Early to bed, early to rise...

I'm so lucky. Sometimes we forget how lucky we are. I live in one of the most exciting and vibrant cities in the world. (London) Don't get me wrong, I miss Newcastle. And I love visiting the US, but it's easy in my excitement to forget that I'm so lucky to be counting this trip as my fourth visit to New York! 

I'm getting to know roughly where I'm going, know where I want to be and know what I want to see. 

We didn't get to bed too early last night. We made it to midnight in our nice French wine bar that seemed to be part if the hotel. But the jet lag kicks in when you wake at 7am. This is a good thing when it means you get up and go out on your first adventure out of the area. 

We walked up towards Rockefeller Plaza in search of breakfast. We eventually got a pastry and coffee to take out, and sat in the sunshine. 

We walked from Rockefeller Plaza to Times Square, and just off it is where we got our sightseeing bus tickets. We were fairly tired and hungry by now, so we picked up some snacks and got on a bus to do the 'Uptown Loop'. 

There are some great things to see in Uptown Manhattan, but we were tired, and enjoyed listening to the pre recorded commentary on what we were passing. Central Park, Grant's tomb, Harlem. We got off the bus at the other side of Central Park, the east side, walked the bottom edge of the park and wandered a little, trying to grasp the vastness of the park, and how incredible it is. It's an oasis in the middle of skyscrapers. 

My next stop was Columbus circle, and the mall in the middle of the Time Warner towers. 

First stop the Whole Foods Market in the basement. It's even better than the one in South Kensington; though it doesn't have the food court, it does have a bar for beers. And if you want to buy take away food at Whole Foods Market, you can eat it in the bar as long as you are buying beer. Seems like a good deal really. 

After a spot of shopping at Sephora and some clothes shops, we headed back towards Rockefeller Plaza, and as we were in the area, we decided to do Top of the Rock. It was amazing! I've done it before, I've seen that view and I knew it was going to be great, but I was still unprepared. I was still completely blown away by the view. 

We managed to catch it just as the light was fading. The sunset across Manhattan was beautiful, the  quickly disappearing light across Central Park, the orange glow over the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building. We took loads of pictures and left after it got dark. 

We decided to head back to the hotel and eat at the sushi restaurant two doors from the hotel. 

One strange thing in the restaurant, as we sat down there was a group across from us, and hearing their voices was a bit bizarre. Three and a half thousand miles across the pond, and there are 4 Geordie guys in the same restaurant. I usually like to guess exactly where the Geordie accent is from, and Cath agreed with me, they sounded like North Shields / Whitley Bay. It's that small world thing again, whenever you go in the world, you'll always find a Geordie!