The past week has been packed with activities.
We landed in Boston and was picked up by one of my in-laws friends, we were whisked to Marlborough to have lunch and a small nap.. and followed by dinner at the nearby city of Framingham. We headed back to the Boston and checked into the Onyx Hotel which was a cool boutique hotel.
The next day, my little family went on a little duck tour bus, which is an amphibious vehicle that could go on water. It took us all around Boston and its downtown area, showed us some tourist sites and told us some interesting historical information.
The following day, we checked out and took a Greyhound (bus) to New York. The trip took 4hrs with a break in-between.
New York was a massive city, we walked a few blocks to our hotel on the 34th Street (between 7th & 8th Avenue). The room was smaller than expected and I can tell you now, the cost of living is definitely as high as everyone made it out to be.
We did one of those double-decker open-top hop-on-hop-off bus tours and saw a few sights along the way.
The first day on tour, we saw Madison Square Gardens, NYC GPO (which opens 24hrs), Empire State Building, Broadway, 5th Avenue (North & South), Macys'* (department store), World Trade Centre construction site, Wall Street (Financial District), Statue of Liberty, China Town, various parts of Brooklyn (as well as crossing the Manhattan Bridge), United Nations, Astoria Waldorf (hotel where world leaders stays and learnt that the Vatican Pope was also staying there at the time), Rockefeller Centre, Radio City Hall and Times Square (at Toys'R'Us, we had to buy a stroller for Marcus, because the other was trashed around by the TSA and had to be replaced). Dinner was later at one of the restaurants in Hells Kitchen borough (not where they film Gordon Ramsay's TV show!).
I also caught up with a friend (who is living in NYC) that I've kept in touch with when I was over in Scotland, Kevin (and friend, Matt). It was great to see him and drining
The second day on tour, we actually went on the ferry to Liberty Island & Ellis Island and saw the Statue of Liberty BIG! You can no longer climb up to the torch (not because of the 9/11 incident, but because it's a fire & safety hazard been only one stairwell with one set of staircases. We also went up to the 89th floor on the Empire State Building to view the city. It was freezing!
The final day of tour before catching an Amtrak train to Washington, we went Uptown (anything up Central Park), saw Dakota, Ghostbuster film location, parts of Harlem borough, Guggenheim Museum, and Grand Central.
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