New York, New York - Part 2 - The Sites

Part 2 of the NYC "Travel Guide" (that was our trip) is all about the SITES of the Big Apple. We did not do too much of the traditional "site-seeing" but, we found ourselves all over the city anyway. There is so much to see in NYC and even though we saw a lot...there is so much more we didn't see!

PART TWO - "THE SITES"

We did a lot of walking around NYC in the cold and stopped at our fair share of Starbucks to stay warm...

but, here are some of the best sites we saw:

GRAND CENTRAL STATION - Our hotel was only 4 blocks from Grand Central and it was definitely our starting and ending point every day of our trip. But, it in itself is a beautiful site to see. I love how grand the main concourse is, the painted green ceiling, and all the above ground trains that come in every day.

RADIO CITY MUSIC HALL & ROCKEFELLER CENTER - We walked over from Times Square one day just to see Radio City Music Hall which is a gorgeous building and right next to it is Rockefeller Center and NBC Studios. It was snowing and the Christmas decor was still up and we loved it!

Then the last morning, we went to the "Top of the Rock" at Rockefeller Plaza. It was probably the most "touristy" thing that we did. It was the only clear and sunny day we had and it is pretty incredible to see New York from that height. I like the "Top of the Rock" much better than the Empire State Building. You definitely don't need to do both. From the the Rock you can see the all of NYC including Empire State Building all of Central Park and the Statue of Liberty. Also, there are 3 levels of observatory decks and a museum with videos about NBC, the building of Rockefeller Center and more at the top.

WALL STREET & GROUND ZERO - We decided late one night to go down to Wall Street. I actually loved doing this at night. It was so cool to see it all lit up and totally empty. We saw the NYSE, Federal Hall and Ground Zero. I am always totally moved when I go to Ground Zero and see what used to be the twin towers. The Fire House next to it has an incredible wall mural of 9/11 and is a year around tribute to all the men and women who lost their lives that day. It is definitely something to see.

CHINATOWN - I have never really spent that much time in Chinatown but, this trip we spent a majority of one day there. It was SO fun. You really feel like you are in a different country. Everywhere you look all the signs are in Chinese and there is no English. We went to Canal street and bought some awesome knock off Michael Kors purses. We also went to a fish market (which the Boys LOVED) and an open air produce market. These are some of my favorite pictures.

CENTRAL PARK & THE UPPER EAST SIDE - We visited Central Park on a very snowy day! It was gorgeous and the whole park was covered in snow. There were people having a snowball fight and snowmen that were built. There were horse carriages and pull carts going through the park and it was beautiful!

Our last morning before we left for the airport, we visited the Upper East Side. Mendy and I are big Gossip Girl fans and it was only appropriate that we visited the UES :) Ben was totally intrigued by Madison Avenue and the fact that it is the most expensive retail real estate in the entire world. The houses were beautiful and it was just the total opposite experience from other parts of New York that we saw. The city is truly a melting pot.

NYC Post - Part 3 coming next!