NYC 2011 - Day 2

Our 2nd day in NYC started with riding the subway down to Flatiron building.

Flatiron Building

NYC 2011 - Day 1

Six days, six of us, a fun trip to the big apple in mid August. Although I didn't really have time to do my own stuff, it was great to just be back there again, see my new york friends, and also share some of my favourite spots with my Vancouver friends :)

I have planned the schedule out for all six days way in advance(I'm kinda crazy like that). Except switching 2 days around and cutting a few places off the schedule because we ran out of time, everything went pretty smoothly according to plan.

I never actually finished writing my other trip posts... so I will try to finish this one first and get back to the old ones later :P

We took a red eye out of Vancouver to New York. The plane delayed a little bit, but flew fast for only a little over four hours, so we arrived in JFK around 7:30am. Between the options of booking Super Shuttle or taking yellow cabs into Manhattan, the numbers came out about the same, so we took two cabs to Grand Central, 3 people each car, turned out to be $45 flat rate + 5 something dollars toll fee + tip, per car.

The reason I picked Grand Hyatt was of course of its location. I used to walk by it everyday, so it is nice to actually live in it this time. It's still under renovation though, I think it will be done very soon in the next few months.

Lobby looked very temporary for the moment.


The usual check in time is 4pm but we arrived around 9am in the morning. I did call in advance asking if we could check in early so we could have somewhere to put our luggage and fresh up before we head out for the day. The front desk was very nice but they told me the best they could do was to put in a request for me since the hotel was fully booked that day. We were lucky enough to get a room first and other two on the same floor but not until later that day. By the way, the hotel does offer luggage holding service. I'm not positive but I think it might be free if u're checking in, and if you have checked out already, they will hold your stuff for 2 dollars a piece.

So after a quick fresh up at my friend's room, we began our day. Since we're right next too Grand Central Terminal, we started our tour there.

I'm stealing a pic of grand central from my friend's photos. (thank you~)

Charm Modern Thai

This is a very delayed post on Charm Modern Thai :P I have been here numerous times, it is one of our regular lunch spots. Somehow I thought I have written about it already but it turned out I haven't yet. Charm Modern Thai offers a lot of vegetarian choices :)

Inside

Giovane Cafe

This is again from a while back. That morning I saw a friend's Facebook post with a picture of a couple nyc taxis parked on the streets of downtown Vancouver, it looked pretty interesting, so at lunch I wanted to go check it out and see what was going on. I thought maybe they might have been filming Fringe.

Very cool to see a nyc subway entrance in Vancouver :)


We asked a nice girl staff and she told us it wasn't a movie or anything special, just something for Nickelodeon.

Since there was nothing else to see, we kept on walking towards the water and see what was good to eat around the area. Then we walked passed by Giovane Cafe.

Estea Beverage Club

This is from a few weeks back when one of our badminton sessions went a little longer than usual and we had to find a place to eat that opens late somewhere in Burnaby. My friend picked Estea.