Posted on June 21, 2005 4:23 PM by chadley
We went on a bus trip to New York City this weekend. We got on the bus at about 7am and arrived in NYC at around 9:30am. We spent all day walking around. We went up to the NBC area and walked around the Rockefeller Center. We walked down to the NYC Public Library and walked around in there. After that, we made our way down to the Empire State Building where we had some beers and nachos in the restaurant on the 1st floor.After our refreshments, we found our way to the subway, where we managed to buy tickets despite the vending machines not working very well. One wouldn't take cash and the other wouldn't take anything. We ended up buying 6 subway tickets one at a time with our credit cards. Nothing like pulling out your wallet and credit cards in a throng of people in the subway to make you feel good.
We took the subway down to what I think was Chinatown. There was a lot of people on the street, selling stuff. I imagine you could find just about anything you wanted there. There were a lot of people with plastic garbage bags full of who knows what. Some of them had little color booklets with pictures of watches and other items. It seems like if you want to sell stuff illegally you have to make at least a small effort not to be conspicuous and you're okay.
At one point we were walking along and a little Chinese woman told us to come to her shop for some special deals on stuff. When we got to the store, a guy at the back opened a little tiny door into a hidden back room. There were probably about 15 people, mostly women that piled into this little room. They had all kinds of purses, wallets, and bags with designer names on them. We didn't get any but the prices were pretty good. :)
Later on, we made our way to Little Italy where we stopped and had lunch at a restaurant with tables on the sidewalk, where we could watch hundreds of people walking by. The food wasn't too bad, and not terribly expensive, I guess, at least by NYC standards. Who knows? It was my first time to NYC so I have nothing to base it on. I did appreciate how they automatically added a 20% gratuity to the bill. Thanks a lot!
After lunch/dinner, we did some more shopping. We stopped at a store called J+R Computer Store where I expected to find all kinds of great deals. Well, I didn't see anything that knocked my socks off so I didn't get anything there. Gene got himself a laptop backpack case, so that he can carry his 50 pounds of paperwork with comfort. :)
After checking out a couple more stores, we headed back to the subway for the ride back up to Times Square where most of the group chowed down on slices of NYC Pizza. Angela, Blake, and I went into the Hard Rock Cafe Store to buy some obligatory HRC stuff. Angela and I both bought shirts. We're quite the tourists.
Time was getting short, so we hurried quickly back to the bus pickup spot, stopping on the way to get some good old NYC McDonalds food. Mmmmmmm. Yummy. The bus showed up right on time and we all piled on. Everyone was pretty exhausted from all the running around, and most of us slept a lot of the ride back. Not me, I couldn't sleep so I went through people's stuff. :)
Although it seems like we mostly just walked around, I had a lot of fun on the trip, and I'm looking forward to going up again. I'm thinking it would be cool to go up for a weekend and stay at a hotel.
The pictures are here.
Keyword: nyc
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