New York, New York!

I arrived into a bustling Chinatown, dodging through hoardes of sales people, cars and other tourists, before eventually making it to one of the multitude of subway stations, and heading south to Brooklyn. I made my way through the much grittier streets of Brooklyn, to the home of Alexis and Lauren, an extremely friendly couple I befriended in Montreal.

My first night in New York was completed with the amazing combination of Buffalo Wings, Pepperoni Pizza and mozzarella sticks. For New Yorkers, a standard weekend meal, but for an enthusiastic Australian, chomping down on that thinly sliced, evenly distributed pepperoni pizza was years of pop culture at once, starting from my first viewings of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Franchise in the early 90's.

With so many distinct districts and boroughs in New York, and being the obsessively organised person I am, I systematically opted to look into the Financial District first, at the southern end of Manhattan - but not without walking the Brooklyn Bridge first. An amble down Wall Street and past the stock exchange was more interesting for the amount of expensive suits and 'American Psycho' types than the buildings/street itself. I continued on my culinary escapades as I tucked into a cream cheese bagel and also a pastrami bagel. Once more, New York delivered (metaphorically, in this instance), albeit slightly more pricy than in previous cities.

Brooklyn Bridge

Wall Street

The afternoon was spent avoiding the drizzle, as Alexis and I checked out Battery Park and The Sphere (a now heavily damaged sculpture previously situated between the Twin Towers) and Soho, before opting for the drier sights of the Apple Store (an interesting architectural sight in itself - the store is completely underground, with only a glass cube visible from the street), FAO Schwarz (the toy store to end all toy stores) and Grand Central Station.

Grand Central Station

My final night in Brooklyn was finished off with some more amazing pizza at a local Brooklyn Italian restaurant (if I knew my diet for the next week would consist of predominately pizza, I probably would have opted for something different) and a Brooklyn Lager, yet another east-coast beverage I'd taken a liking to.

Times Square

After accidentally arriving in Times Square the previous day (I thought I'd gotten off a station past it, but lo and behold it was right in the middle of it), and wading through the crowds of people, I went to two New York food landmarks (for me, at least). I started off with a sandwich from Rupert's Deli (of David Letterman fame), before heading up a few blocks to the Original Soup Man, the inspiration behind Seinfeld's famous Soup Nazi character and episode.

Ed Sullivan Theatre

With Mike and Harry arriving in from Boston with our friend Bryan who had recently joined us from Australia, I headed back to Brooklyn to gather my stuff, said my farewells to Alexis and ventured back into Manhattan, circumnavigating the busy streets with all my bags. We had managed to pick up an apartment in an amazing location just off Times Square through AirBnB, and were making ourselves comfortable very early on in the piece. Tom, Harry's bandmate, arrived  from Australia to join us in the apartment, and with Bryan's birthday the next day, we celebrated into the next morning in a New York Bar which did not appreciate us taking over the jukebox and playing nostalgic songs from early last decade.

Breakfast turned lunch the next morning at Tom's Diner in the upper west side prepared us for a day exploring the more affluent areas of Manhattan.  On our way to Central Park, we walked past the apartment that John Lennon had been shot in front of some 32 years earlier. As we wandered up Madison Avenue through the upper west side, we came to a corner with massive crowds of people, and were quickly ushered away without knowing why. As it turned out, Gossip Girl was being filmed about 30 metres away, and we had started walking into a closed set. After a few papparazzi shots and we were on our way.

Gossip Girl Filming

The sporting landscape in New York is as grand as the city itself, and I'd been lucky to pick up tickets to a New York Giants vs New York Jets NFL game. A train ride out to Jersey with 1000's of New Yorkers was an experience in itself, as was making our way to our seats in the gigantuan and masssivel impressive Metlife Stadium. The most expensive NFL stadium in the country (and that's saying something), Metlife Stadium opened in 2010, with a construction cost of $1.6 billion and a capacity of over 82,000 and was a sight to behold. If the new Perth stadium comes even close in terms of atmosphere and facilities I'll be extremely happy.

The game itself, while exciting, is only enhanced by the American sporting theatre and spectacle, with  70,000 supporters, music blasting, cheerleaders, announcers, replays and big screens aplenty, all of which combined to be one of the best sporting experiences of my life (and it was only a pre-season game!)

Metlife Stadium

The amazing sporting spectacle continued the next day as I made my way to Yankee Stadium to watch Major League Baseball's and possibly America's biggest sporting rivalry - the New York Yankees vs the Boston Red Sox. Pre-game I opted to make my way to the outfield stand to mix amongst a few hundred other fans trying to catch a home-run hit struck by the batters in their warmup. With the warm up all but complete, and the crowd dispersing, one of the Red Sox batsmen timed one sweetly and it rose before coming down directly towards me. Despite the ball flying through the air and being the only one without a glove, I reached up and stuck one hand up in the air to try and snaffle a catch, only for the ball to brush against my fingers and be pouched upon by fans who lept over seats and dived along the concrete to get their mitts on it, literally.

