Lower Manhattan and what I thought was

Selfie at Battery Park

I think I lost some weight during my trip to New York. I walked long distance for hours and I even starved myself just to cover more places. The sights though kept me entertained so I didn't notice that I was hungry until I felt some dizziness. The blame is on the following:

Battery Park 

After the free ferry ride, I went to see this park by the sea. Just the usual park with flower garden, food stalls, grassland and street performers. I think I even saw snakes available for picture taking. 😑 But this park is regarded as where the history of New York City began. Interested? Read https://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/battery-park/history

The Statue of Liberty can be traced from here

It is also worth noticing the boats docked on the side to fetch passengers for Statue of Liberty. They make the view more refreshing. Beside the park is the WWII Memorial which has monuments honoring soldiers. 

Charging Bull 

Instead of admiring the sculpture - the Wall Street icon symbolizing the Financial District, I cringed at all the people around it squeezing themselves like some rat that is after a chase. Honestly, it's so jam-packed you could barely see the bull. And no matter what part of the bull it is, it would go on someone's photo album. I just scratched this off after seeing that crowd and went straight to Chinatown. 

Chinatown 

It's like being in Binondo, but on a much larger scale. The shops and signs are in Chinese and most of them sell merchandise items. The domination runs for a few blocks and then back to normal. I was actually more interested in finding a restaurant and stuffing my stomach so I chose.. what else, Chinese food. 

Noodles and Bubble Milk Tea from XO Taste.
This restaurant has one of the highest ratings in the area.

I got Hakaw, a BIG bowl of noodles and Bubble Milk Tea. The serving is enough for two but what can I do, I can't bring the left overs home. I just admired the steam and hot soup on a fine hot day. Err. 

Little Italy 

Finding this is actually a surprise because I was looking for SoHo and not Little Italy. I just knew that this is the place after the streets turned into some kind of festival where there's tables outside and streets are narrower and the most obvious clue, there's a lot of cameras. (Meaning people taking photos. After a while I joined them too) 

SoHo 

I'm actually not sure if this is the right place until fashion boutiques started filling each block. That's when I said, "Ah, this is SoHo". 

Funny how there's a trash bag in front of it

Map of all the places mentioned

Flat Iron Building 

Yes, this is included but I got it wrong. I thought Flat Iron Building is near SoHo so I walked for about 1.5 hours trying to find it in the vicinity. It's even funny that after some turns I went back to where I started, Chinatown. 😂 So what I did was connect to Starbucks' WiFi and Google it ONCE AND FOR ALL. It turned out Flat Iron is somewhere in Midtown. Guess I didn't do a proper research after all. 

That's one heck of a busy day. Though I was dead tired out of all the walking, I'm still thankful that I walked again ever since I can't remember. With all the traffic in Manila you'll just want to lock yourself in the house and watch movies. So I hope my aching body has a return of investment. God I hope I lost some pounds, like, please? Haha


Note: This is a latepost. This trip was last July 2017.