Barb and Baden’s Excellent New York City Adventure – Final

Without a doubt, the weather has been more of an impact on this New York City adventure than on most of our trips. Two days ago we were sweltering during the day in temperatures approaching 37 degrees. The worst part was that it stayed close to this temperature the whole night. We went out to dinner that night and ate in an open-air garden and were literally sweating through the entire meal.

 

Before I forget, the restaurant that we went to on Wednesday night was called Tree and the recommendation to eat there was given to me by a friend at work. Great restaurant! Tree is one of those small neighbourhood restaurants that has really great food at pretty reasonable prices.

Despite the heat, we spent most of Wednesday walking around the SoHo and Greenwich Village districts of the city. These areas are just filled with interesting, funky stores and restaurants you could easily spend days wandering the streets checking out each one of them. If there was one place in NYC that I would want to live it would probably be the SoHo district. I’m sure that a million dollars or so could buy us a 500 sq. ft. apartment in this area. 🙂

By Thursday morning, the temperature had changed dramatically and it had gotten over 10-15 degrees cooler than the day before. While it had turned overcast, it became actually pleasant again to walk around the city and not be constantly sweating.

Wicked

One of the highlights of our trip to NYC was looking forward to seeing the Broadway show called Wicked. We had bought tickets for the show in Vancouver and last night was it.

NYC has so many theatres that you could literally see a different show every day for probably six months or more. We had both decided that we wanted to see Wicked but we had to decide from dozens of top-notch productions that are playing at this time. In case you aren’t aware of the story of Wicked, is about how the wicked witch of the west of The Wizard of Oz movie actually got to be wicked.

Without giving away too much of the story, it turns out that she really wasn’t wicked after all, just misunderstood.

Wicked was a fantastic show and our only regret was that we only bought tickets for one Broadway show. Wicked played at the historic Gershwin Theatre and it was a fabulous venue to see a show in NYC.

Getting Around NYC

Getting around the NYC area is made fairly easy by the fact that they have an excellent subway system. One of the first things that Barb and I normally do when we arrive in a city like NYC is that we purchase an unlimited, 7 day subway ticket. Not only is there the cost savings of getting an unlimited pass but it actually makes a big difference of what we do in the city.

When we’ve been in places where we only bought a book of tickets, we find that you’re always counting how many rides you have left and invariably end up not going somewhere because you want to save your tickets. Conversely with an unlimited ticket, you are free to go anywhere even for a short amount of time as it makes no difference to your cost. The end result is that you end up seeing much more of the city – which it’s really all about.

The Shopping

NYC is definitely one of the great cities of the world with respect to shopping. The size of the department stores in the city are astounding and with it a selection of products that is vast. We’ve spent 8 days in NYC and, while we’ve been to all of the mar department stores, we have realistically only put a small dent into the total amount of small, unique stores that exists throughout the city.

I compared notes with Barb about what her thoughts were about the shopping in NYC compared to other big cities that we have travelled to. Barb felt that for women’s clothing and in particular, shoes , the selection in NYC was as good as she has ever seen.

I had to disagree with respect to men’s wear. For me, Paris is still the number one city that I would go to to buy clothes. I think that the main reason for this is that most of the stores in NYC are heavily weighted towards American brands vs. European brands in Paris which I happen to prefer.

Realistically, it’s much easier (quicker and cheaper) to get to NYC from Vancouver than to go to Paris so there’s always those costs that have to be taken into consideration to get to stores in either city.

And Finally …

As I write this final section, we are in the process of packing up our suitcases as we return home tonight. We’ve both agreed that 8 days was just the right amount of time to stay here in NYC (for our first trip). We’ve seen lots of places, seen a great show on Broadway and been able to get a taste of what NYC is all about.

Perhaps more than any other place that Barb and I have gone to (except South Africa), we have had more warnings given to us on this trip than any other about “staying safe”. One of the things that we quickly became aware of even just after a few days here is that we never felt unsafe at any time. On the streets, in the subways or anywhere else it was just never a concern. All in all, the local people whom we talked to in the past week have almost always been pleasant and nice to deal with. Quite the opposite of the stereotypical rude New Yorker that many of us have heard about.

Given our positive experience on this trip, we can definitely see ourselves returning here again – perhaps many more times. 🙂

After we return to Vancouver tonight, Barb and I will be continuing our research for two more adventures that we have in the works over the next 12 months. One is a return to one of our favourite places and one to somewhere brand new. More details to come over the next few months.

Photos from this trip have now been uploaded to my photo web site here my photo web site here.

 

 

Take care.

Baden