WADA! WADA! AND PANDAN

We get a little overwhelmed (which seems to be my theme word for NY) when planning what to do on our Saturdays. What to see? What to do? Will there be something fun for Ryder? It's really easy to go against my previously made rules and take on a little too much for one day...which is exactly what we did...again.

We found out the subways run a little differently on the weekends due to construction, so instead of getting off near Chinatown like we had originally planned we had to ride it to the Brooklyn Bridge. This was where we thought, "Let's go check out the Brooklyn Bridge!" And that's what we did. Besides being highly entertained by the "wada! wada!" stands every 20 ft. (water! water!) I couldn't help but feel the need to take an enormous amount of pictures, many of which were of myself in front of this amazing piece of architecture. Lucky for you, I'll only include a few.

After this we started walking. Ryder took a nap and we let Penny air out a little from sitting in her carrier.

We headed toward the financial district to see where Phil works, which is also right by Ground Zero. There really isn't much to see there besides a big construction site, but we did see the below I-beam memorial that had been removed and saved and stated it stood as a symbol of hope.

Across the street from what used to be the World Trade Center was St. Paul's Chapel: Opened in 1766, St. Paul's Chapel is Manhattan's oldest public building in continuous use - a place where George Washington worshiped and 9/11 recovery workers received round-the-clock care. I totally love historical stuff like this. This chapel was surrounded by a cemetery with headstones only 2 inches thick where most of the engravings had been worn off. These people were OLD.

There is a feeling around this building and Ground Zero that just left me with tears streaming down my face the whole time.

How quickly that changed after stepping into Century 21 which is, if you can imagine, the mother of all TJ Maxx's, Ross's, and Nordstrom Racks all thrown into one. We'll tackle that one later.

 Taking a break before our jaunt over to Chinatown...I dunno, it could have been a wise time to go home...

After lunch we went to check out an apartment for a friend and decided to walk full circle back to Chinatown. My feet were screaming at this point but Chinatown's famous Ice Cream Factory kept me going. They are known for there famous flavors and quality of ice cream like mango, black poppyseed (gross), red bean (tastes like pink vanilla), and pandan (made from a mongolian leaf and utterly delicious), which is what I got.

We were breaking down at this point and had to deal with a very inconvenient subway situation so after four subway changes and a 6 block walk later, we were finally home. ~Sigh