We got up bleary-eyed from a disruptive sleep (cars, sirens, trucks, people talking, even train horns), but were excited to explore Manhattan for our first full day in the Big Apple! We've both been here before, so our plan was not to over plan, and not run around doing all the touristy things. So this won't be a post about all the things to do in Manhattan for a first-time visitor, like visit Central Park, see a Broadway show, get up close to the Statue of Liberty, eat at all the famous New York establishments or try typical meals from hot dogs to New York-style pizza, and all the rest of it!
A Succession of Parking Tickets
While our parking spot by Grant's Tomb was free, there was a sign that said we needed to move it for street cleaning from Monday to Thursday, 11-12.30pm, so we hung around waiting to drive off and come back to park our RV again. But after 11am, we looked around and none of the vehicles on our side had moved! Lisette took Sheila to grab coffees at Kuro Kuma, a nearby cafe (translates to "black bear" in Japanese, but there weren't any bears in sight). Lisette doesn't really drink coffee, but after our rough night's sleep she figured today was one of the rare days to order it! She got a chai latte, and when she asked the cafe worker if they served flat white coffees, he said yes, but it looked like a cortado when it was ready. Cortado coffees are a good alternative, but it seems that a lot of American cafes still don't know what an Aussie flat white is!
As Lisette was walking back with Sheila, leash in one hand and balancing coffees on the other, she realized that the RV had moved. Michael had to swing by again, as it turned out that while he was inside the RV, a street sweeper had zoomed past. While none of the other vehicles parked around us had moved, he then saw a traffic cop writing tickets--and we would be the next vehicle to get one! So he started the engine and immediately zoomed off before the cop had a chance. Whew! We noticed people get out of their campers near us and notice the tickets they'd received--turns out a few folks were inside as well when this happened, but noticed the ticket when it was too late.
We waited for a tad longer to make sure that we were okay to park again along the street, and once the coast was clear, we got out, relieved and ready to start our day in Manhattan, making sure to walk to Grant's Tomb and take a photo to commemorate this fantastic and free parking area for us for 3 nights.
A Concrete Jungle Trek
Our anticipated plan was to simply walk from where we parked down to The High Line, a popular park 30 feet above street level on an old rail line, with river and city views. The park opened in phases, but it wasn't fully complete and open when Michael last visited in 2011, so Lisette suggested we check this out. Having said that, we parked somewhere around 122nd Ave, and the High Line starts on 34th Ave and goes down to about 14th Ave, so we'd be walking over 90 blocks to get there! But, what better way to explore Manhattan than on foot?
We strolled past Columbia University and some farmer's markets, also passing Tom's Restaurant--its exterior was used as a stand-in for the fictional Monk's Cafe in the TV sitcom "Seinfeld." We won't detail all the restaurants, cafes, food trucks, shops, people and traffic we passed along the way, but it's what we've always experienced in Manhattan--the energy and vibes are what makes the city so unique. Eventually, we started to get peckish, and it's less about whether we can eat but what we actually want to eat, since there are just so many options! We settled on a kebab from a food cart, since good kebabs haven't been easy or frequent to come by on our travels. Michael ordered lamb and Lisette had falafel, and both were delicious--the hot sauce was also the perfect amount of spiciness to give it that extra kick!
We walked past Manhattan Hunter Science High School, a small and selective high school, just as the kids were wrapping up. We went to high schools in the suburbs of Sydney, so we could not imagine what it'd be like to go to school with all this hubbub everyday. We did laugh though when one boy, walking with his group of friends, declared loudly that he wouldn't go somewhere if it was "more than 2 blocks." Wait, what, isn't Manhattan about walking everywhere? By this stage, we'd also walked almost 60 blocks!
Sometimes when you have lunch, you crave dessert afterwards. Michael felt like a milkshake and lo and behold, we were close to Gelatoville Gelataria & Coffee, an authentic Italian gelato shop in the East Village. Michael got a cappuccino-flavored milkshake and after Lisette tried a bit of it, she decided to get a couple of scoops of gelato as well, only to be told that she could only get a minimum of 2 scoops! Now, this doesn't sound like a bad thing--she loved the walnut & fig flavor as well as the vegan pistachio one (made with oat milk), but the serving size was way too much, so Michael had to finish it. Unfortunately, the dairy and gelato overload made him feel pretty nauseous and sick afterwards though, sorry!
While we were eating inside the lady sitting next to us starting chatting to us, and we learned she was visiting from Tennessee, to hang out with her daughter, Brye who is a musician who got her first big break on TikTok, with a song she wrote about a breakup that ended up going viral (we also found her Instagram afterwards, @bryemusic--we'll have to keep an eye on her rising fame!) It's always lovely to chat with folks on the road and learn about their travel plans, and share our own.
