If you thought that bad weather would keep the tourists inside, you would be wrong. We will see all the sights in New York City no matter how cold it is!
We got so turned around attempting to find the right subway line to get us to Brooklyn that we ended up near Rockefeller Plaza, so we figured that we might as well walk over and see if the tree was still up.
It was!
And then the big kid saw the line to get into FAO Schwartz and was all, "Toys?!? TOYS!!!", so somehow we ended up doing that, too.
Of course, as soon as we got into the store and she realized that it was essentially just a mass of wall-to-wall people she wanted to immediately bail, but I said, "Come on, we're already in. Might as well power through."
The first week in January is actually a terrible time to visit FAO Schwartz regardless of the crowds--they were so picked over from holiday shopping, I guess, that although all the shelves were full, they were full with just, like, one or two products per brand, basically. Great if you want a goat cheese Jellycat or a Schleich brachiosaurus painted to look like it works there (which, okay, is kind of cute...)--
--but I kind of wanted to look at *all* the Jellycats, you know? Not just 1,000 copies of the worst one.
Whatever. At least it was warm inside, and it turned out that the subway station we wanted was right near there, after all!
On to DUMBO!
Technically, all people actually wanted to do on this day was walk around Chinatown and eat stuff. But I tacked on first walking across the Brooklyn Bridge TO Chinatown because, come on, it's RIGHT THERE!, and then, well, I tacked on first finding that one perfect photo spot that everybody goes to in DUMBO because if you're at the Brooklyn Bridge, well, then... I mean come on, it's RIGHT THERE!
Just us and 1,000 other tourists seeing the sights!
Just us and 1,000 other tourists seeing the sights!
Walking across the Brooklyn Bridge probably isn't something I need to do again, although I would like to catch a sunrise there, but it was a super easy and pleasant walk that puts you right into an interesting part of Lower Manhattan, a short walk from Wall Street on one side and Chinatown on the other.
We chose Chinatown!
And yes, I did force us a few blocks out of our way just so I could embody that Lumineers song.
It is SO hard for me to narrow down all the places I want to see when I visit somewhere:
But we did our best!
We bought buns and milk tea from Mei Lai Wah--
--and I need to tell you that this pineapple pork bun is the best thing that I have ever eaten in my life:
How do they make that crunchy pineapple topping? It was super crunchy, but it wasn't super sweet so it's not sugar. It was SO good, and I am devastated that I'm not eating it again right now.
We had no organized plan for what little shops and restaurants from my map we actually hit and in what order, so we got a lot of sightseeing done simply by wandering back and forth and around and around doing and seeing everything in the most inefficient manner possible:
I didn't see a tenth of what I wanted to see by the time we absolutely had to head out, which is always the way, sigh, and I guess it leaves plenty of reasons to come back one day.
Another place I'm coming back to: Madison Square Garden, where I once again managed to score the absolute worst seats in the house!
This game ended up being kind of heartbreaking, because I had to watch Shesterkin get injured (and he's still not back!), and then go on to watch the Rangers flat-out lose to the Mammoth, but at least they scored a couple of points in the meantime--
Here's a spot that I haven't yet made it to even once: the Empire State Building! I just like to look at it from the outside and imagine King Kong climbing it:
Fun fact: the best part of our trip is yet to come!
P.S. Come find me over on my Facebook page, where I often talk about my adventures, experiments, misadventures, and yet more misadventures as I'm doing them!
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