Travel Log: New York City Part II

Two years ago, I traveled to New York City with my friends Karmen and Joanna. This year, Karmen and I met up in NYC for part II.

New York City. The Big Apple. The city that I’ve been to at least four times and still haven’t seen everything. The purpose of this trip was to see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child play; it was Karmen’s first time watching and my second time (it’s just that good and magical). But of course, our trip was mostly planned around food! You should have seen our itinerary; it was hopping from one food place to another hahaha We didn’t follow our itinerary to the tee, but we managed to hit almost everything on the list.

We stayed four days and three nights. This was a perfect amount of time because we came in early on the first day and left in the evening on our last day so we were able to maximize our time. Plus, we’ve been before so we were able to be flexible on sightseeing. My awesome clients, Mia and Sam, offered their second bedroom to us and have been so hospitable and kind! Their place was in Manhattan so it made getting around that much easier. It was extremely hot and humid our entire trip, but we were troopers in enduring it all although it did zap some energy out of us.

Anyway, here’s a recap of what we did and where we went! I hope it’ll give you some ideas as to where to go for food if you find yourself visiting NYC!

Day I.

The first day, Karmen and I got in around 9am so we definitely got an early start to the day. We dropped our luggage at the apartment and took a little break before meeting up with our friend, Haein, at Los Tacos in Chelsea Market for lunch! I got the chicken tacos and they were good. The chicken was grilled, much different than the shredded chicken taco back home. It gave the taco a smokier flavor and a small crunch.

We walked all the way from Chelsea Market to Central Park (40 minutes, no joke) to a place called, Bibble and Sip, to snack and recharge. It was a cute cafe that had character macarons! They were so good, but I wouldn’t buy them again because they were over $5; I’d rather pay for regular macarons and eat them. I also had an iced matcha jasmine latte, although it wasn’t as sweet as I would have liked. I bought a matcha cream puff as a small dessert to celebrate Karmen’s birthday, and Haein bought the strawberry cream puff. The cream puffs were huge and just as yummy. I recommend the cream puffs, and the place is great for a quick snack because of its close proximity to Times Square and Broadway.

From Bibble and Sip, we meandered our way up to the Met through Central Park. We kept singing the song from Enchanted that was filmed in this area of Central Park even though we didn’t know all the words.

We didn’t end up going into the Met; we wouldn’t have an adequate amount of time to spend there considering the time it took to walk back down to Times Square and eat before the play. So we went on a search to find the bridge where we took a picture with the trees and buildings two years ago.

We didn’t know the name, but made an educated guess based on our walk through Central Park last time (it’s Gapstow Bridge, by the way). I kid you not, we waited twenty minutes for the bridge to become empty enough to take this picture, but it was worth it since we were able to take a breather and get this view! (I just noticed that I’m wearing the same shoes hahaha).

After this, we went the Plaza to get a Karmen’s birthday crepe cake from Lady M. We had Halal Guys for dinner and ate the cake while we waited in line for the play. Inside, they had a photo area (it wasn’t there the last time I went) so we took a picture with our respective houses!

Day II.

The morning was a little cooler than the previous day. However, that thought went completely out the window after walking a block. We started the day off with cronuts from Dominique Ansel Bakery! This bakery is the originator of the cronut (doughnut + croissant) so it was a no brainer to go again this year. They have a flavor of the month, and August’s flavor was salted pretzel caramel. It was a nice balance between sweet and salty, had an oh-so flaky texture like a croissant, and the inside was filled with cream! We went at a good time (arrived around 9am; we took an Uber instead of walking another forty minutes) because a line started forming when we were finished and heading out!

The next item on our itinerary was walking across Brooklyn Bridge since we weren’t able to last time. There was a slight incline and, considering how much we walked the day before, it was a bit rough, but there were clouds to hide the hot sun and bring some relief. I loved the geometry, lines, and interesting perspectives!

We met up with Haein in Brooklyn and decided to bike on the way back to save time and our poor feet. There’s a system of Citi Bikes throughout NYC and is a great way to get around! You get to see more of the city walking through it rather than taking public transport like the subway, but walking was just taking way too long and our feet/legs were dreading the long walks. Bikes are a great alternative for you to see the city while shortening walk time! Plus, Citi Bikes has a vast network so you can easily find a rack close to your location. The only caveat is that you can only have an undocked bike for thirty minutes at a time.; you can dock one bike and get another for thirty minutes. We got the twenty-four hour pass, but even with the passes, you can only have them for thirty minutes at a time. It worked out well though because most places was a twenty-minute max bike ride. However, I will tell you to keep a really close eye on the time. They charge you $4 for going over time. We thought we were keeping time well since our estimated bike rides didn’t exceed twenty minutes, but not well enough; we later found out that we were charged twice for going over. Oops!

