NEW YORK PART 2 – EAT, SEE AND REPEAT

NEW YORK, TRAVEL
Emilia

nd back again! Next I’m going to tell you about the good restaurants, spots, shops and everything between them. There was so much to see, and some things had to leave for the next time. For me (as a culinary person) – finding a good food was one of the most important thing. We tried to find the most ramen soup and sushi – and we did it! When you roll down this post, you will find my recommendations. Usually people travel to New York for a week, but I think that two weeks was a better time to stay. We saw so much and did all those ’basic turists things.’ In two weeks the city started to feel more familiar. Next time I could spend more time in Brooklyn and visit the Hamptons. I’m dreaming to getting there in the summer.

Spots to check off your to-do-list:

Brooklyn Bridge
Woodbury (common premium outlets)
MoMa (Museum of Modern Art)
High Line
Central Park
Natural History Museum (Night at the Museum)
SoHo
Dumbo (Brooklyn)
Williamsburg
Chinatown
Jane’s Carousel
Central train station
Hudson River Park
Wall Street
National September 11 Memorial and Museum
Top of the Rock
Brooklyn Botanic Garden (we miss this)
Madison Square Garden

The high line. It was created on a former central railroad spur what was abandoned in 1980. The park is 2,33 km long and extends from Gansevoort Street to 34th street. I can only imagine how amazing this spot is in the summer – I’ve also heard there’re happenings. When visiting in the High Line, you’ll see the Chelsea too.

The Brooklyn Bridge

The Williamsburg. The place is known as a hipster neighborhood. There’s lots of second hand shops and little boutiques. The Shopping can be cheaper for example, Vans – prices were lower than in Manhattan.

Shopping:

Beacon’s Closet
10 ft Single by Stella Dallas
Buffalo Exchange
Chelsea Market
Broadway Market
Urban Outfitters
Local brands can be cheaper

Even tho I didn’t buy anything from there – second hand stores were places to go. The New York is city for shopaholics for sure. There’re expensive designer shops, but I was okay with outlets and markets. In Beacon’s Closet I saw Manolo Blahnik’s heels for 50 dollars and Burberry’s trench for 70 dollars. So if you’re lucky and want to find something special, you should go there. Urban Outfitters is a familiar shop for all and surprise, we were there at least five times.

Dumbo

MoMa

Woodbury is a well-known as a outlet village. You will find products of Gant, Hilfiger and Levis There’s also luxury brands like Balenciaga and Yves Saint Laurent. If you’re friend of designer products, this is a heaven for you. Even tho products are usually ´last season´ with cheaper price – you could find things that are still in normal price in Finland. There was Levi’s jeans for 50 euros, hoodies of North Face for 20 dollars. I bought Steve Madden’s sock heels for 20 dollars. I bought to my sister Vans’s shoes for 50 dollars. You can do amazing finds.

How to get there? We rented a car from Hertz, Manhattan (must say that was funny to look for a gas station in middle of Manhattan). Many car rental offices requires credit card, refusing to accept combination card (most of us may have card with debit and credit together). Hertz is a big company so they accepted our combination card. That was so cool! The car’s daily rent was 150 dollars. Other option is to go by bus for 40 dollars. If you have a bigger group going, the car becomes cheaper.

Restaurants etc:

Local 92
Fresh & Co
By Chloe
Karakatta (you must try to their ramen soup!)
Quantum Leap
Whole Foods market
Samurai Mama (good sushi in Williamsburg)
The Poke Spot
Nagomi

We made food at the apartment, but also found good places to eat. When you have a place to cook yourself, the Whole Foods with organic products is perfect choice for grocery shopping. It’s funny how we don’t have anything like this in Finland? Also when you need something fast there’s lots of options. Fresh & Co and The Poke Spot are concepts of healthy fast food. In Fresh&Co you can choose either salad, pasta or soup… which is done just for you as fresh it could be. The Poke Spot offers poke bowl’s with for example raw salmon with rice and seaweed (still dreaming about this). Sushi was inexpensive in my point of view. In Nagomi, I took a set of 18 pieces with beer for 30 dollars. We also went to a rooftop bar called Jimmy at the James. Drinks were about 20 dollars. Still a Rooftop terrace with a night skyline of New York – that was beyond belief.