New York City if often on top of must visit list of tourists, so living in USA for about 2.5 years now I was supposed to visit NYC long ago. But when we're grown-up working adults, number of vacation days become more expensive than the trips themselves! Also, NY trip tends to be quite costly around winter vacation time. So, this winter break when I went home, I decided to stop by NY for few days since I already had lay over there. Also, since my best friend Nate is living there now, it seemed like a perfect reason to visit.
First two days in NY I spent with my uncle, aunt and cousins. It was dreary when I arrived JFK and beyond exhausted after 33 hours trip. I had little bit of rest and my aunt made really delicious food for us in the occasion of me visiting. We went for a drive around Manhattan that night and stopped by the 5th Ave. There was the famous christmas tree at the Rockefeller Center, 94 ft tall and blinking gorgeously with pretty lights. They had a beautiful light show too, which apparently happens annually. I was lucky that they didn't take those down soon after Christmas Day. I wanted to go to the Lego store too, but all the shops were already closed, so we wandered around and I decided to come again with Nate if I have the chance.
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| The huge Christmas tree |
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| A snap from the light show |
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| Lego store at Rockefeller Center |
The next day we were supposed to visit my another aunt's house. I woke up, had breakfast and went to bed again until everyone got ready, the jet lag was rough! In the evening I took the kids to watch Moana and all of them really liked it, so that was successful :)
I kept next two days for more sightseeing and hanging out with Nate. On 31st we went to the Metropolitan Museum of Arts (METS). I love visiting art museums and liked it there. Got some cool souvenirs as well. Then we walked around Manhattan, went to the Lego store and I finally got to go inside! The store itself isn't super huge but it has good collection. The Batman minifig series was already out there. We both bought few things and I was super happy. Later that evening we went to the Times Square to celebrate the New Year, which was my crazy idea. That was Nate's first time going to TS on 31st as well and we definitely didn't know what we were going to run into! There were millions of people there and two opposite streams of crowd. Most of them (like us) had no clue that they closed the main venue by early afternoon! However, I saw the New York Times office and it was worth experiencing anyway.
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| The METS |
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| Manhattan skyline |
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| I also had a really good ramen! |
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| LEGO! |
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| Walking around 5th Ave |
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| New York Public Library |
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| The NYT Office |
On the first day of new year I was up 5:30am, thanks to my jet lag! In the morning we walked around Brooklyn neighborhood and went to watch Hook. I love that movie and the old theatre was pretty fun. They served really good brunch during the show, my first time of such brunch movie experience. Also, on our way I saw some cool graffiti, which I thought was very Brooklyn-ish.
After the movie we went to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and I absolutely loved it there! I was thrilled to see the models of Bangladesh Parliament House by Louis Kahn being exhibited there. They have an awesome gift store where I can spend hours. I enjoyed every moment there and would love to visit again!
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| Entrance of MoMA |
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| BD Parliament House model |
I came back by afternoon the next day and went back to work immediately. It was a really good trip and could see many cool places, even though I was tired from the long journey. I don't know if I'd ever want to live in NY but I like visiting big cities as they're the hub of all the cool stuff, so it was worth visiting NY.
