Day 2: 40 Blocks in Central Park

Our second day in New York brought walking, walking and more walking, and through all the walking, we ended up finding museums and beautiful views of the city.

That morning, my mom and I decided to get breakfast from the Merci Market just around the corner from our hotel. Preferring fresh air to air conditioning, we opted to sit in the park to eat. Mounting one of the many large rock formations, my mom and I sat, let our feet dangle over the edge, and enjoyed breakfast and the morning air.

Breakfast in the park

Fish eye of the view from where we sat

After eating, my mom and I decided to walk through Central Park, this is the part where we threw the advice about being careful in the park to the wind and proceeded to walk further and further into the park. Honestly my mom and I were aware that the more turns we took, the farther from the hotel we could get (even though it doesn’t even seem like it while you are in the park), but we also had confidence that we would make our way back and be okay. This walking led us to a fountain overlooking the lake that the Loeb Boathouse was located on. We made it through a group of very funny street entertainers, a woman with some hardcore vocals singing under a bridge, and a photo shoot and filming of dancers for a video. 

This boathouse was actually on my list of activities I wanted to do while in New York, and we happened to stumble across it on our walk!

When my mother and I finally emerged from the park, a little asking around identified us to the fact that we were around forty city blocks from our hotel. Lol. However, we had also made it to Museum Mile, and were just a block down from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. After taking some pictures and poking around, my mom and I resolved to relax and make our way back towards the hotel with the direction of some friendly passersby. This trek back to the hotel led my mom and I to the Payne Whitney Mansion, which housed a small book store offering audio books, films, CDS, and novels and children’s books, tout en français. We purchased two books, one children’s book and a novel for me, as well as an audiobook.

The Met in all its glory

My purchases from the Payne Whitney Mansion

Once my mom and I made it back to our hotel, we met up with my mom’s cousin Deidre and her son Kadeem, and hit the streets to do some shopping. I had come to New York with a few key purchases in mind, one of them being to buy a good eyeshadow palette, and some shorts. My family accompanied me on my hunt, and we enjoyed good conversation and catching up along the way. In the end I found my shorts, a pair of cute simple denim shorts at Gap (on sale for $20!!!) and my eyeshadow palette. With the help of the ever-so-knowledgeable staff at Sephora, I selected the Tartelette In Bloom palette, and went back to the hotel with my marvelous new purchases. On the way back we stopped to get some pizza and took it back to the hotel with us. Another family member met up with us, Donovan, and we sat together, ate together, laughed together.

My mom and I waiting on our pizza before heading back to the hotel with family (to see more pics from the trip and our other travels, my mom's Instagram is @kimlucretia)

My beautiful palette!

That night my mom and I ventured back out into Times Square for dinner. Initially we planned on getting some hot ramen at Ippudo NY, but the place was packed and we weren’t looking to wait around to eat. This led to us going to a smaller ramen shop tucked away in Times Square called Black Organic Rice Ramen. Even though I didn’t get to have my ramen from Ippudo, the ramen I had at this smaller restaurant was incredibly flavorful and all the ingredients tasted fresh and delicious. My mom tried the black organic rice with her chicken and once again, an A+.

Ippudo Ny, where we initially wanted to eat

We ate well, and decided to grab dessert from Junior’s, my uncle’s favorite place to get cheesecake. Truthfully, I found that the cheesecake I had eaten the night before from a small French market called the Merci Market, tasted better, but Junior’s definitely wasn’t bad, and was much better compared to some other cheesecakes I had tried.

We ended another eventful day in New York. Good food, good shopping, and a little exercise in between.

Kaylah