Hello there!
Having completed my earlier travel posts on several interesting countries, such as Japan (Tokyo, Osaka and Hokkaido), Maldives, Indonesia (Bali and Yogyakarta), I was going through my past travels to see which would be the next interesting country or city to share, and I finally shortlisted New York, USA!
Some years ago, I actually was assigned to a work trip to New York. Excluding transit, it would be my first visit to the USA and it was exciting that I will get to experience New York. However, the downside of work trips was that my days were packed with meetings and there was limited time for sightseeing. Fortunately, very fortunately, there was a weekend in between the work meetings, which meant I had just two days to explore New York, and hence, this upcoming series is called "Speed Running Through New York"!
This was my first two part of the series:
USA - Speed Running Through New York: Top Of The Rock
USA - Speed Running Through New York: A Day At The Museum
Having visited Top Of The Rock, Central Park and American Museum of Natural History on my first out of two days, I started my second day early and visited Ground Zero. For those who might not be old enough, Ground Zero is actually what used to be the World Trade Center site before the 9/11 tragedy struck. So Ground Zero now is a fountain, and you probably noticed that there are names carves on the sides. Will leave you to think about why the names were there.
There was the 9/11 Museum/Memorial Hall at the area as well. In the museum, one could see the timeline of the events on the actual day being replayed, and like what some people said, it's actually a very emotional place. Not only were there visitors, I was told there were also friends and families of those who have passed away in this tragedy and they would visit this place. For privacy reasons, they were many areas where they didn't allow photography so these were the few photos that I captured. Unlike the other museums where people visit for sightseeing, this place was actually very sombre and I recalled seeing people in prayers too.
Leaving the museum, I continued to make my way through the streets of New York. This was the famous Charging Bull at Wall Street. I remembered it was freezing cold that day and it was raining on and off. At one point, it was just too cold to walk outside (I didn't expect the temperatures to be so low at the point in the year so I didn't bring thermal wear), and it was difficult to carry my umbrella and take photos in the rain, so I went into a nearby Starbucks, ordered a hot chocolate and sat there for about an hour to wait for the rain to pass.
After quite some walking, I arrived at the start the Brooklyn Bridge. Brooklyn Bridge links the Manhattan area and the Brooklyn area. Because I had limited time, so it was not really possible for me to explore the Brooklyn area. What I actually did was to walk to the midpoint of the Brooklyn Bridge, and then u-turned back.
As you might be able to tell, it was actually still drizzling and the skies were cloudy. But because it was my last sightseeing day so I had no choice but to push ahead! Haha. Finally I reached around the mid-point of the bridge and I was able to get some good views of both directions, i.e. Manhattan and Brooklyn. Deep in my mind, I was also hoping that the drizzle wouldn't turn into a downpour, because there was no shelter at all in the middle of the bridge, i.e. I would have to run all the way back to the start of the bridge to find shelter. Luckily, the drizzle didn't get worse. And of course, how could I forget, the views on Brooklyn Bridge were amazing! Here's some photos that I took!
So that's it for the day part of my second and also the last day of my sightseeing speed run in New York. It was quite an experience to visit the 9/11 Museum and I got a better understanding of the significance of the event (rather than just learning from the history textbook), and it was nice to soak in the views of the city from the Brooklyn Bridge, which was built probably many years ago. Any guesses where I will be heading to for the night? Stay tuned for the next post! ;)
So that's all I have today! Have you been to New York or Ground Zero/Brooklyn Bridge before? Let me know in the comments below!
Finally, thanks for reading my post in the community under World Map Pin!