NY - Part 2

Day 2 on holiday in the big apple! I met up with Ha a colleague of mine and we took care of our work responsibilities (setting up our booths at the trade show) and registering. It was Ha's first day in NY so we started by walking up to Central Park and grabbed lunch at another open air market. After doing a little shopping we walked in the park and ooooed and aaaagghhed over the apartments that line the parks' boundaries...especially Trump Towers! I heard he has an entire floor all to himself and his family.

Then Ha and I went on the subway and got ripped off by a subway dude who sold us a pass that was only good for one ride instead of the whole day like he promised. Guess that happens when you are a tourist and since I've never fallen for it in Vancouver, perhaps it was meant to happen at some point in time!?

Ha and I got off the subway and walked through Little Italy, Chinatown and down to the Brooklyn Bridge and along the waterfront. Impressions of Little Italy: beautiful tree lined streets, lots of brick, a cool soccer field in the middle of two busy roads and art galleries. Impressions of Chinatown: s-m-e-l-l-y streets (all markets sell fish sitting on ice, ice melts and drips into sidewalk/road, sits in sun. Eeeww!), busy sidewalks, lighting shops everywhere and a cool supermarket that Ha and I went into for a snack for her. I could have been in China as nothing was in english! Ha and I walked down to the Brooklyn Bride and I was surprised to see how nice it was by the waters edge. There was a huge soccer turf field with a track around it as well as numerous basketball courts. There is a promenade along the water and we walked down to this large wharf/tourist area. Here is a shot of us along the water. Aren't we cute?

After being thoroughly annoyed with this totally cut and possibly stoned shop keeper (he was truly an oddball) we worked our way up along the promenade until we hit the financial district. We walked along wall street and came across a bit of history, George Washington. The monument was to commemorate his signing of documents to become the first president of the United States. The building behind his statue is where it took place. Then, across the street, very patriotic stands the New York Stock Exchange, always under a watchful eye.
We walked by an old church and there were headstones in the yard that dated back to the mid-1700's!!! It was totally hard to imagine how many changes that city has undergone since then!

A somber part of our journey led us past the site of the World Trade Towers. There is a large display of the timeline of events posted up along the fence with photographs. It's a truly haunting site to see and I couldn't bring myself to take photographs. I was trying not to cry. A new friend I've made has worked in the financial world in NY for a long time. He had some chilling stories of friends who lost co-workers, children and seeing people jumping out of the towers to their death. It really puts life in perspective in a heartbeat.

We made it through that area of town and marched on to Greenwich Village to a famous pizzeria called John's, complete with wood fueled pizza ovens! Cold beer and hot pizza never tasted so good! I think in total we walked over 50 blocks!

And just to prove that I did do some work while there, here I am in the booth. The show was quite dead actually, which surprised me for the market we are in. I thought it would have been absolutely packed!