New York

Downtown

After travelling around 1200 miles (2000kms) we reached the costliest and time pass hotel of our journey. We booked this hotel, as it was near to Times Square as well as China Town. Hotel rent was 150$ for 2 Queen Beds. As soon as we powered on the TV, C grade movies started, which confirmed our hotel choice.

White House @ Madam Tussads

As we had to just rest for a while and head on towards Square, we didn’t mind any of these things. We were hell tired so everyone slept for some time, refreshed and then started looking for bus stop. We took bus 4.85$/person from South Hackensack to port authority and near to that we have times square. It’s better to take bus to avoid parking in downtown. Note that Times Square is @ 7th and 42^nd, but the cops closed the streets up to 57^th street when we reached and they kept on closing streets one by one to control people. We tried for some time to get as near as possible, but our crew was more worried about returning and wanted to see pub/dance bar. Hence we left before 2016 hits and tried for a dance bar. Unfortunately bar had strict policies for shoes and we didn’t had proper ones, so we were not allowed. In all this mess, it strikes 12 and we were not even able to see fireworks. Well then we tried for club and they were also closed. Still we call it as Happy New Year. It's all about being happy whatever the situation is. This bullshit is called as maturity.

View from Empire State

Next day we had a pre booked New York tour by Tours4fun.com. So we traveled by Uber cab after using first time referral discount from hotel to China Town. Tour girl (Vikki) took some amount from us to cover entry fee of the attractions. Our first attraction was Empire State Building, a 102-story skyscrapper and world's tallest building for at least 40 years. It;s name is derived from New York's nick name The Empire State. It gives a good view of Manhattan downtown from top. To know more and view a good video visit http://www.esbnyc.com/.

Deep Thinking

Our next stop was Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum-a Military and Maritime History Museum with a collection of Museum Ships. If you would like to see planes like F16, you should visit this place. Museum houses legendary aircraft carrier Intrepid, the space shuttle Enterprise, the world’s fastest jets and a guided missile submarine. USS Intrepid served tours of duty in World War II and the Vietnam War. Enterprise, the world’s first space shuttle that paved the way for America’s successful Space Shuttle Program. Also on display are 28 authentically restored aircraft, including the Lockheed A-12 Blackbird, the world’s fastest military jet and spy plane, and the British Airways Concorde, the fastest commercial aircraft to ever cross the Atlantic Ocean. Rounding out the Museum are the submarine Growler, the only American diesel-powered strategic missile submarine open to the public.

Wall Street

We took lot of time in Intrepid so Vikki was quite angry and decided to just drop us @ Madam Tussad's Wax Museum. Else we were supposed to spend sometime at Times Square and then to Madam. Anyways, they are close, so it's fine. Madam Tussad's wax museum was started from London and now has branches in major cities throughout the world. It is called as "wax museum" but not everywhere we have wax sculptures. Most of the sculptures in New York were plastic but their setup was bit realistic. Environment, background, colors, dresses, music combined made us feel like they are real and sometimes if a real person is statue for sometime, we may feel that its a sculpture. Strange feeling. we took lots of pictures with celebrities and moved on to last but not the least the famous Times Square. Last night, we were not able to witness what Times Square is, but today we saw all the big screens and madness of it. It's truly a light city. Then we walked towards port authority to catch a bus to New Jersey. I was hoping to get a good veggies instead of having something time pass. So I waited till our hotel and found nearby subway.

White House

We got a warm welcome @ Subway by a Spanish girl Merlyn. She greeted us with famous quote "Kya haal hai ?". I also replied with same enthusiasm "badiya, aap kaise hai". Since most of the shops, restaurants and hotels of New Jersey are owned/run by Indians, we get such greetings. A nice welcome increases taste and make us feel homely. Within 5 minutes of time span, we got mixed with the owner and Merlyn, hence took the photo.

New York Stock Exchange

Next we moved towards Baltimore, where we had our 2nd hotel booked.

Famous F16 @ Intrepid

Warm Welcome Restaurant