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Old 24 Feb 20, 09:46 AM  
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neilhd
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Rock(erfeller)ing Around The Xmas Tree - Day 4

Out the door at 08:30 today, heading back to, you guessed it, Tick Tock diner. Today Joe and I had the 34th Street Traffic Jam thing that Jordan had yesterday. I think Jess had the banana nutella french toast thing again. The waitress (we'd had the same one every day) got all emotional that it was our last day coming here (she was heading back to Poland the next day and we were heading home the next day too), and gave everyone hugs and kisses. I stayed seated, well away from her reach.

We walked off to Hudson Yards. It was raining. Quite a lot. Hudson Yards is a new development of shops and buildings etc, and also contains The Vessel, which is a hard-to-describe weird sculpture/building that you go in/climb up. It's really cool:



We were a little early so went into the super-posh shopping mall for a bit, used the restrooms, then went out for our timeslot. It's free to book tickets online in advance which is pretty cool. You can pick either an hour slot for free, or pay a few $ to get a whole-day timeslot. Naturally, I went for the free option.

We worked our way to the top, getting wetter as we went:








The views from the top over the river are quite good, although it was grey and wet and you do look out over a depot for the Subway.

Once done, Jess had to go inside to buy a coat. Despite my repeated warnings of "take a waterproof coat to New York as it's gonna rain", she hadn't bought one. Obviously takes after her mum in the "listening to Neil's advice" area. So she had to go and buy one. Whilst she looked in Zara (luckily the posh mall also had a few normal shops hidden away), Ele and I went in Banana Republic where she brought a top. The man wanted my email address for a receipt. I told him a paper one would be fine as I don't give my email address for such things. He said they don't do paper receipts. I said fine, no receipt (wouldn't be going back anyway), and made a mental note to never visit that store again.

We met up with Jess and Jordan who had both bought coats that were waterproof, and had put their existing wet coats into the paper carrier bags that Zara provide. I know they're better for the environment, but they also disintegrate a bit in the rain! We set off for the Highline which conveniently starts at Hudson Yards just outside the shopping mall. We spent a pleasant hour or so walking down the whole length.







We exited at the far end, continuing South into Greenwich Village:





Greenwich is cool. We headed to the corner of Bedford and Grove, which is the Friends building. I've been here a couple of times before and it's always been deserted, but today there were loads of people here. We took a few snaps and I located a nearby Starbucks (closest thing to Central Perk) and we rested in there for a bit, drinking coffee.



Suitably rested, we continued North up to Chelsea Market which was about a 5-10 minute walk away. It was more busy than I've ever seen it before in there.





We got some pizza from the place in there, which we've had before and is truly excellent – quite a crunchy base and quite different to most other pizzas. Joe and I had 2 slices each which was enough to leave us stuffed. We had wanted tacos as well after seeing them on Youtube but the queue was enormous and I was full anyway. We wandered through the market and got some gelato and some doughnuts for dessert. I wasn't that full!

As it was so packed we didn't really go into any of the shops. We exited the other side of the building and got in an Uber to take us back to our hotel. It was about 4pm by this point.

We chilled in our rooms for a couple of hours watching TV. You know when you goto a resort in Florida and they have that cornhole game, which is the game where you have some small bean bag type things (the ones you used to use in primary school on sports day) and you stand back and have to throw them onto the sloping wooden board to get them into the hole? Well, turns out that is a professional sport that is worth televising and having commentators for. I have no idea why they would broadcast that, yet alone why we actually watched it. We also watched the US version of You've Been Framed presented by Alfonso Ribiero (Carlton from Fresh Prince) which was pretty terrible.

At 6pm we left the exciting world of cornhole behind and went to Times Square. Today was December 30th and they were getting ready for New Years the following night. It was absolutely RAMMED there. Half of it was taken up with stages and stuff and there were people rehearsing on them and moving anywhere was very difficult. We took a few pictures and headed to the Disney store.











It was busy in there as well. We had a look around. Ele found a mug she really wanted but the line to pay was massive and we had run out of time, so we instead left and fought our way through the crowds to Tony's Di Napoli for dinner.



It was packed in here, but we had booked for 19:30 and got given a great table. We got given bread and ordered drinks (they even had Sam Adams Seasonal which I love) and decided on what to eat. A dish feeds 2-3 people here, so we ordered 2x Shrimp Linguine and 1x Fettucine Alfredo. It was all amazing, and the fettucine deserves a special mention for being the absolute best I've ever had. The service was super quick as I imagine they make massive amounts of these things, and we were actually in and out in an hour, although we did skip dessert. It came to about $175 plus tip which was actually pretty reasonable for 5 people.




We left and the entrance was absolutely full of people waiting for a table – so much so we could barely get out the door. We headed up to Rockerfeller with the plan to go up Top Of The Rock with the remaining visit on our passes. The queue wasn't too long, but there was a notice on the screens saying the outdoor top deck was closed due to zero visibility. To be honest, that made the whole thing pointless. If you a) Can't go outside, and b) Can't see anything when you go up anyway, then why bother? So we didn't, and instead went out to see how busy the tree was. Turned out – not that busy at all really, so we took some pics and went right up to it.



We went back to the Disney store at Times Square now so Ele could buy her mug. The queue was much smaller. Whilst the others looked around the store I checked in for our return flight home as it was now 10pm and therefore 24 hours before.

With that done, back to the hotel and back to bed!
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Old 24 Feb 20, 09:33 PM  
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Melbatb
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I really need to go back to NYC - though perhaps in summer for once!
You packed a lot in again! Did you have to walk up the vessel?
Dinner looks lovely.
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2016 Quebec - Kuala Lumpar - New York City 2017 Dubai - Eurocamps France - Ontario and Quebec - So-Cal 2018 Montreal - Bangkok - New England 2019 Argentina - Quebec City - Hong Kong - 2020 Switzerland 2022 Arizona - Costa Med Cruise - Oslo 2023 Hong Kong - Gothenburg
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Old 24 Feb 20, 11:44 PM  
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ynwa2009
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Thanks for a great report, I really like your photos
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Old 25 Feb 20, 01:31 AM  
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Tinkermom
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Looks like you had a fantastic day, I never get bored of hearing about NYC.
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Old 26 Feb 20, 11:45 AM  
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neilhd
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Originally Posted by Melbatb View Post
I really need to go back to NYC - though perhaps in summer for once!
You packed a lot in again! Did you have to walk up the vessel?
Dinner looks lovely.
There is a lift in the Vessel, but I think it might be for disabled use only, not sure if it was for general use.

It's all little flights of stairs and you stop a lot so it't not too strenuous going up.
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Old 8 Mar 20, 12:03 PM  
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Clarey
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Great report Neil. Lots of notes written down.
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Old 5 Jul 20, 08:50 PM  
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smithlane
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The Vessel building looks really cool, will add that one to the list too!

I love Greenwich Village, I could absolutely see myself living there if I had a few spare million!

We had Tony's Di Napoli on our list of must eat places but never got round to it. Your dinner looks delicious
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