The Big Apple - Times Square and the Empire State Building

I finally went through all of the photos we've taken during our short trip to NYC and sorted them out. You know... the usual weeding out the ones that are overexposed, strange pictures of the ceiling/floor, *accidental* shot of someone's crotch. yeah... yeah... ladies, you know what I mean... *wink wink* Ok, fine! I guess I'm alone here. I think I heard someone say "eww", but really I'm kidding, I prefer upskirt shots! Still kidding! (not really, I'm just saying that, shhh..) Please don't leave..... I promise you there will be some pretty pictures. :)


It took me this long because apparently we took close to 400 pictures in one and a half day, well, what can you say, we're Asians! So after the weeding, resizing, and brightening up the ones that are way too dark, I kept about 300 pictures that we took and will now share some that I cherry picked out for this blog.


Time Square was so crazy! We got there somewhere between 9:30 and 10pm and there were just loads of people there. In Chinese it would be described as 人山人海 (ren san ren hai) which literally means "people mountain, people sea" There were bright lights coming from every corner of the buildings, electronic billboards everywhere, and flashy signs; they pretty much lit up the sky and the short couple blocks of the city felt like it was daytime.

We passed by this Toys"R"Us store and I pretty much just ditched my companions and ran inside cause I saw this:

The store is so huge that they could fit a 60ft ferris wheel inside it! It costs $4.00 to go on the ride. Too bad we didn't have time, otherwise I would so take a ride on it! Doesn't it look so fun?

After Times Square we made our way to the Empire State Building. It was around 10:30pm when we arrived, and I was not expecting the big long line that was there. We read that there's a Express pass ticket you can buy but didn't know where to purchase it, so like everyone else, we stood in line. After half an hour we finally made it through the security check and got in another line for the ticket, and my boyfriend decided it's time to ask someone about the Express Pass ticket.

Apparently we didn't have to be in line for the past 30 minutes! Err! They waved us pass and escorted us to the ticket booth window, and after we got the ticket there were no more waiting for us. Want to take the elevator? Sure! Go through your own special entrance, flash the Express Pass ticket and we're in!

Both of us are big fans of not having to stand in line so it was pretty cool. I think we probably saved ourselves 2-3 hours because of the ticket, but of course we did pay for it, it cost about $45.00/person vs. $18.00 for a normal ticket. However, if you don't have too much time to spare, or you feel that your time can be spent doing better things elsewhere and you don't mind paying the price, I would highly recommend getting the Express Pass ticket. Just don't do what we did in the beginning and grab someone right off the bat and tell them you're going to get the Express ticket.

The view of the city at night was amazing! No wonder our friend told us to come at night.

Since there were way too many pictures, I will post the other ones on the next post.