Hello again, sorry about the delay in writing up the next bit of our blog, but we're simply having too much fun. We're staying at "The Hotel @ Times Square". It's quite comfortable and the room rate includes free breakfast: a limited range of cereal (I favour Sultana bran - it's probably got less high-fructose corn syrup in it than the other ones), bagels (very nice toasted), a range of small Danishes and pancakes. We certainly can't complain (I could, but then even I concede that not every place offers baked beans). Our room is shown below, it has a small but functional bathroom and a large walk-in robe with a safe. We also have tea and coffee making facilities. Overall we're quite happy with our choice. The front desk staff agree with us because they just sent another couple to stay in our room. We were here first though, so we had to disappoint them.
However, clearly some instruction in map reading is required here because the hotel is actually about 500m from Times Square - admittedly only a minor quibble. The hotel is all about location - it's within easy walking distance of many tourist attractions, including: The Rockefeller Centre, the Museum of Modern Art, Grand Central Station, and Saks Fifth Avenue (an exclusive Department Store). When we had settled in to our room we went for a quick walk around the local area and noticed a lot of jewellery shops (literally hundreds). Amazing, we thought, until we checked the map and realised that we're in the "Diamond District" of New York. It pays to check the map first. We even found our own jewellers, shown in the photo below.
One interesting thing about the Diamond District is that some of the street lights are shaped like diamonds, as shown below (we didn't notice this, somebody had to point it out to us).
We're staying on Manhattan island and it is very easy to find your way around. The roads running North to South are Avenues, while the roads running East to West are Streets. To make it even easier, the Western half of the Streets are called "West (name) Street" while the Eastern half of the streets are "East (name) Street". Most of the Street names are numbers, running from 1st Street to 193rd Street. Sadly there are streets south of 1st Street and north of 193rd Street which have non-numbered names. Most of the avenues also have numbers as names (we're between 5th and 6th Avenues. A very logical system - I love it, apart from those instances where they have strayed from the strict logic of numbered names. On the subject of logic, New Yorkers need a few lessons. Grand Central Station is grand, but it's not in the middle of Manhattan. Central Park is also not strictly in the centre. If they were then Grand Central Station would be in the middle of Central Park. My last point about logic features the back of a tea bag tag shown below (from morning tea today). Blaise Pascal might think that we know truth not only by reason, but also by heart, but, as a paid up sceptic, I have to disagree.
To finish off our first day in New York are a few more happy snaps.
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| The Rockefeller Centre |
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Times Square
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| Grand Central Station |
We had an apple each (not very big) last night, and one of them was 'off' - the bad apple in the Big Apple. That's all for today. We'll be back tomorrow, when we're catching up with a friend for brunch and visiting Not-quite-Central park and the Guggenheim Museum.
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