Monday, August 25, 2008

Final Big Apple post - a few more destinations

The time has finally came! This is my final post about NYC for this trip, why oh why did the trip have to end? As promised from my last post, here are some more photos from my massive photo folder.



The Fuller building, which is also known as the Flatiron building, is one of the most recognizable buildings in New York City. I took this picture when I was in the taxi so the angle is a bit off, but this building is a triangle shape and resembles a flat iron, which is where it got its name, and subsequently the area around it was named the Flatiron district.



What surprised me about the financial district in NYC is that there were still a lot of people (mostly tourists) walking around on a weekend. We barely have anyone in the San Francisco financial district at night or the weekends, but there probably isn't as many tourist destinations in the SF financial district than in NYC.

You can't tell from this picture, but there were A LOT of people around the Wall Street Charging Bull. Like most people, I also went and rubbed its horn and balls for good luck, hopefully now my stocks will go through the roof! My boyfriend did a little more than I did and caused a old Chinese woman to gasp and cover her mouth. What is it that he did you ask? Well, I'll leave it up to your imagination. The first person who guesses it wins a prize!


New York Stock Exchange

Apparently, the Charging Bull was a guerrilla art and was originally placed in front of the NYSE by the artist, Arturo Di Modica, as a Christmas gift to the people of NYC back in 1989. The police seized the sculpture which led to a public outcry and they eventually put the sculpture at Bowling Greens, which is where it stands now.



Right across the street from the NYSE is the Federal Hall with a bronze statute of George Washington. I didn't know this but this is where George Washington took the oath of office as the first President of the United States. Sweet~~~



A waterfall under the Brooklyn Bridge? Yes you saw it right, this is an art project by artist Olafur Eliasson, and there are four waterfall sculptures installed in New York City which you'll be able to visit till October 13th. If you happen to get a chance to go to NYC in the next couple of months, be sure to check it out! http://www.nycwaterfalls.org/


Bethesda Fountain

So I learned that our Golden Gate Park was modeled after Central park and it is about 174 acres larger, however, after a trip to Central Park I got to admit that I liked it much more than Golden Gate Park. (Man, I feel so dirty for saying that, I'm sorry San Francisco!)

Central park is beautiful, very people friendly, and you can probably spend a couple of days there easily. There's even a zoo there! I also saw a carousel somewhere, too bad we were only there for a weekend, otherwise I think I would really enjoy exploring the park more.



Horse carriages in the park. I love horsies!

Fountain at City Hall Park

GTA4 fans, you should recognize this fountain right? And if you don't, shame on you for saying you're an avid GTA4 fan! Shame on you, I say! (j/k) We actually made a point to track down this fountain because my boyfriend keeps seeing it in GTA4 and a few times when we were in a cab, he would point at the fountain and say "Hey! I know that fountain, it's in my game!"

I really enjoyed the short time that I spent in NYC. My boyfriend and I always talked about living in New York City for a few years, and after this trip we could really envision ourselves living there. It's a great city with diverse cultures, amazing food, beautiful scenery, and suprisingly very clean and tasty water. We shall return to you NYC, we shall return...

3 comments:

JelO said...

The GTA fountain! Oh yes.. Me and My friends actually made a fool of ourselves and schemed some kind of evil plans by that fountain to kind of get the feel from reality to the GTA game!!! Whew! Thanks for your post about the Big Apple.. Brings memories.. thats for sure..

JelO said...

Well, this is definitely not a walk in the park revealing it in webworld lol... Anyhow, we were just there in July.. We all know GTA3 Liberty City did not bear much resemblance to the actual city but thanks to geeks for improving, they brought about GTA4 which has the ultimate detail and feel-real with Time Square, Brooklyn Bridge, Central Park with that fountain and all.. (This will take forever to tell the stupefied story of our foolishness!lol) Having said that, we pretty much reenacted what we did in the game but to nobody's harm ofcourse.. It was my friend's car, my friend's girl but everybody was amused... Cmon its the city- anybody can do anything and everybody will applaud.. lol but yeah.. thats the structure of the scheme and I'll leave it to you to imagine what crazy stuff we did... after all, we're talking about GTA here... lol

Name: Jonny said...

Your boyfriend humped it, didn't he? Bastard! :x Hahahaha..

 
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