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Old 14 Jun 19, 01:34 PM  
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VeryexcitedH
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Join Date: Mar 13
Day 3 – Thursday 25th October 2018

We were up early today and had a VERY busy day planned. Once ready, we left the room and headed to the Starbucks on reception level. This time we used 2 of the hotel vouchers to each get a hot drink and something to eat. I ordered a bagel which I cut and spread cream cheese on before we left the hotel at 7:50am!

We ate and drank as we walked, dodging all the super speedy New York commuters. It took us until 8:36 to reach the entrance to the Highline. On the way we passed the construction for what we now know to be the Vessel. That is amazing!

The highline was a beautiful walk to do early in the morning. The sun was high in the glorious blue sky and the walk itself was very quiet with hardly any other people around.
















I love this picture!



We stopped every now and again taking photos on the way and as we neared the end we spent a couple of minutes browsing the postcards a vendor had set up on his stall. I bought some to add to a frame once home. We completed the walk in just over half an hour so not an extensive time but worth doing. We waited in Chelsea Market whilst I ordered an uber and that arrived promptly at 9:12 to take us to the bus stop for the Brooklyn Bridge tour.

The uber dropped us off near Battery park and we spotted a deli shop so headed in there to buy another coffee. With our coffees in hand we crossed over the road and worked out where we had to stand for the bus. We were early and it was only about 9.40 at this point with the tour starting at 10 so we were the first in the queue for the bus.

This is the one point of the trip where I got really, really cross. As I mentioned, we were there first in the queue and after 5/10 minutes people started to queue right behind us. Now, the tour that we were doing was one that had come with our HOHO tickets but only ran once per day from this stop, not continually like the other buses and this was the only day it fitted in with the rough plans we had made.

The queue was growing very steadily and before 10am a bus arrived and parked in front of us. The driver got off and had a wee wander. The queue continued to grow and was getting really long when a second bus came up and parked behind the first bus. The driver got off and I am sure he started counting the queue, starting with us. The main problem was once he had counted the correct amount of people to be allowed on the bus he didn’t say anything to anyone simply got on his bus and opened his doors which meant the people in the middle of the queue started to get on the bus first as they were now next to the bus we were getting on. I was really cross, as were the rest of the girls. We scrambled to the front of the queue and one guy had the audacity to say we were pushing in when we were the front of the queue in the first place!

A squeezed herself in the queue somehow and she herded three of us on the bus and the driver stopped 2 of us getting on claiming to be full. I told him we had 2 friends and he let them on and we all made it on but it could have been organised so much better, even if the driver had counted down from the start of the queue and allowed a set amount of people from there on it would have been better.


Grump out of the way we sat upstairs at the back of the bus and huddled together for warmth as it was freezing! The bus tour lasted almost 2 hours and it was good to see a different part of New York. We had the audio as we brought our headphones so we got to listen to some of the history of Brooklyn too.







Once off the bus we made our way back to the Westfield centre. We saw some firefighters on the way and I had to take a photo for DH.







Back in the rabbit warren of the Westfield centre it was just after midday, we used the restroom then navigated our way to another eatery A’s DH had recommended from his time working in NYC…Joe and the Juice. We found this a little bit easier than Eataly the other day.

Joe and juice is a chain of juice bars and coffee shops. They served food so (for the first time on this trip) we sensibly decided to eat at the correct time of the day! No idea what I ordered but it was probably a re-energizing juice as I was exhausted! My juice and sandwich cost $17.31 and we found a table to sit and eat.





We wandered back through the shopping centre and made our way to the 9/11 museum. Not entirely sure what time we went into the museum (as Google Timeline hasn’t distinguished between the shopping centre and museum) but I know that we spent at least 2 ½ hours in there. We started walking around the museum together but as we got into the main exhibit with the timeline of the day we lost each other because it was just so busy in there you couldn’t look at everything and keep track of others too.


