The City That Never Sleeps

Yung and I spent last week in New York City, and I can’t wait to share some stories and tips with you. We originally booked the trip to visit Nicole, who freakin graduated from NYU business school–what a rockstar! I was also so happy to see Nicole’s mom and have her meet Yung. We got lot of recommendations from friends and travel blogs on what to do in NYC. Since it was Yung’s first time in the city, we had to hit up all the touristy places and also did some exploring on our own.

It happened to be SWELTERING hot (like 90s) on the few days we were there, and on the day we left, it was 60. Weather can definitely impact my mood, but we didn’t let it get us down.

Here are the places that we visited:

Times Square

Grand Central Terminal

The Today Show

Rockefeller Plaza

Trump Tower

Soho

The Plaza Hotel

Central Park

Washington Square Park

Chelsea Market

The Highline

World Trade Center

Brooklyn Bridge

Brooklyn Bridge Park

Jane’s Carousel

The iconic Friends apartment

Bryant Park

Chinatown

East Village

The verdict:

The touristy places are fun, but overwhelmed with people. I seriously have been experiencing a bit of culture shock coming back to Dallas and seeing normal sized bathrooms and streets that are not swarmed with individuals. We accidentally stumbled upon East Village and it seems like a fun neighborhood. We always like to hypothesize if we would live in cities that we visit. I think after the initial shock of foot and car traffic and the sheer volume of people, we’ve decided that yes, we could maybe live in NYC, but just not in the hub of craziness. Yung loved the diversity of culture + people and the feeling of togetherness.

Good eats:

We take food very seriously, and everyone kept saying how delicious the food is in New York. We tried a lot of places, so I will just include my recommendations on places I’d definitely return to!

PS. We didn’t mean to, but we ate a lot of Asian food.

Shanghai Asian Manor (soup dumplings!!)

Apotheke (a cool speakeasy on the oldest street in Chinatown)

Totto Ramen

Doughnut Plant (Very unique flavors and so delicious at 2am)

Real Kung Foo Little Steamed Dumplings Ramen (we only had dumplings there, and I am now kicking myself for not trying their noodles)

The Meatball Shop

Buvette (FYI, this is right by the Friends apartment)

Luzzo’s Pizza

Chelsea Market (we didn’t eat here because we stumbled on it accidentally and had just eaten, but I’d love to go back to eat some hand pulled noodles that I saw)

Zundo ya Ramen

Xian Famous Foods (hand pulled noodles!!!!! Can you see a trend?)

Milk Bar (try the corn flake crunch on whichever flavor of soft serve you order. Next time, I am getting the birthday cake soft serve with sprinkles + crunch. yum!)

Levain Bakery (cookies! We ate a bite at the bakery and they were gooey and warm. They are just as delicious at midnight.)

Prince Street Pizza

99 cent pizza in East Village (the best!!!!)

The Original Halal Guys (didn’t eat here because we were full/we eat there in Dallas often, but I am totally regretting it now, because it smelled amazing)

We desperately tried to find delicious NYC hot dogs, but decided that Sam’s hotdogs are the bomb.com and you just can’t deny it. Same with pizza. This was a close one. We got a lot of pizza recs, but I think the 99 cent pizza takes the cake.

We were not planning on seeing a show, but a few days before our trip, we attemped to buy Book of Mormon tickets, only to discover that they were much more than we wanted to spend. We decided to try our luck at the daily lottery that they hold a couple hours before the show. We arrived at 4:30pm and put our names in a drawing, and learned that they planned to give away 13 reduced price ($32, y’all!), FRONT ROW tickets. We didn’t think we had a shot. There were a LOT of people hoping to get their name picked. Funnily enough, my name was the second name drawn, but the first tickets handed out, because the first name didn’t show up. We were super surprised and excited! I pretty much went into this musical not knowing anything about the plot, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on the show. We were definitely entertained, and I would recommend this show if you are ever in the city.

I also dragged Yung out of bed at 6am on our 1st full day to go to The Today Show! He was such a trooper, even though I know deep down, he could have used 3 more hours of sleep. We had a lot of fun, but truthfully, it was a pretty sleepy Wednesday morning in Rockefeller Plaza. We did shake hands with Al Roker, so it was all worth it in the end. Pro Tip: get breakfast at Bouchon Bakery, right across from The Today Show, and you can sit at the window and watch the action with a pastry.

Well, my feet are tired (no, I didn’t go for a single run the entire trip, but I know we walked about a bajillion miles each day), so I will leave you with a few tips:

-Wear tennis shoes. I gave up wearing cute shoes (and also cute clothes for that matter-it was way too hot) on day 2.5 and just stuck with tennis shoes for the rest of the week.

-Eat only a small portion at each meal and/or share with your travel friends. This will enable you to eat a greater variety and try more things.

-Map out what you want to do/see before hand. Either use google maps or draw it out on paper. This will eliminate back tracking and save time.

-Walk or take the subway when you can. We walked if our destination was less than 2 miles away, but took train if it was further. We only took an Uber to the airport.

-Stay somewhere that will enable you to hop on the train easily, or someplace close to a destination you know you’ll want to visit time and time again. We stayed at The Roosevelt.

NYC, you are a bit crazy and congested, but we love you anyway. Until next time!