Yankee Stadium

A trip across to Staten Island on ferry gave us a perfect opportunity to see the Statue of Liberty for free, as opposed to paying for the tourist trap ferrys. Some more New York decadence in the abundantly gold covered Trump Tower Foyer and Barney's gave an insight as to how the other half live an work, as I was cautious to not bump anything or spill my drinks on any of the $900 sweaters,  $175 t-shirts or $50 pairs of socks.

Statue of Liberty from the Staten Island Ferry

In keeping with the trips theme of  visiting movie locations for only the most critically renowned films in history, I went to the The Plaza Hotel, where no other than Kevin McAllister stayed in Home Alone 2. My Macaulay Culkin experience was further enriched by another amble into Central Park where I tracked down the bridge from one of the movies most popular closing scenes ('Kevin, you spent $967 on room service?!').

Central Park

With an (Australian immigrant) Englishman amongst our ranks (Bryan), Tom's curry fanaticism and my penchant for spicy food and eating challenges, it was only natural we'd head to the Brick Lane Curry House in East Village, home of reputedly the hottest curry in the world, knowl as Phaal. Made with ghost chillis, upon completion by an individual, the recieves a certificate, a free beer, and enters the 'Phaal of Fame'. With a reputation for being an extremely painful eating experience, and none of us willing to risk having our dinner inedible, we opted to split the Phaal between the the three of us.

After Bryan and Tom took a single mouthful of the deathly concoction, I was incredibly nervous before taking my first bite, so the inital beads of sweat down my forehead may very well have been due to nerves. As I took my first bite, I was slightly disappointed at the amount of heat generated by the world's hottest curry. I took my second and third mouthfuls, and then it hit me. Like a furnace, the temperature started to rapidly rise inside my mouth, as the agonising burning continued out to my lips, in my throat and even into my inner ear.

Thinking that the pain couldn't get any worse (it did), I managed to finish off the rest of the Phaal, as we headed off to a comedy club, a slightly last-minute planned night out. As my stomach started to eat itself, we sat and endured some horrendous comedy, which in hindsight was no great surprise considering it was one of the only places in Manhattan that wasn't sold out. I'm unsure if the pains that I endured well into the early morning, including putting me in periods of lying in the foetal position were caused as a result of the curry, or the pain inducing, awful, awful comedy.

The World Trade Centre sight, and the adjacent St Paul's Chapel combined for an extremely sobering experience. With an overwhelming sense of sadness, I walked through the chapel, which during the attacks, provided a safe haven for rest, sleep, and solace for rescue workers. As I made me way through the chapel, it was made a more intense and stirring experience as grown men surrounding me  were reduced to tears. As I read through letters written by school children to firefighters, and past tables full of missing person posters made up by friends and family of those that worked in the towers, the reality of the attacks hit me like a tonne of bricks. Being in the church, and seeing everything up so close made it that much more real, and something so much more than a news story from the other side of the world. It was a very emotionally heavy experience.

Freedom Tower

Madison Square Garden was underwhelming from the outside, though my time to look around was limited as I made my way back up to Midtown to enter in the lottery for Book of Mormon. The Broadway hit show is booked out until February, but in order to allow every day citizens to attend, every day they have a lottery that anyone can enter in order to win won one of 20 or so tickets fr the show. With several hundred entrants each night, chances of winning are slim, so when Bryan's name was drawn out, we were extremely stoked and happy for him, yet our eyes instantly all met each other as we tried to work out how we would decide who'd go as Bryan's +1. With Tom and myself much less inclined to want to go, we opted to sit out, and it was left to a sudden death battle to decide who out of Mike and Harry would go.

With Harry winning out on the traditional coin toss, Mike and myself headed up the Rockefeller Center just before sunset, allowing us to have full 360 degree views of New York both at day, and during the night. The views were spectacular, and we were treated to a glowing sunset that was cast over the city, whilst also giving us an idea of the scale of the city and how much ground we had covered in the last week or so.

Rockefeller Centre

Views from the Top of the Rockefeller

To finish off our time in New York, Mike and myself picked up some (rather disappointing) lunch from Mendy's the next morning.The disappointment of one of my final meals in New York was softened later in the afternoon as Mike, at the last minute, once more entered the Book of Mormon lottery, on the way to buying tickets to another Broadway Show. With an amazing amount of luck, he managed to have his name drawn. Later that night the two of us would be front centre row for the 9 time Tony Award winning show; the perfect way to end an amazing week.