Two Days in Liberty City...I mean...New York

Amazingly, I've never been to New York before. In the two days since we've been here I've come to appreciate just HOW WELL the Rockstar video game crew did at making Liberty City look JUST LIKE New York. That's not the important part of this post, it's just what I consider to be a geek-chic title. That said, it does kinda seem like I've been here before.

Here's the run down of the past couple of days.

Sunday night we arrived late, our Amtrak train's engine caught on fire and we arrived no less than four hours behind schedule. We had a bite to eat and crashed really fast. We woke up late Monday morning, got dressed, and headed into the city. We started out with a walk up to St. John the Devine, an Episcopalian Cathedral on the upper west side. Jeez Louise what a beautiful church. We were both just completely taken aback by the scale of the place and the way the light played on the columns and walls as it streamed in through the stained glass.

After we had our fill of amazing sacred architecture, we decided to head somewhere a bit more secular. Times Square. I thought it was pretty awesome, what with all the lights and whatnot. The place was way overstimulating...in that good way that Las Vegas is also overstimulating. I'm hoping we'll get the chance to make it back at night so I can see the place lit up "for real." We also had a good time at the Toys 'R' Us in the square. By far the coolest Toys 'R' Us evar. 

Times Square was followed with a bit of sport shopping and a decent length walk down to lunch at Kyo Chon, a Korean fried chicken restaurant. Korean fried chicken is amazing. The skin is at once crispy and gooey. It's kinda hard to describe, but it rules. We walked down 33rd Street which is a bevy of Korean businesses and headed back into the fray. After lunch I noticed a tall building, it turned out to be the Empire State Building. It's amazing how many sights you can see really fast in such a densely packed city.

A little more sport shopping preceded our trip over to Chinatown for dinner with Babehoney's sister at Dim Sum Go Go. The Dim Sum was really nice and flavorful, but the highlight was walking around the alleyways and seeing all of the ducks hanging in the windows of the Chinese shops. It was definitely memorable, but not the neon-adorned spectacle I hoped it would be.

 Today we walked across the park to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The park was covered in snow, so not great for pictures, but the museum was awesome. We spent about 6 hours in the museum and left mentally and physically drained. On the way back to the apartment we got a great view of the skyline. For dinner we ordered in Thai.

New York is by far the biggest city I've been to, and it's really impressive. I'm really excited about the prospect of visiting even larger cities in Asia, hopefully soon!