This museum has been so brilliantly done. It is so sensitive and respectful to all those that lost their lives on the day, be it the workers in the WTC or the members of the emergency services. As I said previously DH is a firefighter and whilst he has never met a job of this magnitude, I was almost in tears walking around, particularly when I saw the fire truck they pulled from the remains and the damage it had sustained.













It was such a raw experience and I felt physically drained when I left. It really is the perfect tribute.

I found H and B at the end of the main part of the museum and we made our way out to the central section (which shows parts of the original building used to hold back the Hudson River) and we found E on a bench where she had been sat (and looked to be asleep) for the last half an hour. We sat next to here and just sat in silence for about 20 minutes while we waited for A (who is a police officer) to make her way out.

We quietly left via the gift shop where I bought DH an FDNY t-shirt and 9/11 keyring.

We made our way back through the Westfield centre deciding instead of walking that we would get the subway back to save time on getting ready for our night out. This was interesting and we struggled to buy the tickets but there was a kind gentleman who gave us a postcode to use with our FairFx card. We made our way to the platform and caught a subway. Once we knew what we were doing and which way we were heading this was a relatively simple process and I wouldn’t worry over using the subway on a future trip.

The subway took 26 minutes to get us back and we were a short walk from the station to our hotel. Once in the hotel (5:16) we visited the Starbucks which was now a bar! I think I had a bud light and H and B had a wine each. Not sure where A had disappeared too as I know she would have had a drink from the bar too. No doubt E made a brew in the room!



We all had a little rest and shared use of the bathroom and got ready for our night out. Tonight was our big 4-0 meal and we were splashing out on it! We were all ready by 7:15pm so on the way down to street level I ordered an uber. We were eating at Buddakan in Chelsea Market, this was 10 minutes from the hotel and we arrived at 7:36. This area looked really cool and trendy with lots of bars and coffee shops and would definitely be somewhere I would visit in the future.

We arrived and booked ourselves in and sat in the bar to look at the cocktail menu. My goodness I know I’m nearly 40 but this place was dark! So dark we could barely see the drinks menu! And again we were dressed really nicely in our posh frocks but others were more casual (not everyone this time though, some were dressed up!) As we had ordered our cocktails the front of house staff came over to apologise that unfortunately our reserved table was not ready yet so she would give us all a glass of champagne to apologise. Not a problem thank you dear!



We took some photos and a member of staff happily took photos of us whilst we waited. Once ready we were taken to our table. The restaurant is in two halves, with some tables just behind the bar down a couple of steps and other tables downstairs. We were downstairs and the restaurant was beautiful. As we walked downstairs a waitress took our photo before showing us to our table.





Our table was the booth in the corner. We had decided we would be getting the taster menu but I can’t for the life of me remember which one it was looking at the menu online. We also ordered a bottle of wine if memory serves correctly.

The waiter started bringing the food out and each and every dish was absolutely divine. As I say, no idea what each dish was but I will let the pictures speak for themselves. The waiter that we had here was excellent. He simply couldn’t do enough for us and at one point complimented us for eating the food he’s given us as he said people ordered the taster menu and then didn’t finish the dishes. At that price there was no way I was wasting anything, but indeed it was all delicious and too good not to eat.



The following 3 pictures are courtesy of Google!






Final cocktails were ordered and possibly a second bottle of wine. The waiter also brought out an addition dessert as it was marked on our reservation that it was our birthday.





My share of the bill was $121.29 so $606.45 was the total bill for 5 of us! Wow! But in all honestly it was worth every cent of what we paid and £96 isn’t too bad for the experience we had including alcohol and tip.

I called our final uber of the day and we left the restaurant making it back to the hotel by 11:17 for an early night after another amazing day!

Distance covered today:

Edited at 01:54 PM.
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Old 14 Jun 19, 10:44 PM  
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disney owl
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brill,thanks for sharing
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Old 16 Jun 19, 09:24 PM  
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VeryexcitedH
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Originally Posted by disney owl View Post
brill,thanks for sharing
Thanks for reading!
VeryexcitedH is offline Girl Mouse Click to view Members Trip Plans Add Member to Ignore List
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