Day 5:  Saturday June 23, 2012

It is after midnight so my blog will be short. We visited Governor’s Island today. We took a ferry to get there and had to go through security. One thing we learned is that one goes through security at just about every public place. It is annoying but at the same time serves its purpose. This week, there was an arrest made of someone planning to bomb Jewish synagogues in NYC.  The weather was sunny and clear. We could clearly see the Statue of Liberty about a mile away. The whole island is about 1 mile in perimeter so we walked around it. Poor Michelle got sunburned. We saw some interesting sculptures on the island and some practical inventions like the portable bench shown below. It has handles like a wheelbarrow so it can be easily moved around.

There was a Graphics Design exhibit on the island as well which was really neat. It showed that collaboration among many people in different fields is necessary to produce simple graphics like logos, maps, charts, etc. Also while walking around lower Manhattan, we saw one guy just walking along the street normally, except that sitting on top of his head was his pet cat! In a town where nothing seems to attract New Yorker’s attention, this guy had everyone’s heads turning. We later learned via the Internet that he and his cat are icons in downtown NYC. On our way uptown we stumbled upon the New York Stock Exchange with the bull outside.

We visited Grand Central Station. It looks so much bigger in the movies, but it is still pretty big. The funny thing is at one end, up the grand staircase, is an Apple Store which takes up about ½ of the total upper floor. 

We then went to nearby Bryant Park to find someplace to sit and relax. On the way, the pep rally for the Gay Pride parade, which is tomorrow, was being held. Once at the park we found ourselves at Tropfest, which is an outdoor short-film and music festival. We chilled for a while listening to music and watching short films (1-2 minutes long). This was really a cool park with about 20-30 people playing chess, others playing table tennis, bocce ball, and they even had an outdoor reading area complete with carts of books and magazines that you could check out and read in that area. Vendors nearby sold all types of food, jewelry, and accessories. We then went to Times Square and while we were there found ourselves being projected on a 3-4 story tall high definition screen. The giant screen is to the left on the picture below.

 Here we are on the big screen! We are in the middle and slightly to the right. Michelle is in dark pants and a white blouse, and I am in shorts with a white shirt.

We saw the “New Year’s Ball” - it looked so small sitting way up there. Finally, hunger got the best of us so we decided to visit the TGIF at Times Square. We got in, sat down, and when the menu came, one look at the prices told us to leave, so we did. A hamburger was $19 and a salad was $18, and those were the two cheapest items on the menu. We walked away from Times Square for a few blocks and stumbled upon a Japanese Restaurant called MonsterSushi, so we went in and ordered two dinner Bento Boxes. The food was of descent quality and the price was reasonable. A visit to the restroom revealed this interesting sign. I love that Linda personally signed the message.

We then tried to find our way to the train station to take us back to the hotel. At nighttime, in Mid-Manhattan, it is easy to get your directions mixed up. Finally we found our station and made it back to our hotel in Newark, NJ about an hour later.