Day 22 – 25/04/2019

With only two days left of my trip, it was time to decide how to finish up. I already knew what I’d do on my last day, but first, it was time to find breakfast. It was time to try for the maple cruller again, because why not! This time I got up early and headed over to Daily Provisions, and lo and behold, a maple cruller in its oil soaked glory! The waitstaff even recognised me from a couple of days earlier!

I also got a coffee and sausage and egg “sandwich” to fill up on too! It’s funny how here they refer to these buns as sandwiches.

Just look at this place. My final “new” coffee destination was this place, called Felix Coffee Roasters. I saw pictures of their shop, and decided that the description, and some fancy coffees on the menu, it would make a good final experience.

Look, Thomas Keller chocolates! I wonder what they’re like! Too bad I didn’t actually buy any as they were quite pricey.

Looks like every good coffee shop stocks Supermoon pastries!

Their decor is seriously awesome.

And here is my espresso. I don’t remember what origin it was, but it still comes with an interesting story. Their beans are roasted in Texas, but to the barista’s specifications. Their roaster is fairly “new” so they’re still inconsistent, and this batch wasn’t as good as they wanted it to be. Nonetheless, it was good to drink, and the story helps me appreciate the espresso more!

Sticks! Interesting! These guys also do some theatric coffee, they had two specialties at the time, one of which was a s’mores latte. So I decided to order one to see it being made in front of me.

Yes, the smoker!

And behold, my latte art mooshed by a marshmallow! This was actually really nice, if somewhat awkward to drink. The warmth of the drink melted the outside chocolate, so that I could lick the outside too! The latte itself was really well made, good flavour and good milk texturing to survive that long. It was a fun drink! And yes, it was expensive too!

And more photos, just because I can! What a pretty place, with very nice coffee!

I was walking past Rockefeller when I noticed that things looked a bit different here today!

Wow, I think it must have been some sort of special event, because even all the flags were changed over!

There’s a cool ice skater at the rink too! She was really fun to watch!

I also tried to make one more Person of Interest location. This was apparently the intersection where Reese stares at a camera and starts talking to the machine, but the camera either wasn’t pointing the right way or had been changed, so I just took this shot anyway.

I passed the Trump Tower during the Easter Bonnet festival, but didn’t go in at the time. However, my mum asked if I entered, and I said I hadn’t, but since I had time, maybe I should pop in for a look to see what it was like. My first reaction? It’s as orange as he is!

Well in that case, I can’t spend any money here….

After walking around, it was time to get lunch. This area has heaps of food trucks all around!

I decided to get some Mexican since I hadn’t actually had any since I got to America. I decided on beef tacos (they didn’t have beef tongue so I got just the mince instead), and a tamale because I had no idea what a tamale was and felt like trying it out!

It turns out the beef taco was spicy so I had a hard time eating it lol. I wish I wasn’t so chilli sensitive. The tamale was quite nice, I had no idea what to expect and it was a decent feed!

I love random food trucks! I wanted to try out more food too, but stayed sensible.

I also did a quick visit to St Patrick’s Cathedral to check it out.

A photo of QB house, just cause I could! What a nifty haircutting place. Seems to be quick and affordable, would love to try one out at some point!

Anyway, I had headed back to Colombus Circle because tonight was my last dinner in New York, and I was going to make it big. Not quite $600 big, but close to.

Bar Masa it was, the walk in section of the famous and impossibly expensive Masa.

Day 23 – 26/04/2019

My last day in New York. Wow. What an adventure. I had planned to bookend my adventure by ending similarly to how I started, which meant that my final breakfast was going to be at Bluestone Lane in Amsterdam Avenue, the first place I’d actually marked to visit before I started my trip.

Here’s a bacon and egg roll too, which was quite tasty!

Then it was off to Shake Shack. It was busy! But I needed my last cheap tasty burger fix, and lucky thing I came here, because today the chips tasted really good. Super crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside. Was it because it was my last day? Maybe they simply were delicious today!

But alas, look at that rain! It was a very wet day with heavy rain. Oh no, that meant the streets were going to be full of traffic, and since my luggage was too heavy for me to lift so I couldn’t use the trains, this was going to be a challenge.

Finally it was time for me to check out. The rain proved to be a tough opponent. With the streets gridlocked, the taxis didn’t want to take me to their airport – it simply wasn’t worth their time. After having two taxis drive away, I had to use a card up my sleeve, so to speak. I resorted to bribery. What a feeling that was! I’ve never actually bribed a taxi driver before, but this was New York, where the divide between rich and poor was huge, and made very obvious to me, having lived here the last three weeks. I knew how tough it was to make it here, so I was going to make a taxi driver’s day, hopefully. Money talks, and the taxi driver let me in.

I knew it was going to be a slow ride out, but I didn’t really think that driving 8 blocks would take 45 mins! That’s insane! I can walk that distance in less than 10 minutes! No wonder the usual flat fare to JFK wasn’t cutting it for these guys. I totally feel for them.

