a nice little walk in itself.

So, I've put the photos I took up in my Yahoo! photo album so go have a look if you like.

New York, New York

Well, I knew I was going to do it at least once this year so I decided on a spur of the moment (for me that means I still did two weeks worth of planning and research though) that I was going to take a driving trip to visit the Big Apple, New York City. My main reason in going this weekend was that it was the last weekend for the Gates Project to be up in Central Park and since it is a once in a lifetime event and I’m not too far from NYC, I decided to go.
The drive to NYC wasn’t bad at all. I left home at 7:00am and arrived at the Lincoln Tunnel at just after 4:00pm. Of course, that included 3 rest/gas stops, taking a wrong exit somewhere in PA and driving around for 20 minutes and then doing the same thing when I was just about to leave New Jersey and somehow got to the Holland Tunnel instead of the Lincoln. After about a half hour of driving and trying to follow the signs I did get to the Lincoln Tunnel and made my way to the upper west side of Manhattan to the hostel that I am staying at just a few blocks west of Central Park. The hostel is kind of nice I guess. It’s my first time staying in one so I don’t really have anything else to compare it with except for a college dorm and a regular hotel. I don’t think it compares well with either but for the cost it fills its purpose. It is really nice seeing so many people of all ages from so many different countries. Right now I’m in the “Library” area and there was a guy from Winnepeg, one from Australia (I think) and three guys from Japan. I still don’t know who the other three people I’m sharing my bedroom with are though. One was asleep when I arrived but was gone when I returned from my jaunt down to midtown at about 9:30pm.

So, I didn’t really do any walking in Central Park today since I arrived a little later than I was initially hoping and it got dark rather quickly. So, no photos yet as I really didn’t want to take pictures during my first walk downtown at night. It was pretty cool though. Quite busy with all the people milling around. There are also an ass load of cops around, which was really nice. Cop cars on almost every block it seemed. America’s safest big city indeed. I didn’t get to eat at the Japanese restaurant that I initially wanted to because it was much furhter downtown than I wanted to walk. But, I did find this nice little soup place on 54th near Broadway across the street from Gold’s Gym. I passed it when I was first walking downtown to pick up my New York Pass and noticed the chalk sign outside had Curry Chicken and Rice and the woman behind the counter was quite cute so I decided to stop back there if I didn’t see anything else that I wanted. So, I did. The soup was really good. She said they also have a Thai Shrimp soup with curry but I didn’t try it. Maybe tomorrow or Sunday on the way home.
Tomorrow will be fun though. I will be doing the tourist thing because the hostel has a 16 hour grand tour of New York. I will definitely have my camera with me and will be taking some nice pictures I hope.
Well, that’s it for today I think. Time to relax and wait for tomorrow’s walking.

I really need a vacation...

So, I've decided that this year I am going to try to take a few "real" vacations for myself since I have really never vacationed anywhere on my own. The last time I was on an actual vacation was at least 8-9 years ago when I was still in college and would have went with my parents over a break or something. And I can't count the occasional little weekend trips to see a friend 130 miles away a vacation, so I've really never been on one by myself. So, as a resolution of sorts - or rather an ongoing change since I'm still single and can, I've decided to start taking at least 2 or 3 little getaways and one major trip per year.
So, the real task (aside from paying for them) will be to decide where to go. This year I think it's pretty easy. I love to cook, I love to eat and I love Food Network programming, especially anything with Rachel Ray. So, I enjoy her $40 a Day show where she goes to various places throughout the country and abroad and highlights local eating places with very good but not so expensive food. A few weeks ago I happened to be watching an episode where she went to Philadelphia and was very interested in some of the little steak shops that she went to. Mmmm... Also, there was a special about diners hosted by Al Roker that went through some places in New Jersey that looked very good. So, I think that one of the trips I will take will be to Philly. The other that I definitely want to do this year is New York City. I've never been and just really want to but I think that will actually be a multiple trip thing. I already have the hotel in mind which is right near Chinatown (where I will probably end up spending most of my time eating...) and Little Italy. So, now I just need to save some money and decide when to go.
Then the big trip that I want to do this year is actually going to be a cruise. I am really interested and excited about that because while I've been on ferrys in British Columbia and know that I like the water, I will really love spending 5-7 days on a boat with a balcony room just sitting and relaxing on the open water. I really want to do an Alaska/B.C. cruise for a week but I think I'll have to tabe that one for next year because that will run me about $4-5000. I'll probably just do a Mexico or Bahamas cruise later this year for my first one but I've got some time still and am open to anything really.
So, if there is actually anyone who reads my blog I'd like to solicit suggestions for both the cruise destination (probably staying below $2500-3000) and also locations for little 3-4 day trips with rich histories and cultural areas. You can just leave a comment if you like.
I also want to have sold my current digital cameras at least by the cruise time and finally buy a DSLR and some good lenses to take with me. Ah, if only I could win the lottery...Oh well, I can dream...