New York City Day Two

Our second day in New York was filled with just exploring.  We didn't start our "real" sightseeing until Monday, as we bought passes that let us into 80 attractions plus gave us 5 hop on and off bus tours we could take.  We made Sunday a day to just explore a bit more than we did on Saturday.  

We had a later start to our day, which was okay since we were on vacation and not on any real time table.  We started out at Jamba Juice for breakfast and then into some of the stores in Times Square.  There is the largest Toys R' Us in North America in Times Square (which was just down the street from our hotel) that is 4 stories high!  It also has a 60 foot ferris wheel inside!  The cars are different games and toys, we were able to get a picture of a few of them...my favourite was the Fisher Price car :)

Besides the ferris wheel, which was probably the main attraction to the store, there was an arcade, tons of different sections of toys, two large candy sections called Candy Land and Wonka, a computer and video game section and Scoops R Us which served ice cream and other desserts. 

Outside the store they had people dressed up as different cartoon characters to take pictures with, however things like seeing the Hulk and Ironman wearing backpacks made it less realistic!

See what I mean?

Next we went into American Eagle, just because I wanted to see inside it as it was 3 stories high.  They had this massive wall of jeans.  One side of it was all female jeans and the other side was male, plus they had jeans all over the store, it was ridiculous!

Here I am getting some jeans!

Next we headed over to the Hershey's Chocolate World.  The outside of the store alone was worth seeing!  Unfortunately we don't have any pictures of the outside, but it had all kinds of different chocolate bars and a large mug of cocoa that lit up which just drew your attention.  Inside it was rather small, but they had a large selection of different kinds of chocolate including white and dark chocolate Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (the white we picked up for John's sister) and huge bags of candy, including extra long Twizzlers which were a foot and a half long (which we got god John's dad.)

After we hit up those stores, we decided to walk down Broadway Ave to Central Park, since the day before we walked down 7th Ave. to get there.  Along the way we saw David Letterman's studio and got a picture of it.

Once we got closer to the edge of the Park, we saw one of something like 7 Trump Towers across the city.  It's as big and gaudy as he is...

After our brief stop at the Trump Tower, we headed into the Park, we originally thought that we would walk the whole Park, but later discovered that after walking 10 blocks and then about half of the Park, that we wouldn't be able to walk another 4 miles and then the 8 miles plus 10 blocks back.  So we instead did the lower section of the Park, here are a few sights along the way...

Strawberry Fields - dedicated to John Lennon.
We later found out that the apartment that he
was shot at was across the street and that
Yoko Ono still lives there.

On the right, you'll see a pick of Belvedere Castle, which we came along on our walk.  It used to be a look out point, but was turned into a weather observatory.  We were able to go up two stories, which are lookouts for tourists, and got a good view of the surrounding area of the park and skyline.  The next two pictures were taken from the observation decks.

The Great Lawn -- had 6 baseball fields, which are all in better
condition than any of the ones here in Ontario.

Here is a map of Central Park, can you see
how easy it would be to get lost?

On the left is a picture of Cleopatra's Needle, an obelisk which was built in Egypt in 1600 B.C. and was given to New York City in the late 1800s.  It was kind of cool to see something that old there, although John made the comment about how much money it would have taken to send it over....

A little water conservatory for kids, young and old, to drive
motorized sailboats.

As we left the Park on the east side, we followed a path which took us right through the zoo!  We were only able to see a sea otter (which is pictures on your right, although you can't see it).  We took a look at the map of the zoo and all I can say is that there is no lions, zebras, giraffes or hippos, so either the zoo never had any or they were mistakenly shipped to Madagascar!

The fountain from beginning of Friends (although this is
just a model, they had to build one which is in L.A. - or so
I read...).

There were a couple of these Apple stores around.
While we didn't go in, it was kind of neat
how it was all glass and you could see down.

I was told by a friend to check out F.A.O. Schwarz Toy Store, as it was amazing, which is was!  They had these guards throughout the store greeting people as they came in, the guy was super energetic!

They had HUGE stuffed animals all around the store, like life sided ones.  This pink puppy was one of the cheapest ones we saw, for something like $300.  Other ones like the panda bear below were $1400!!  All I can say is that neither I nor any of my children will ever be getting one of those!












They also had a very large candy section (similar to Toys R' Us, although I found out later on the Toys R' Us bought FAO Schwartz, so it explained a bit).

They also had a very large candy section
(similar to Toys R' Us, although I found out later on the Toys R' Us
bought FAO Schwartz, so it explained a bit).

Largest Rice Krispie Square ever!!

You could make your own Muppets there!

The most expensive stuffed animal I've ever seen...

Halo made out of Lego!

Storm Trooper made out of Lego!

Statute of Liberty made out of Lego!

They had a train set out in the store, which John really liked.

I preferred the fancy Barbies

When we left F.A.O Schwarz, we decided to walk down 5th Ave., and since I was tired, I didn't think about what would be along this street...so as we are just strolling along taking in the sights, what do we come across, but the original Tiffany's!!  Obviously I had to go in, even though I was so exhausted from walking around at this point.  We just checked out the main floor and the second floor where the engagement rings were, just to say that I was there, and so that I could have a better sense of what Reese Witherspoon's character was walking in on when Patrick Dempsey's character proposed to her at Tiffany's in the movie Sweet Home Alabama. :)  (Just a little side note: while all the rings were very nice, I very much love the ring my husband picked out for me and I wouldn't trade it for another!)

We found another Trump Tower!

And yes, it basically looked the same as the other one...

After that, we walked back to our hotel without any other stops.  We had a bit of a rest then decided to go out and pick up some souvenirs for our families, then went back to the hotel to drop them off before heading out to dinner at Planet Hollywood.  After dinner, we tried to get some last minute tickets to the Lion King, but it was sold out, so instead we went back to our hotel and figured out what we wanted to do for the next three days once we picked up passes Monday morning and then went to bed early.

Until tomorrow...