12:00 Fri.

11 Aug, 2017

Empire State Building

and Central Park

Tags: central park, Empire State Building, Squirrel

New York , United States

23 °C

Mostly Cloudy

6:14 am

7:43 pm

If you ask a stranger to say 3 words associated with the New York most of them will say Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building and Central Park. We have visited statue of liberty many times already (Veronika actually went visit the statue again, this time actually landing on the island) so it was about time to see something else.

That something else was nothing else but Empire State Building. One of the most iconic skyscrapers in the New York, being features in countless films – King Kong, despite being built in the early 20^th century it is still one of the tallest buildings in New York.

We took an elevator up to the 100^th floor and then at the top took a couple of floors of stairs to get to the top. Needless to say the views were incredible. The central position of the building offers unobstructed view all over Manhattan.

Almost all buildings have water towers on top of them.

Being so high up you could barely see cars let alone people down there. You could watch tiny building down there, not knowing they are much higher than what we have here in Slovenia.

Top of the rock as seen from Empire State Building

The other grand landmark of New York is its central park. If you would put it in Ljubljana, it would take space from north to south highway – it’s enormous. Because our hotel was located quite close to it we often visited it. There were a lot of pathways and lakes you could walk around. The park was very well taken care of, everything was clean and you felt safe.

There were many squirrels running around the park also, being used to people feeding them you could actually pet them, if you brought it a walnut.

Top of The Rock

Intrepid Museum

Tags: Empire State Building, intrepid museum, Lady Liberty, Manhattan, New York, Statue of Liberty, Top of the Rock

New York , United States

21 °C

Partly Cloudy

12:00 am

7:52 pm

Third day started with a shopping in a giant electronic shop B&M where I bought 128GB SD card for my camera for less than half the price of the card in Slovenia. The store has an interesting concept. There are counters everywhere and you tell a guy what you want, he hen fetches the product and puts it on a conveyor belt that runs all over the store (multiple floors). You then proceed to play what you ordered and the items are already waiting for you.

After the store we went to visit a museum on the aircraft carrier from Second World War – Intrepid museum. It’s hard to imagine how huge the thing is, when you see it on TV or in a picture. Even the planes that seem so small are gigantic once you step beside them.

American WW2 aircraft that was capable of landing and taking of from aircraft cariers

We visited the captain’s bridge, overlooking land stripe, and despite the huge ship the interior is small and crowded. It’s hard to imagine how it was being in here during the war.

The museum not only has an aircraft carrier but a submarine also and it was possible to go visit it. If the ship felt tight and cramped the submarine was nothing but claustrophobic. More often than not you had to be crouched and had to watch for your head, legs basically everything.

This was the first submarine capable of carrying ballistic missiles.

Multiple sailors shared same bed (they worked in shifts so when one was sleeping the other one was working)

After the museum we took a boat around the Manhattan. We stopped at the Statue of Liberty again, this time really close and then continued under the Brooklyn Bridge up the river. Again it was interesting to see the city from the river and the guide had an interesting and funny way of convening information about the city. It felt like a movie.

Golf course in New York. I guess they don't have space for full course with holes and grass. — Golf course in New York. I guess they don’t have space for full course with holes and grass.

Toward the evening we visited Top of the Rock – one of the landmarks in Manhattan, quite tall skyscraper with famous Christmas tree (during December) in front of it. New York is such an iconic site, almost every part of it was in at least one movie, Top of the Rock was in Home Alone 2.

After not so quick ride with an elevator we were at the top, it was crowded with tourists but with some help of the elbows we managed to fight our way to the edge of the terrace. The views were breath-taking. You could see whole Manhattan, Brooklyn and New Jersey. Since we came in the evening the sky took nice shade of red.