New York City Holiday, Fall Holiday Day 2

Day 2
 
You can read Day 1 of my NYC trip on this link: https://made-beautifully.blogspot.sg/2017/02/new-york-city-holiday-fall-holiday-day-1.html

Mexican breakfast before I headed to Liberty and it's gonna be a long day! This breakfast was yummy but expensive, first and last having USD20 per breakfast, next day onwards, it's gonna be McDonald's breakfast, nice & cheap!

 

NYC Street

At the subway

 

49 Street Subway, NYC Subway station is not as clean as I was expected but I respect the punctuality, good subway system and smooth journey!

 

 

STATUE OF LIBERTY!

 

How to get there?

 

South Ferry Terminal. Highlights: view from the crown, Statue of Liberty museum, fort wood, the star shape pedestal base, her centenary flame. Visit to the crown must be reserved in advance at www.statuecruises.com

 

Address: Liberty Island

Daily: 9.30-5

Train/subway metro station: 4,5 bowling green, 1 south ferry then take ferry

 

Taking Ferry to visit the must to see Statue of Liberty! Beautiful sunny day & beautiful scenery!

 

 

Can't exactly remember how much it did cost to take the Ferry but I would say it's pretty pricey, around USD20 or more per person! which included the story of Liberty in the ferry!

 

 

Blue sky and cold strong wind!

 

Cold but can't miss selfie of course! lol!

 

Enjoying the beautiful scenery!

 

I can see Liberty from the Ferry already!

 

Another selfie

 

Finally reached! Totally not easy and let's say if I brought my 2 kids, aged 3 & 2 or if I were expecting, I wouldn't go or bring them to Statue of Liberty because the queue to buy the ferry ticket was super long about half an hour and the queue to the ferry terminal was about 1 hour and after I reached ferry terminal, I had to go through security check just like in the airport and oh yeah the security was pretty strict too. Finally another hour of queue to get into the Ferry! With less than 30 minutes of ferry journey, imagine the hassle and long queue I had to go through. Oh yeah another long queue to go back to the terminal after witnessing the magical Liberty! Not sure the long queue was because of the nice holiday season or it's always crowded all the time! Sharing this, so you know what to expect! Btw, tickets to enter the Liberty & its crown were all sold out (I guess it's like if you want to learn more about USA history), so the best thing I could do was to walk around and take pictures! That's it! The experience counts I guess!

 

 

Exceptionally beautiful sunny day with blue sky!

 

with dearest husband :)

 

No reason not to take more photos since I don't know when will I be back again!

 

 

Nice shot by hubby :)

 

Really a nice island for good walk!
 

 

Sparkling diamonds in the water! Wonderful!

 

And back to NYC again! the subway is somehow really nice background for selfie or an OOTD, lol!

 

 

Next, WTC SITE at Fulton Street. Highlights: memorial park, 9/11 museum, one World Trade Centre

Address: church-west streets, Vesey-Liberty Streets.

Daily: 10-8 (free entrance)

Train/subway metro station: E World Trade Centre, A, C, J, Z, 2, 3, 4, 5 Fulton Street

 

Memorial waterfalls

 

 

Names of 9/11 bombing victims :(

 

 

Next destination was WALL STREET

 

Highlights: good for picture taking & sightseeing :) , Trinity Church, Federal Hall, New York Stock Exchange, mosaic lobby at 1 Wall Street

Address: NYSE, 18 Broad street

Federal Hall, 26 Wall street

Museum of American Finance, 48 Wall Street

Trinity Church, Broadway at Wall Street

Opening Hours: Federal Hall (free), Mon-Fri, 9-5

Museum of American Finance (moderate entrance fee), Tue-Sat, 10-4

Trinity Church (free entrance), Mon-Fri 7-6, Sat 8-4 & Sun 7-4

Train/Subway Metro Station: 2,3,4,5 Wall Street, J,Z Broad Street

 

 

Street Market

 

Didn't try the food though!

 

Trinity Church

 

 

 

The famous and must visit, Wall Street

 

 

 

The Trump Building at Wall Street

 

Federal Hall

 

 

Next, BROOKLYN BRIDGE

 

Highlights: Brooklyn Height Promenade (Subway: 2,3 Clark Street)

 

 

Nice night scenery

 

 

 

A good walk along the bridge

 

Back to our hotel at Times Square

 

TIMES SQUARE is seriously a good place for shopping, entertainment and attraction

Address: Times Square Visitor Centre, 1560 Broadway/7th Avenue. Daily:8-8. Train/Subway: 1,2,3,7,N,Q,R,S Times Square - 42nd Street

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Billboards at Times Square are really very interesting and make the whole city look very alive and never ever sleeps! Times Square is our favorite place and we do agree that it's a place like no other!

 

Been a long day for Day 2 and we were so tired and ready for the next adventure, Hudson River Valley to enjoy the beautiful river valley & relaxing country side of NY!

New York City Holiday, Fall Holiday Day 1

I have been totally lacking in blogging recently because I just feel so tired or rather lazy hahaa.. I prefer to update stuff via Instagram because it's quick and effortless. My IG is nettyliee (if you want to follow me). Gonna blog about my NYC Holiday back in October 2016, been quite many months ago but I really hope I can help whoever reads this blog and wants to know which places I visited with my husband and yeah, I hope my sharing is useful in your travel itinerary!

I didn't plan to go to a country for holiday as far as The USA, 23 hours of flight is no joke, man! It started with I joined a contest on Asiana Instagram and surprisingly I won tickets of two in August 2016 to travel from Singapore to NY and NY back to Singapore. We decided to travel in October because fall season would be so lovely and so we went for our unexpected holiday for 2 weeks. A lot of planning involved from finding hotels to travel itinerary. I even borrowed books from the library to plan my travel itinerary!

