Snap Happy Travels

After a well rested night we were ready to head out for a much more relaxing Saturday than the crazy hectic Friday. We started off by heading to Madison Ave and 5th Ave for a little shopping much of which became window shopping but Susan had to stop at Henri Bendel which is her favorite store in the whole city. From there we strolled up 5th Ave to Central Park. When we lived in NYC, we always took our dog Sunny to Central Park for the entire day. It was always great to get a healthy dose of nature when living in the concrete jungle. We strolled through the very packed park and checked a few things out. Much to our surprise Tavern on the Green has been replaced with food trucks. We felt grateful we ate our last lunch there as residents. From Central Park we made our way over to the Upper West Side to Isabella’s for lunch. From there we strolled down Columbus Ave to Columbus Circle where we did our usual people watching right in the center of the circle. It was great. Of course all that walking caused us to build up an appetite so we had to stop at Bouchon Bakery inside the Time Warner Center for some sweets to take with us to the circle. After two hours of some very entertaining people watching, we had to head back to the hotel for our dinner reservation at PRINT which was conveniently located in our hotel. From there headed up to The Press Lounge the amazing rooftop lounge, had a few drinks and soaked up the fantastic views of Midtown and over the Hudson River. It was certainly a great way to end the busy week.

Friday morning, our first full day, we had quite a laundry list of places to visit. What we didn’t anticipate on was the blazing heat. We started off walking through the Meat Packing District (a.k.a. MePa)  and made our way up to The High Line. The High Line one of our favorite areas to visit when we’re in town. It’s the old elevated rail line that the city has turned into a beautiful public park. Another fine example of how well NYC can utilize wasted space into useful space for people to enjoy. From The High Line we headed east to Washington Square Park. Unfortunately during our time as residents in NYC, Washington Square Park was under construction so we were definitely looking forward to seeing it finished and it did not disappoint. It was a far cry from the rundown riff raff infested park I once visited in the early to mid-90′s. It is now beautifully landscaped and offers a lot of much needed green area for people to sun bath, read books, walk their dogs or just hang out. It resembled a slice of Central Park. From there we trekked over to Cafe Habana in NoLita, North of Little Italy. Cafe Habana is notoriously mobbed no matter what time of day you go so we always hit the take out around the corner and hope that there’s a seat there to eat their amazing Cuban food. We fueled up but the heat was definitely sucking our energy. We had one more stop to make and that was at Obscura a shop that is featured on the Discovery Channel’s show Oddities.  It’s one of favorite shows to watch so needless to say we were excited to head over to the Lower East Side to check it out. Much to our surprise, Mike Zhon, the shop owner and one of the stars of the show was in front of the shop talking to people. We snapped a great photo of Susan and Mike. We took a few minutes to tour the teeny tiny shop and see all those wonderfully bizarre things that are featured on the show. It was certainly one of the highlights of the trip. After a very full day of walking about 7 miles we really ran out of gas to even go out for the night, sad but true… it was a good night for room service.

We consider NYC to be our second home after living there from 2008-2009. It was a fantastic love affair with a city like no other in the world. Needless to say we try to visit as often as possible. We flew in on a Thursday and wasted no time getting caught up in the intoxicating energy the city omits. We checked into a relatively new hotel that was on the west side in Hell’s Kitchen called Ink48. It is a beautiful Kimpton property which are known for their great boutique hotels. We booked a beautiful suite that overlooked the Hudson River. The room was quiet, clean and very comfortable. We’d love to stay there again it was just the great of a stay. After checking in we headed over to Pier 84 which used to be our old stomping ground where the Intrepid is docked for visitors to tour. After strolling Pier 84 we decided to head over to Shake Shack, one of our all time favorite places to grab some easy, fun eats. We weren’t super hungry so we each grabbed a strawberry shake. It was just as delicious as we remembered. Later, when we were actually hungry, we visited another one of our favorite places to eat Middle Eastern food, KashKaval in Hell’s Kitchen.