Monday 24 June 2019

I was last in New York 10.5 years ago. Aside from France, it was the first place I went to after I started working as a grad. After that, the following year I started travelling more. And 106 countries later, I’m back!

After a quick stop off at whole foods (kombucha is a priority), we headed on the metro to the new Hudson Yards area.

We had tickets (which were free) for the Vessel for 11am. Although it seemed you didn’t need to bother, as they let you in without a ticket anyway.

The vessel is a new structure, which opened in March as part of all the redevelopment in this area. It doesn’t seem to serve much purpose, other than to climb up!

We went to the top, you couldn’t really see much as all the surrounding buildings are huge, but it was a cool walk up.

The vessel is located right at the end of the High Line. The High Line is an overground walkway which has been built on a disused railway line, and filled with look out points, sculptures and flowers.

We walked all the way down to the southern end, where we caught an Uber. We headed all the way down to the south of the island, to Jajaja plantas for lunch.

This is a vegan Mexican cafe and the food was epic. We shared nachos (which were far too big and we ordered a small!) and some tacos.

Back on the Metro, one stop to Dumbo.

I didn’t come over to this area last time. Instagram was not even invented back then. So no one was traipsing around trying to find the top places for a photo (!).

And this is the location for a great view of the Manhattan bridges through the brick buildings.

So of course, I stood in the middle of the road, joining in the crowds, trying to get my photo!

From here, we got lost. We wanted to walk across the Brooklyn bridge. But the signage was terrible. We eventually made it. Along with the crowds of other people. It was hectic. You could barely even walk, for bikes zooming at you, and crowds of people stopping every few seconds for photos.

It was cool though. A nice walk. We weren’t going to walk all of it, but ended up doing so – would have taken just as much time to turn around.

A quick tube stop later and back in soho. Ready for some ice cream. Van leewan, an ice cream shop, was amazing. So many exciting vegan flavours to choose from. We got mint choc chip (obviously) and strawberry shortbread (with bits of biscuit in). One of the best ice creams ever.

We sat in the park for a while, before going back to the hotel for a lay down.

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We headed back out for dinner around 6.30pm. But first a bit more of a walk. Through little Italy, and a bit of Broadway. We went in a loop before ending back up in Chinatown.

We went to a vegan Chinese dim sum restaurant (bohdi kosher vegetarian). I’ve never had proper vegan Chinese food. It was delicious! And not too expensive.

For dessert, a few doors down, at Alimama tea we got taro munchkins. These are small mocha donuts that I have never heard of before Mochi on the inside, covered in a crispy donut shell. And so delicious!

Tuesday 25 June 2019

We had breakfast at Butchers daughter, which was just one block from where we are staying. (I completely chose the hotel based on proximity to vegan cafes).

Then onto the metro for a few stops over to the world trade centre area.

We wandered through the Oculus shopping centre, to look at the roof (!) and around to the memorial pools.

Then up to union square park and made our way back down to soho. Stopping off at a few places along the way…

Firstly a bagel shop. I found out that bagel shops here have tofu cream cheese. And whoa. Is it amazing!! Tastes noting like cheese (thank goodness). But is so delicious.

Washington square park. For eating our bagel and watching people go by.

By Chloe, for a vegan cupcake. Of course.

Van Leewan for more vegan ice cream.

Beyond sushi for vegan sushi, for the airport!

And a few shops along the way.

At 4pm, back to the airport. An Uber was showing as being rather expensive to JFK. So we got the train. A very slow (1 hour), completely packed train, which took us to the airport train interchange. This little train then does a loop of all the airport terminals.