The day of exploring New York and eating pizza with the Scotts!

Scott was horrified to find that he had been charged the full amount of money for the disputed Tuktuk ride which he suspected might happen. He found the local New York Police Department (NYPD) and reported the con to try and get some justice. Do NOT fall for this tourist trap!

Meanwhile, I grabbed a coffee in the lobby to kickstart the day.

We walked with purpose down 5th Avenue to see the sights like the Empire State Building and the Flat Iron.

We then stopped at a Pret A Manger to get some cool drinks and escape the humidity for a while. Looking out of the window revealed the Empire State Building was in sight and just a block away.

Once we got to Greenwich Village, we walked past Joe’s Pizza and met Scott’s friend Scotty at John’s Pizza, the oldest pizza store in New York.

It was nice to be in air conditioned comfort as it was very hot and humid. We chose the Picante pizza, zucchini fries and a house salad! It was not the enormous slices that you see but this place has been host to people like Bruce Springsteen and Jack Black. The food was delicious and the company was Scottish!

We then made our way to a new landmark called The Island at the Hudson River Park. This was developed by reclaiming land and renovating meat packing establishments. We could see across the Hudson River to the other side and enjoyed the views.

Scotty was an excellent tour guide who worked as stage manager for many Broadway musicals. He then led us to the high line of which we could only access a small part of it due to construction happening in both directions. This used to be a railway to deliver goods across the city which has now been turned into a nice walkway for locals and tourists.

Once back down on the streets we walked back to the Madison Square Park, opposite the Flatiron building and decided to catch the Subway to Ground Zero. We used our phones to pay for subway tickets(like we do in Sydney), it is flat rate of $2:90US for each trip. It was noisy until we entered the carriage and welcomed the air conditioning on such a warm humid day.

There was a Westfield Shopping complex across the road from the Ground Zero memorial with an eye catching building which looked like a giant fishbone.

We walked across to the memorial with so many other people, the water feature was not operating but it was somber to see all the names engraved into the stone around the structure. We then decided to make our way back closer to home of which I was grateful for after over 19,000 steps.

We caught the subway again and went back to the hotel and I blogged while Scott and Scotty caught up. I noticed that the artwork in my room is the same as in the rooms at the Melbourne Movenpick Hotel. There were no coffee facilities in the room but I did notice, too late, that you can have a coffee machine delivered on request.

For dinner we decided to eat in our Hotel lobby and take in the Times Square scenery again. The Coney Island Chicken Bites, Beast Burger Sliders plus Spinach and Avocado Dip with flat bread were delicious.