We woke up and walked to the subway. Everything around us was loud and busy. Living in the country we were in a bit of culture shock, but nothing could prepare my little one for the extreme loudness of the actual subway. As we descended underground, we could feel the wind from the train hit us. We had missed out passage to downtown. It was ok because the trains run about every five minutes. Leighla was shell shocked. She hung on to my arm and tremble with fear. I tried assure her that all was fine and she had nothing to worry about. All of a sudden she turns and looks at a poster and her face lights up like a child meeting Mickey Mouse for the first time. She yells "Mommy we have this picture in our world too!" The picture was a movie poster for X-men. I laughed so hard. She thought we were in another world and that the train was a time tunnel. We didn't correct her because in essence New York is definitely a whole new world to us.
We arrived downtown near battery park. Upon surfacing from the subway we instantly see a food cart. Yep, a New York food cart was on our list of things we had to eat while in the city. Then, we saw from afar The Statue of Liberty. Leighla thought she was amazing! We had to buy her a little figurine. Then, we walked to South St. Seaport because it was on Josh's list. Unfortunately, he was disappointed. The seaport had been shut down and is being scheduled for demolition.
We hopped on a bus to Chinatown. The smells in Chinatown were strong and pungent at times. Many of the vendors had fresh fish on ice and aquariums overfull with fish. Some of them had octopus, toads, krill and many other foods we don't think of eating. We got hungry and decided to eat in Chinatown. The restaurant had nine tables and a wall length mirror. The people were friendly and very attentive. Unfortunately, we were the only people there and they stared at us the whole time we were there. I went to wash my hands and had to stand outside the bathroom because the bathroom was so small. I'm a big girl but even Brooke had a hard time in that place. The rice was good but the rest of the food was very different from what we are used to in South Carolina. Brooke had a hard time eating but knowing she was being watched, she ate as much as she could so the owners would not feel offended.
It was May 12th 2014. Josh and I were also celebrating our eighth wedding anniversary. So, we chose to celebrate with my aunt and her children. We had a great first day but were exhausted!! We had to rest because the next day we were headed to Brooklyn New York to visit and tour Bethel. The headquarters of Jehovah's Witnesses.
The kids had a cook off. They both win!