The slow traffic had one upside, it was my final chance to soak up the New York atmosphere. Turns out MoMA has free entry on Friday nights, hence there was a line that stretched about four blocks. Crazy! Maybe I should check it out next time!

An hour and a half later, I finally arrived at the airport. Look, it’s still so miserable! I hope the heavy rain doesn’t delay my flight.

I’d given myself plenty of time to get to the airport, and so I got to explore a bit. Look at these mini offices that cost far too much per 15 mins!

They also have some pretty decorations up! In fact, there were a few areas that were supposed to be “Instagram-worthy” according to their own airport guide.

After looking at the various food outlets available, I chose the one that sold fried chicken wings. The Shake Shack at the airport didn’t have chicken bites, I was so sad. I also didn’t think to get a burger and nuggets from McDonalds, even though that’s actually my goal every time I go to an airport! Oh well. I got some wings that were too spicy for me (I am really disliking my weakness towards chilli), and some vege sticks. Yay, I can eat something healthy! I didn’t know what the sauce tasted like as a result, since it was enjoyable to munch on the vegetables as-is.

Finally, time to hop on the plane. Oh man what a shock. I’d chosen premium economy on the way back, since I couldn’t afford full business both ways. All of a sudden, this felt really cramped! Oh no.

My Book the Cook meals are also now back into tiny boxes instead of pretty crockery :(

Ha, even my exit sign is broken and covered with duct tape! This is kind of depressing, really!

More depressing Book the Cook food.

The German breakfast was meh too.

I thought my stopover in Singapore would be a redeeming feature of this flight back down to reality, but even this bowl of beef noodles wasn’t as good as I remember it to be the first time I was here. Maybe it was an off day, maybe I was just super tired from not really getting much sleep on a cramped seat.

And then my final sobering economy seat class. Why is there no space? Why are the screens so small and old??? Wow. Yeah. This was not fun.

And the standard in flight meal. look at how sad that broccoli is! What a disappointing return trip. I mean, I asked for it by glitzing up my forward trip and splurging like there was no tomorrow, so I have no one to blame but me haha! But I do remember economy being better than this, so I’ll just attribute this to the huge contast between living the high life on holiday and then returning to the economy pleb that I am.

Overall, that was an amazing holiday. I ate so many things and explored so many interesting places! But the most enlightening part was seeing the people and the streets. New York is a surprisingly divisive city, some people love it and some people hate it. I’m definitely in camp love it, but only as a tourist. It’s a great place with very friendly people – I’ve heard that some people perceive New Yorkers to be rude, but to me, they were simply efficient. Walking as a mode of transportation, they read pedestrians well and knew the traffic light system. They were actually amazing multitaskers too, often they had AirPods in their ears and were in a conversation, but could still nagivate the streets without bumping into others or in near-misses with cars – people who caused cars to beep were actually all tourists, unsure of whether to stay or go during a crossing. The only weird thing was that the locals would give you comments when you don’t need them, and it was an interesting experience. Sometimes they were incredibly useful, for example, one man offered tickets to the Vessel because his wife couldn’t make it or something similar, but stranger danger kicked in so I declined. I was with my friend at the time, so I have a feeling he was being genuine, but oh well. It wasn’t meant to be one of my opportunities, since I feel my gut does pretty well at seeking out unexpected bonuses. Sometimes they were plain weird, like some guy commenting I had a nice dress in passing. Some people might find that creepy, but the tone didn’t come across as *too* creepy. What was more awkward was a girl at Gramercy Tavern complimenting me on the same dress, but going on about it a bit too much and I had no idea how to respond! Then there was the girl who let me know my skirt was riding up (naturally since my bag’s there, and I knew my skirt has two layers and that I wasn’t actually showing that much skin XD). So yeah, a weird, but well meaning bunch.

Everyone was really nice, and some really chatty folk too at the restaurants. I definitely liked the people!

However, I wouldn’t want to live here. There was too much that I saw that made me realise New York is too cutthroat, the gap between rich and poor was simply too big. To make it, you had to be exceptional. Anything less, and you would struggle to scrape by. I heard rich old men talking about Hudson Yards and seemed like they were always looking for a deal, dining at high end restaurants, but then I saw the ice cream vendors and the food truck vendors slaving away, $2 at a time, pushing their carts around early in the day and late at night. I also saw the fast food joints filled with coloured and black people, but not a single white person. That was weird to me – shouldn’t there be a mix? So that any teenager who wanted some money could work at these stores? Why weren’t there more coloured people at the restaurants I was going to? To their merit though, I did see fair employment at most of the restaurants I went to, like Omakase Room by Tatsu, Per Se, and Bar Masa (and possibly more but I wasn’t as attentive to the staff). The divide is still real. But I’m not going to go too in depth here about this stuff. Just an observation into things.

New York, you’ve treated me well. I’ll miss you!