I would also say this is the most expensive holiday I have ever had. Even though I didn't pay my air tickets, but I still had to pay tax, air fuel and other fees that ended up to be almost $800 per person. And hotels in the USA especially NYC are really expensive. I'm not talking about luxurious hotel, just a standard hotel and cheapest decent hotel I could find online can cost around SGD300 per night, yup that's the average! I have thought about AirBnB but my husband & I weren't quite keen with the idea of sharing an accommodation with people/family we didn't know at all! Plus we'll be staying for many days, thus having our bed sheets & towels changed, room cleaned daily would be nice! We wanted a comfortable stay for our honeymoon heheee

The last a few days before leaving Singapore to the USA was really hard and I felt so emo thinking I have to be separated from my baby girl for 2 weeks! That feeling of separation anxiety sucks a big time! Luckily there's Skype! I Skype-ed my kids every single night and seeing their faces made my day! I have arranged the same timing too which was around 8pm NYC time and it was around 8am in Singapore ~ 12 hours time difference! Just nice to catch up with my kids before my older son went to nursery at 8.30am.

If you are travelling from Singapore to the USA, you can get the USA SIM card with 2GB Mobile data for internet use at around SDG50 for one month use and it's so much cheaper than renting portable wifi device at Changi Aiport. I bought the USA SIM card 2 weeks before I flew. Do make sure you do buy earlier because they are always out of stock.

For the weather, fall in NYC was super super cold to me, not sure because I live in the tropical country for my whole life where weather here is always hot & humid and my cold tolerance is just not that good hahaa.. I even wore ear protector, double scarfs, a thick coat and gloves (Plus double legging pants) LOL! my husband in the other hand just wore normal sport jacket & shawl, that's it! It really depends but I would suggest if it's your first time visiting, it's best to bring extra fall/winter piece! It can be really windy some days and the wind can be really really cold! Some days, it can be quite warm too that you don't even need to wear a jacket. I would suggest to bring some casual shirts or pants or dress that you will be wearing in Singapore's weather.

For the food, I would say it really depends where we had our food. The cheapest option would be fast food but my husband is totally 100% Asian, even for his taste buds. He just couldn't digest fast food if he were to eat it every single day! Ended up we went to China Town in NYC & Boston for almost every dinner and we had Chinese food, surprisingly Chinese food in NYC & Boston were so tasty & we found so many delicious varieties and the price was quite reasonable too. Average Chinese food we spent was about $20-$30 and we had really good satisfying meal with rice or noodle! The same price if we were to eat in the fast food restaurant! The more gourmet fast food, the more expensive! Although I didn't mind to stuff myself with cheese burger and fries everyday but my man found it sickening, lol!

The most horrifying would be the long hours of flying and sleeping in the air. I just found it unbearable! 23 hours of long flight is crazy! And jet lag sucks! And there's a transit to Korea too which I felt grateful for because I spent 2 days in Korea for a short trip (with super awesome food) before I flew back to Singapore. I flew from Singapore to Korea at 11pm plus and I reached Korea Airport in the morning with sleepy eyes (couldn't sleep well in the air), waited for 4 hours for transit and flew again to NYC for 12 long hours (direct flight) and couldn't sleep again, just had small cat naps, that's it! Reached NYC around evening time, with 12 hours time difference, jet lag was horrible! Technically, 2 nights without proper sleeping! When I reached NYC, I felt a bit like walking zombie hahaa yet I was still able to explore Times Square for dinner and night walk! Hahaa.. Excitement! For long flight, the first 8 hours was still ok, but when it came to last 2 hours before landing, I found it unbearable, my bum felt sore, my legs got cramped, my back... my whole body just felt achy! And surely, it was really boring too, my only activity was marathon movies non stop! But I guess my man slept better than me! :p

From Korea to New York! So freaking far!

Meals at Asiana Airlines are seriously very very yummy! Meal time is what I'm always looking for in my long flight

 

 

Beef and Rice!

 

So yummy, seafood pasta!

 

Then we finally landed in NY and first meal we had was an Italian cuisine around Times Square area. So freaking expensive but freaking delicious hahaaa... I guess hubby spent around USD35 for one meal at that restaurant.

 

This lasagna is superb!

 

Spaghetti is nice too! 

 

I felt so cold that I needed to wear my ear protector :D Day 1 was super crazily cold with strong cold wind!

 

Times Square is super happening!

 

A place like no other, really very alive! A place that never sleeps to me!

 

USA Taxi, bright yellow color!

 

We stayed in Times Square for our first night and the hotel name is Night Hotel. Pretty cozy and it costs around SGD300 plus per night! I guess that's one of the most decent and affordable we can find around Times Square!

 

The street

 

Street food stalls and vendors are everywhere

 

 

Huge H&M Store, didn't buy anything though because I found that the price wasn't that cheap either, pretty much the same as in H&M Singapore plus the fashion that season was fall & winter, absolutely I can't wear that in Singapore hot weather!

 

 

Billboards are crazy and everywhere!

 

Hubby posed an OOTD lol

Did you see the background? There was this man, like street performance acting like Liberty Statue in the middle of the street. Kinda remind me of street performance around Orchard Road Singapore!

 

 

Human Traffic is just crazy! Over crowded I would say!
 

 

City Tour Bus, double decker, just like the one we have in Singapore! I saw many black men were promoting and selling the tickets and one of them even greeted us in Chinese "how are you?'' thought we were from China hahaa..

 

 

So cold that I wore double scarfs!

 

End of Day 1 ~ super tired with sleepy eyes. We headed back to Night Hotel and had a super awesome sleep. It's like the first time after I gave birth 2 years ago that I didn't sleep for 2 nights! Zombified!

Next post is Day 2 ~ Liberty Statue!