The High Line
Since Michael was feeling overly full from the dairy deluge, we hoped he'd be able to walk it off further. Just before arriving at The High Line we saw a helicopter landing along one of the piers on the Hudson River across from us, making us think of the TV drama series "Succession"--but then guessing that it was probably tourists who had taken a helicopter ride of the city rather than some big-shot executives (they'd be landing on top of the building, after all!).
At The High Line, we walked along the elevated greenway built on a historic freight rail line, getting wonderful views of the city in the afternoon sun, and stumbling upon some interesting sculptures, including Foot Fountain (pink), of a 10-foot-tall pink sculpture of a foot and lower leg. There's a little bike next to it, and if you pedal, the sculptures shoots out water through a sprinkler! Other one-of-a-kind structures we saw included Vessel, an elaborate honeycomb-like structure that's 150 feet (45.7 meters) tall, with 154 flights of stairs (2,500 steps), for people to climb (who needs a stairmaster when you can use this?!)
Another cool building was The Shed, a cultural center that opened in 2019, which commissions, produces, and presents a wide range of activities in performing arts, visual arts, and pop culture. What makes this structure so fascinating is that the outer shell actually moves! It rolls on giant rail wheels, so that the building can expand into an adjacent plaza, or retract to leave the space open.
While you'd be forgiven for thinking that the sculpture called Dinosaur was of a prehistoric animal, it's actually a hyper-realistic sculpture of a pigeon cast in aluminum. The name of the sculpture is in reference to the sculpture’s scale and to the pigeon’s ancestors who millions of years ago dominated the globe. We would argue though, that in a city like New York City (and many other cities in the world, like Venice), pigeons still reign supreme!
We continued walking around the High Line, seeing one of the most photographed buildings in the area, of luxury residential apartments on 520 West 28th Avenue, otherwise known as the Zaha Hadid Building, after the famous architect who designed them. it's a beautiful high-end structure, with a fluid, sculptural facade of curved steel and glass that interlocks together, which are signature to Hadid's style. However, while owning an apartment here, right in the heart of Chelsea in this famous building would be very much a baller move, we couldn't help wondering if we'd want to live here even if we had the millions of dollars available to do so. Every apartment had its blinds drawn--and we suspect they'd be shut all the time--as it's situated in a high traffic area where hundreds of people are walking past each day to take a photo of the building, and the views would be of other buildings (and this seems to also be the case for the penthouse). But, we suppose that for anyone who lives here, they have multiple multimillion-dollar homes that they can escape to when they want more privacy and to be further away from the city!
Dinner with Jessica
As the sun was setting, we realized that we hadn't brought dinner for Sheila, and we had our own dinner plans! But hey, we're in Manhattan, so when we looked online, we found multiple dog stores for us to get her some food. Fancy salmon treats to help her hips and joints for the win, she loved them!
We had arranged to meet our friend Jessica for dinner a few days prior, and mentioned we wanted to eat Thai food. Yes, we'd just had Thai food for dinner last night, knowing that we'd be eating Thai again tonight, but we really couldn't go wrong with Thai cuisine, particularly because Jessica had reserved a table at Chalong Southern Thai. It's southern Thai cuisine, not the same as general Thai food! The restaurant is in the popular and always trendy Hell's Kitchen neighborhood (where we also were last night), and we saw so many other delicious-looking meals being served up as we walked along--including Peruvian, Spanish, more Thai, and even German doner kebabs! We had to ask a German friend what German kebabs were and how these were different from other kebabs. Apparently there's a sizeable Turkish community in Germany that these kebabs are based on, and we heard they are just delicious! Well, we'll have to try it one day, hopefully in Germany!
We arrived at the restaurant at pretty much the same time as Jessica, and the place was buzzing! Lots of folks waiting outside to get in, but fortunately we only had to wait 5 minutes as we had a reservation. The restaurant has a jungle theme inside--a bit dim, but with a warm color palette and excited energy from the people already dining in and enjoying their evening. Once we peered at the menu, we noticed that a lot of it is seafood based, hurray! Lisette ordered the squid ink fried rice (always a sucker for any squid ink items on a menu), while Michael opted for kee mao seafood (a flat rice noodle dish). Unfortunately, Jessica can't eat shrimp, but the appetizer and dessert combo she had was also a hit.
How wonderful to be able to catch up with friends in various cities that we've visited around the country, we truly are so lucky! We last saw Jessica when we had our farewell party at the beginning of the year before we embarked on this trip, so we were doubly lucky to see her again this year. Who knows where we'll meet next?
Sheila on the Subway
As we were between W 50th and 51st and had already walked for miles today, we took the subway back to Grant's Tomb. It was initially busy on the train (standing room only), and Michael had to give Sheila a gentle little shove to get on the train quickly before the doors closed. We were also mindful of giving Sheila enough room to stand by us, sheltering her from the other folks also standing. But the crowds thinned out a bit as we continued north, and Sheila was so well behaved the entire time, as we got out and walked back to our RV, which was just as we'd left it. We were both exhausted after a busy day, not doing much else but brush our teeth and change into pajamas before crashing into bed!