Krystle and I had decided that the first part of our second day in New York was going to be our touristy day. We had purchased tickets for one of those hop on hop off buses and figured that we could combine that plus using the subway to get around the city and maximize the day.
We started by heading by subway to Union Square to have breakfast at Chocolate By The Bald Man (yes, they have breakfast there and not just desserts).
I had an egg scramble and it came with a sugar biscuit and a dish of melted chocolate on the side. I used the biscuit to dip in the chocolate and it was amazing!
After breakfast we crossed the street where the hop on hop off bus had a stop. We only waited a minute or two before we saw the bus headed our way. While it was a pretty sunny day, it was in the low 40’s and very windy, so we were pretty cold.
But despite the cold, we got seats on the top of the bus so we could have the best views.
We were in awe over all the amazing architecture around the city. While Los Angeles and San Francisco (where Krystle and my brother live) have good-looking buildings, the ones in New York are very different. We spent a lot of the time on the bus just enjoying the view.
We got off the bus near where the 9/11 Memorial and the new Freedom Tower are located. We didn’t know that you needed tickets to see the 9/11 Memorial, but we were lucky enough that they still had same day tickets (and that the ticket time was only about an hour later). We waited around for our time at the memorial at a nearby store and once we could go in, we got through all the security checkpoints pretty quickly (it’s similar to what you go through at the airport).
The last time I was in New York, it was August of 2000. I went to visit the World Trade Centers (somewhere I have a picture of me standing between the two buildings). This was the first time I was in the city with the towers being gone. It was different. But I think that the memorial is beautiful and that it was done so well and tastefully.
And the new Freedom Tower looks amazing as well.
We walked around the memorial for a little bit and then headed over the subway. We got the subway over to the Empire State Building, where we got tickets to go up to the 86th floor observation deck (there’s a higher observation deck but it was almost $20 more per person to go up there).
Up at the observation deck, we took lots of pictures. I got a picture of the view of each side of the building.
And of course we took selfies at each side as well.
Since it was such a nice day, we also had an amazing view of the Statue of Liberty.
After the Empire State Building, we hopped back on the bus to go on some more of the tour. We planned to take it back to the hotel, where we would get the subway to our next adventure of the day: getting blowouts at DryBar.
But that story is going to have to wait until tomorrow’s post.
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