We biked back to Manhattan and to 99 Favor (yes, it’s favor, not flavor) in Chinatown for all-you-can-eat hotpot. Safe to say, we ate so much, we didn’t eat any dinner! Afterwards, we got bubble tea from Tsaocaa and Bao; it was alright. The cream cheese foam on Karmen’s tasted good though. Then we biked to The Strand bookstore (the original location) to browse. I love their cards and how sarcastic they were! I bought one for future use, but it wasn’t one of the sarcastic ones; I don’t think the receiver of the card would like it hahaha

We were ahead of schedule since we biked everywhere. It was an awkward stretch of time; not enough to go to the Met, but too long to spend more time at the bookstore. So we headed to another iconic location: Grand Central Station. It was perfect because it was close to both Haein’s bus stop and the theatre. We were quite tired from the heat and exercise at this point; we relished every second in the air conditioned building and hesitated leaving.

We said our goodbyes to Haein at the station and headed to the theatre where we took pictures at the Sorting Hat mural before getting in line for part two.

They had a photobooth thing on the second floor so we went up after the show to snap a quick pic! We also got to meet a few of the actors/actresses outside and even got autographs from a couple of them along with crappy phone selfies. Admittedly, I was a bit starstruck and barely managed to stutter out, “Could I get a selfie?” when Joey LaBrasca (Dudley Dursley/Karl Jenkins/Viktor Krum) got to us. It probably sounded more like, “I-c-asdf-qwkh;c-ould-aslkdj;l-get-jb;biu-selfie?” I was slightly more composed meeting James Snyder (adult Harry Potter). I even got a compliment out. I also found out after the second time I’ve seen this play that James Snyder is the guy who played Malcolm Festes in the movie, She’s the Man. He sings the iconic song that goes, “I see you through the window and I’m standing on a tree outside.” I wish I had known this before meeting him. Banging my head on a wall now.

Day III.

The first stop of the day was a bakery in Chinatown called Lung Moon. Karmen selected some matcha baked goods and sponge cake; I bought a steamed pork bun and a vanilla roll cake. We both also got egg tarts, a classic Chinese baked good. We went to a coffee shop nearby to get iced Vietnamese coffee (Karmen) and Thai tea (me) to complement our baked deliciousness. We ate a little bit at the cafe and saved the rest to snack on during the day.

New York had an event everyday Saturday from 7am to 1pm throughout August called Summer Street where they blocked off Park Avenue so people can run and bike on the street. It was definitely convenient for us since we didn’t have to be stopped at traffic lights as often. We leisurely biked our way towards Love Mama, a Malaysian and Thai restaurant, making a pit stop at the Friends Apartment along the way.

Post Malaysian food, we walked to Steamy Hallows nearby to continue our Harry Potter weekend! Karmen got the Love Potion latte and I got the Butterbrew latte. It was almost spooky to think how accurate these drinks were to how we like our coffee: mine sweet and hers more bitter. The Butterbrew latte tasted like a caramel latte, although they probably used butterscotch flavoring. It was tasty, and even had edible glitter! I couldn’t taste the fruity flavor as much in the Love Potion, but it was a nice slightly bitter drink. The barista explained to us that they used to have Harry Potter knick knacks everywhere, but Warner Bros contacted them saying it was a violation of copyright laws so they had to take it down. But it’s definitely worth a try, especially since there wasn’t a huge line!

The last sightseeing agenda of our day was seeing the Vessel. It’s a new building that opened last year. We were too hot and tired to go up the actual building so we settled for taking pictures of it. We rested back at the apartment until my portrait session with Mia and Sam then Karmen and I pedaled our way to Beard Papa’s for a giant cream puff. We finished the day watching Puffs Play at New World Stages. Luckily, Karmen managed to snag tickets as it was their closing weekend. I would recommend it if they hadn’t closed.

Day IV.

We moved the High Line to our last day in the morning because it was midday and so hot the day before. The air was still saturated with water so our sweat stuck on the surface of our skin, but the temperature in the morning was better than midday.

We ambled our way down the High Line for a pleasant walk. It was a nice and quiet Sunday morning without the hordes of people. We stopped at a few places to take portraits, but otherwise, it was no-rush casual walking. At the end, we stepped down to the street and made our way back to Chinatown.

We had some time before Taiyaki opened so we wandered to Doyers Street, a setting many movies use as China because of its sharp bend and ability to hide any other streets and non-Chinese shops.

We arrived at Taiyaki around 10:45am, fifteen minutes before they opened, and a line had already started forming. Taiyaki is known for the taiyaki fish cone with ice cream, particularly the unicorn one. They’re also known for fluffy Japanese pancakes! We weren’t particularly hungry for ice cream so we only had the pancakes in matcha flavor, of course.

I stopped taking pictures at this point because we grabbed all our luggage from the apartment and dragged our bags everywhere else. We did do more stuff though. We had late lunch at Ippudo and spent the remaining two hours at Duet 35 for karaoke. We trekked our way to Penn Station to catch the train to the airport and to Jersey.

It was a fabulous time with friends despite the heat and humidity. I love being able to travel with friends and share experiences; it’s just not the same going solo. I’m grateful for this time spent with a close friend who moved and getting to watch Harry Potter again!