a trip to ny

i think it's safe to say that everybody (well, almost everybody) wants to go to new york city. maybe it's because of all the hype about the city and all the books and movies made about it AND in it. well, whatever the reason may be, i am one of the everybody that has always wanted to see for myself what was so magical (a better word escapes me right now) about new york. admittedly, i had been to new york a couple of times but it was always with my family and we were always in a hurry. we didn't really take the time to take in the sights. so parang kulang pa din.

last weekend, i finally went to new jersey to visit my aunt and cousin there. of course, since i was there already i HAD to go to NEW YORK CITY (!!!) coz it was just a river away from jersey. the plan was for me and a couple of friends to go but because of a variety of reasons i ended up just going with mikko. days before the trip, me and mikko made plans for the trip, like places we wanted to see while we were at ny and all that stuff. let me just say na-amaze ako sa google earth. it gave you the actual bird's eye view of any place you want to see. i tried looking for my house sa pinas pero it didn't work out. but still, ang galing ng google earth. going back to the subject. we took the bus to ny. it was supposed to take a little over 4 hours to get ther by bus. hay nako! sobrang walang organization yung bus sa dc chinatown. super unahan to get into the bus at muntik pa kaming pababain. good thing may mga mataray na passengers who refused to get down kaya we got to stay in the bus. after more than two hours on the road we made a pit stop and i thought we were maybe midway to new york but no! we got down on the bus and found out that we were still in freaking maryland! tama ba yun??!! OA sa traffic getting out of dc and getting into the highway that it took us almost hours to get to ny! when we reached ny, we got off at chinatown. i thought it was gonna be kind of scary but it actually wasn't. kahit na we were in a completely new place and we didn't really know exactly where we were, it felt safe. is that weird? or maybe i'm just being naive. anyways, jay (my cousin) picked us up and we had a late dinner at a thai place and then just drove around the city. i was so excited i wanted to take pictures kahit na nasa loob ako ng car but nahiya ako sa cousin ko kaya i stopped myself. i couldn't wait for the next day. i mean, this is new york! i've read so many books set in new york that i was so excited to see it for real myself. this time it was going to be different kasi i had all the time in the world to walk around and explore.

saturday came and we walked around greenwich village. we got to see the nyu campus too. i don't know how i would be able to study in a school when right outside it is new york. i would always be distracted, i imagine. but how lucky for these kids that they can go and study in ny. nakakainggit. we also went into so many shops i can't remember any of their names anymore. i had to stop myslef from splurging and shopping, lalo na for shoes kasi there were so many places that were on sale. aaahhhh! buti na lang after that we went to the MET. the MET is amazing! i felt awed by all these paintings that were in there. grabe. ang galing! it made me wish i was more artistic and i could paint. there was an exhibit of rembrandt's paintings there and kahit na i'm not really a big fan of his it was still great to actually be able to see an actual painting of his kasi before, all i knew of him was that his name was one of the many section names we had in seton when i was in third grade. to actually see one of his paintings, priceless. there were a lot of pieces that caught my attention but i really liked these paintings that was like paintings within a painting. ang kulit. hehehe. it was a very tiring day kasi we were walking all day long and we didn't even eat lunch until 5 or 6 in the afternoon. but still, it was FUN!

on sunday, we went to church and then ate lunch at a japanese resto to celebrate my other cousin's birthday. after that me and mikko went back to the city to just basically walk around again. we walked to central park and i got to see THE strawberry fields and the IMAGINE walkway. if you are a beatles fan you would know that this part of central park was dedicated by yoko for john lennon. i couldn't even begin to express to you how happy i was to be standing there at that moment. i love the beatles and john lennon especially kaya grabe, super saya ko when i saw it. then we ate at patsy's for dinner and had dessert at serendipity! kahit na we had to wait for an hour and a half to get seated at serendipity, it was worth it. ang sarap! and their servings were humongous! then we walked around some more and went to times square and broadway. it was late already but you wouldn't have known that by looking at the place. it was so bright with all the lights and the sidewalks were so packed with people you didn't even have to walk, dadalhin ko na ng mga tao sa dami nila. nakakatawa pa that super daming nagbebenta ng fake items along the street. parang tipong bangketa sa divisoria. they had chanel and coach purses, wallets, sunglasses, watches. i even saw one guy selling fake dvds! hahahaha! last stop was the rockefeller center, it was late pero there were still people skating on the ice rink and a lot of tourists, like us, who were taking pictures. the thing pa was that since 2 lang kami ni mikko, we were taking pics of each toher as souvenirs. hahahaha. when we weren't taking solo shots of each other were trying to take pictures of the two of us together. we looked funny trying to position ourselves para kita pa din yung background namin. buti na lang there were a lot of nice people in ny that took pity on us and took some pictures of us together. at rockefeller, we asked the security guard to take our picture for us.


we went home monday morning and unlike the trip to ny, the trip going home was short (thankfully). there are still a lot of places that i didn't get to see but all in all, it was great! i had fun, i got to see the sights, i got to spend time with my cousin, it was all good. i can't wait for next time. =)