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After a high cholesterol breakfast at a nearby diner, we checked out of the hotel and walked two or three blocks back to Times Square. Magic_Girl was doing a gig at the giant Toys 'r Us, demonstrating magic tricks for sale at the toy store so we headed there to watch her make things disappear. The store is huge! It has an indoor ferris wheel and several floors of merchandise. Magic_Girl told us about the large animatronic dinosaur on the 3rd floor so we had to go check it out! There were also enough giant Lego structures to remind me of Lego Land.
After the toy store we tried to meet up with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
secret_willow's Platonic NY Boyfriend for lunch but he didn't have much time to spend with us. We contemplated an NBC Studio Tour, we thought about lunch, but I was hot and cranky and didn't want food yet. What I wanted was Central Park. By now it was about 2pm and if we'd been sensible we would have been heading home. We weren't sensible so off we went toward Central Park (a mere 15 blocks or so from where we'd started out. In oppressively hot weather.)
The first thing we found in Central Park was a strange sculpture!
( strange elephant sculpture )
And soon after we entered the park we came across the Central Park Zoo! And admission was inexpensive. Oh what the heck...we went in, looked at animals, birds, snakes, sea lions (who looked like they were having fun swimming in nice cool water!) And then we entered the nice, airconditioned, penguin building where a lecture about the penguins was taking place. The speaker told us penguins are extremely monogamous and mate for life. They apparently also only have one baby at a time, because a female laid two eggs and pushed one of them out of the nest. So, the humans who work at the zoo got the brilliant idea to give the rejected egg to the resident gay male penguin couple! The gay penguin couple took care of the egg and raised a baby penguin of their very own! Just don't tell the right-wing Fundie lunatics, otherwise they'll be picketing the zoo!
( penguins! )
It was getting late so we reluctantly left the zoo and started the long walk out of the park and back to the hotel.
( A last look at Central Park )
It seemed insane to go back to Chinatown when we were walking distance from Port Authority Bus Terminal. We just had to go through Time Square one last time to get there.
( some pics of Times Square, since we spent so much time there! )
However, when we got to Port Authority we discovered an absolutely humungous ticket line. There were ticket kiosks all over the station but all of them were out of order! It was now 5:25 and there was no way we'd get through that line in time for the 6:00pm bus. Even worse, the price was $28 per person, much higher than the $15 Chinatown bus. We decided to take a taxi to Chinatown, in the hopes of hopping on the 6:00 bus there, but due to traffic, we reached our destination just in time to see the 6:00 bus pull out! (We wouldn't have made that bus anyway because we discovered the bus was cash-only and we were out of cash, and needed time to find an ATM machine.) So we were stuck in Chinatown for the next hour, but even with the taxi fare we still paid less than we would have for the trip home than if we'd stayed at Port Authority. And this way we had time to round up a few meager snacks for the long bus ride. The bus pulled into South Station at 11:30pm and we were home a little after midnight (after paying for yet another taxi).
After the toy store we tried to meet up with
secret_willow's Platonic NY Boyfriend for lunch but he didn't have much time to spend with us. We contemplated an NBC Studio Tour, we thought about lunch, but I was hot and cranky and didn't want food yet. What I wanted was Central Park. By now it was about 2pm and if we'd been sensible we would have been heading home. We weren't sensible so off we went toward Central Park (a mere 15 blocks or so from where we'd started out. In oppressively hot weather.)The first thing we found in Central Park was a strange sculpture!
( strange elephant sculpture )
And soon after we entered the park we came across the Central Park Zoo! And admission was inexpensive. Oh what the heck...we went in, looked at animals, birds, snakes, sea lions (who looked like they were having fun swimming in nice cool water!) And then we entered the nice, airconditioned, penguin building where a lecture about the penguins was taking place. The speaker told us penguins are extremely monogamous and mate for life. They apparently also only have one baby at a time, because a female laid two eggs and pushed one of them out of the nest. So, the humans who work at the zoo got the brilliant idea to give the rejected egg to the resident gay male penguin couple! The gay penguin couple took care of the egg and raised a baby penguin of their very own! Just don't tell the right-wing Fundie lunatics, otherwise they'll be picketing the zoo!
( penguins! )
It was getting late so we reluctantly left the zoo and started the long walk out of the park and back to the hotel.
( A last look at Central Park )
It seemed insane to go back to Chinatown when we were walking distance from Port Authority Bus Terminal. We just had to go through Time Square one last time to get there.
( some pics of Times Square, since we spent so much time there! )
However, when we got to Port Authority we discovered an absolutely humungous ticket line. There were ticket kiosks all over the station but all of them were out of order! It was now 5:25 and there was no way we'd get through that line in time for the 6:00pm bus. Even worse, the price was $28 per person, much higher than the $15 Chinatown bus. We decided to take a taxi to Chinatown, in the hopes of hopping on the 6:00 bus there, but due to traffic, we reached our destination just in time to see the 6:00 bus pull out! (We wouldn't have made that bus anyway because we discovered the bus was cash-only and we were out of cash, and needed time to find an ATM machine.) So we were stuck in Chinatown for the next hour, but even with the taxi fare we still paid less than we would have for the trip home than if we'd stayed at Port Authority. And this way we had time to round up a few meager snacks for the long bus ride. The bus pulled into South Station at 11:30pm and we were home a little after midnight (after paying for yet another taxi).
