New York, New York !!!

Julie & John – happy as in New York

2007 – the year I spent my birthday in New York – wow! We left Houston on Friday morning, Aug. 24th, and flew to New York. We stayed in the Benjamin Hotel which was really nice and after unpacking, jumped in a yellow cab and when to the Quintessence Restaurant to celebrate my big day. This is a very special restaurant as it serves only raw food. The menu choices were staggering and we way over-indulged trying to taste as much as we could. John’s main course was an Indian Platter – Mali Kofta, chick pea vegetable balls drenched with creamy almond curry sauce, with spinach saag, rich curry spinach stew, with tamarind sauce and kamut bread – absolutely amazing and none of it has been cooked. We ate a huge variety of food – too much for me to list – but I will tell you about our dessert. Of course by this stage we really should have called it quits and left, but no we wanted to taste the sweet stuff. We skipped the Tiramisu, the chocolate mousse pie, the coconut banana crème pie, etc etc and opted to share the home-made icecream. The waitress recommended the parsley icecream covered in nut crumble – sounds a little odd but tasted extraordinarily good. We left and decided to walk back to the hotel and take in the night sites of New York – a wonderful way to end the day.

We spent the next two days exploring New York on the double decker topless hop-on hop-off bus taking in all the tourist sights – The Empire State Building, Rockefeller Centre, Time Square, Chinatown, Central Park, Harlem, Fifth Avenue, Manhattan & Brooklyn Bridges, Brooklyn, Ground Zero and much much more.




Saturday night we went and saw “The Lion King” on Broadway and it was spectacular – definitely a magical and unforgettable experience.

Sunday night we did a night tour which took us over the bridge to Brooklyn where we had a magnificent view back over the Manhattan skyscrapers. Time square is amazing – bright lights, yellow cabs, shops everywhere selling “I ♥ NY” t-shirts & souvenirs, lots of people – just wonderful. After the tour we walked to the Rockefeller Centre where we took the lift to the “Top of the Rock” to see an even more amazing view of New York. I enjoyed this experience much more than John – who froze as soon as he stepped into the lift just knowing it was taking him up to the 70th floor and then clung to the wall 850 feet up, while I walked around and enjoyed the view. It was the first time I have ever seen him excited about stepping inside to the souvenir shop!

Monday morning we caught the ferry from Battery Park over to the Statue of Liberty and then onto Ellis Island. Ellis Island was another amazing place and definitely a highlight of our trip. It is estimated that more than one-quarter of all Americans can trace their roots back to someone in their family who arrived in Ellis Island, as more than 12 million European immigrants passed through between 1892 and 1954. We discovered that quite a few “Loftus’s” arrived from Ireland – no doubt distant rellies!

Tuesday morning we were up bright and early and walked down to the NBC studios and watched the Today Show being broadcast from outside the Rockefeller Centre and tried to get our 15 seconds of fame on American TV!










One afternoon we found ourselves in Chinatown – it is the largest Chinatown in the world – very crowded, full of open storefronts, street vendors mostly selling counterfeit trademark named products including Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Coach, Rolex etc etc as well as pirated cd’s and dvd’s. The sellers are often peddling their imitation goods from suitcases on the footpath and all are ready to close their cases and walk off if there is any sign of the police. We were making our way through the crowds when all of a sudden there was some commotion just in front of us and a guy started running with 2 police officers giving chase. Everyone just stopped and watched. The police soon returned without their man and just looked at the crowd, then at the lone suitcase lying on the ground, opened it to reveal hundreds of dvd’s and then walked away. The crowd then just helped themselves and within a matter of seconds the suitcase was empty. The police officers just stood in the background and smiled! We were also smiling as we walked away with 5 dvd’s! I absolutely loved Chinatown – so much was happening – I think I just enjoy the hustle and bustle – not to mention the great shopping!

Other experiences –

Empire State Building and the Flat Iron Building

Central Park and The Wall Street Bull




Ground Zero and a fence covered in hand painted tiles dedicated to the victims of the Sept 11












NY Police Cars

Bryant Park – an amazing park with an outdoor “reading room” - where there are books, magazines, newspapers & a special children’s area - available to everyone for free without any need of cards or identification. It is a wonderful place to just sit and read – very green, very quiet and very relaxing. Something I’m sure we could do when we have more time in New York!









John with some of his New York Aussie friends

Our time in New York came to an end, as do all holidays, and we thoroughly enjoyed every minute.

Now only another 3 weeks and we are off to San Diego and Los Angeles…….

Life really is good!