⛴ New York, NY - Sunday
The forecast for Sunday's weather: 30°C all day long
The reality for Sunday's weather: felt like 25°C all day long thanks to breezes and plenty of shade wherever we went.
The adventures of this third day in New York City were focused in two zones: Roosevelt Island and Central Park.
For breakfast, we started with some local bakery pastries and some coffee, and then we used the very awesome NY Ferry to cruise directly to Roosevelt Island. On the island, there was a convenient and free bus service that brought us to the south point to see the ruined smallpox hospital. The hospital turned into a ruin due to a fire, according to a local information station agent. After seeing that, we took the bus to the north point of the island to check out the lighthouse. The Octagon, a historical building, made for an excellent bus terminal while we waited for the bus to take us away from the north point. They offered air conditioning, cushy seats, and even a 1$ coffee machine that dispensed Starbucks coffee! To leave Roosevelt Island, we took the tram (cable car) that soared over the river and dropped us off on Manhattan Island. As luck would have it, the Katagiri Japanese Grocery is located right around the block from the tram station so we got more onigiri and cold ramen as our lunch.
The next part of the sightseeing day was a walking tour of Central Park. Taking lots of rest stops along the way, we saw the Gapstow Bridge, the carousel, the Mall, and the Cherry Hill Fountain. The bike taxi services, we learned, were insanely expensive propositions at anywhere between 3-6$ per minute of travel. An hour long trip could cost something like 360$ USD!!!
Once we made our way out of Central Park, we did a bit more shopping at Banana Republic – Willow scored some dresses that were sold out in Canada. Dinner time was at Bill's Bar and Burger, right around the block from Banana Republic. We originally wanted to have the Pineapple Cider, but they were out of stock on that so we settled for the Blueberry Ale. It was a rather unique and special flavour. For food, we had their iconic "Killer B's" dish – 5 mini burgers stacked on top of each other making a tower of burger; plus a side of sweet potato fries.
Since the blue-type subway lines were out of commission, we had to make use of something else – and chose the Number 4 line, whose nearest entrance was at Grand Central station – giving us a quick look at the legendary train station as we headed into the subway station. For some reason, we had a 20 minute wait for the next Number 4 subway to reach the station – it was a strangely long gap. Just before heading into the hotel, we took a detour and had a peek at the night view of the riverside life – it was mostly very quiet asides from the little parties happening at each of the piers.