wine.dine.explore: Suitcase Souvenirs: New York City (Part 2

New York City
June 17-26, 2012

Our first trip out of Manhattan was to Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. Having never been to a major sporting event before, we decided to get tickets for a Yankees game. Groupon actually had some deals for tickets and the seats weren't bad at all! We went on a night where they played against the Atlanta Braves. I'm not a big baseball fan, but it was fun to go for the overall experience of people watching, buying a hot dog from the vendors that walk up and down the aisles, and of course, watching the game. The final score was 4-3 Atlanta.

Yankee Stadium

During the second half of our trip, we went to stay with our friends Josh and Iris in Brooklyn. They were actually about to move to London, UK in a matter of weeks, and so they had some grand ideas of things to do/places to see before they left New York. Iris proposed the fantastic idea of visiting all 5 boroughs of NYC...in one day. We started the day off by feasting on homemade paninis made with the finest ingredients from Trader Joe's. This activity actually convinced J&I to keep their panini press and take it with them to London. Our next destination was to head over to Lower Manhattan to catch the Staten Island Ferry over to Staten Island. Little did we know, this would be the start of a disrupted journey. We got off the boat, took a couple of pictures to prove that we were there, and then lined up for the same boat to return to Manhattan. For some reason, that same ferry wasn't running and we waited in line for about 45 minutes before the next ferry arrived to take us back to Manhattan. From there, we headed north to the Bronx Zoo. However, there was construction on a couple of subway lines that interfered with our plans. Normally there are direct routes from the ferry terminal to the zoo, but certain portions of those subway lines were closed off and passengers were supposed to take a shuttle bus to travel between those sections. We somehow decided to get off the subway at Yankee Stadium and then hail a cab from there. We quickly learned that the regular yellow cabs don't usually travel outside of Manhattan. Luckily, there were a few black private cars milling around so we hired one and arrived at the zoo in style.

View from the Staten Island Ferry

Proof of us being in Staten Island

In Manhattan, on our way to the Bronx

Bronx Zoo

After the zoo, the plan was to head to Han Joo, a Korean BBQ restaurant in Flushing, Queen's. This trip was not without near-disaster. From the zoo, we got back onto the subway and took it to where it was interrupted by construction. There, passengers were supposed to leave the subway and take the shuttle bus over to the next running station. It was such crazy mess. There was only one shuttle bus to be seen when we got out of the station - one shuttle bus for hundreds of people! Many people were getting quite frantic and hysterical and I thought they were going to start rioting. Luckily the 4 of us were able to get on the second bus that came about 10 minutes later, but the anger of the mob and a random woman talking back to me was starting to make me lose my temper too. Good thing it was temporary. We then got to the appropriate train to take us to Queens. The trip from the zoo to Queens took at least an hour and a half to 2 hours, and when we were walking down Main Street in Flushing, Queens to get to the restaurant, we noticed a bus labeled as express from the Bronx Zoo to Main Street in Flushing!! Upon further research, the trip would have taken 58 minutes! I'll write more about the restaurant in Part 3. At the end of the night, we went back to Josh and Iris’ rooftop for a nightcap and to take some photos of the Manhattan skyline.