A Not-So-Accidental Tourist in New York – Part II

Day two (6/17/2009) of this New York trip and I wanted to revisit the Empire State Building since thismorning the weather seemed to be more outdoor friendly than yesterday. I had been to the  Empire State Building before, but only had about 30 minutes on the observatory due to time limitation and it also happened to be on a very cold and windy winter morning. Compare to the previous day’s gloomy weather, this morning was cool in a comfortable way and sky was just clear and beautiful – a perfect day to see the city on high. I started today’s trip by walking east on 35th street, then turned right onto the 5th Ave to continue down to the Empire State Building, or UP to ESP I should say :-p

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I don’t know about you, but whenever I think of New York two movies came into my mind – Sleepless in Seattle and Serendipity. Funny that I don’t associate Seattle with the Sleepless; I guess the Empire State Building just has too much character in it, doesn’t it? Not surprisingly that the Empire State Building just can’t keep itself out of the movies, whether it was love story like An Affair To Remember from my parent’s time or not-too-long-ago When Harry Met Sally, and of course King Kongfrom everyone’s childhood memory.

Early morning the tourists still in bed,  Chrysler Building, Flatiron Building, St. Patrick’s, Hudson River, East River and Bridges were clearly in view. Ahh, what a beautiful day!

The next stop was to a destination that I would most likely not go on my own, by car or by subway, so I took the red double decker again and heading toward Brooklyn. There was one place that I wanted to see, the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory, by the Brooklyn Bridge. The double decker drove past the downtown of Manhattan again and crossed the East River into Brooklyn after South Street Seaport. Once the bus crossed the bridge, the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory was right there on the waterfront, in a red-and-white twenties fireboat house selling classic ice cream, sundaes and their special dark-chocolate hot fudge. And just like Manhattan has its Central Park, Brooklyn residents also have their own “outside of the city without leaving the city” park – Prospect Park and it looked like a forest to me.

By the time I got back in Manhattan, my feet were killing me from all the walks,  and YES I can confirm that:  walking was actually more exhausting than running! To rest my feet (what a perfect excuse :-p), I stopped at Junior on Times Square, right next to The Lion King Theater. Junior was supposed to be one of the two best cheesecake places in New York, Eileen’s Special being the other one, and I was having high hopes for it. Looking at so many different cheesecakes to choose from, original, raspberry, chocolate swirl..etc, the very indecesive I felt like an 8 years old and life seemed to be such a tough challenge. I finally decided to go with the Little Fella original cheesecake with hot coffee; I ate the cake wholeheartedly at this red and orange classic cheesecake place. However, I did not find the taste fantastic, and probably would risk upsetting New Yorkers by saying I still think the Chicago’s Eli’s got the best Cheesecake in the world.

It started to rain again with strong wind while I was standing in the middle of a sea of New Yorkers; time to go back to hotel room and stay warm.