Our Trip to Chinatown and Rockefeller Center

Last Updated on December 31, 2014 by Babita

It was little one’s ‘S’ eighth birthday last Saturday. We had promised to take her to New York City. Since she loves to eat, and considers herself a foodie we decided to go over to Chinatown. My DH and I have been to China Town before but my girls had never been there. So they were excited to go there and see the sites. My DH does not like to drive in the city so we always end up taking the train. It actually works out great for us as ‘S’ gets to travel the subway and for some reason it feels like an adventure for her.

We exited at the World Trade Center Station. It is always emotional to be at this station because it holds a lot of memories. My DH used to exit at this station for work before September 11^th 2001. The only reason he was not there at the precise time was because he was with me in the hospital helping me with my newborn (TEE was born two days before).

Anyway as we exited, TEE took this snapshot of the new World Trade Center. Although it was emotional there was also a feeling of pride to see this new building soar up in heights and touch the sky.

 

From there on we went walking towards Canal Street. The weather was beautiful and almost pleasant. “S” was her usual self, busy chit chatting. All of a sudden she saw Batman and wanted her picture taken, so TEE did the honors.

 

We reached Canal Street and that is when TEE captured the picture of this man playing the instrument.

 

As we walked around we saw this guy who personalized character posters. Since it is difficult to get a personalized Indian name we commissioned him to do one for “S”. She was thrilled and selected a “Frozen” poster, and I watched in amazement as he went about his work.

 

It was late afternoon and we were looking for a place to eat. On our way to no where special we stumbled upon several seafood stores. As a seafood fanatic, I was obviously salivating over the wide variety of fishes, lobsters, shrimps of different sizes and crabs that were on display. I have to say outside of my Asian store in NJ, I had never seen such a huge variety of fresh seafood.

 

By now every we were all very hungry and we were still on a lookout for a place to eat. Don’t get me wrong. They were many restaurants but everywhere there was a wait of at least half and hour. There was no way “S” would wait that long. Finally after walking another block we found a restaurant where we lucked out and managed to get a table. The restaurant was packed and even the waiters did not have time to wait on customers.

The best part however were the Dim Sum servers who went up to the tables asking if we wanted the different types of Dim Sum starters they had. We noticed they had chicken feet and as a fan of “Bizarre Food” and as a homage to Andrew Zimmeran we decided to try it. ‘S’ and TEE loved it so much that we ended ordering more of those.

 

After we were done eating we went walked around some more and then decided to head up to Midtown to Rockefeller Center to see the lights.

 

When we reached there we were surprised to see it was very crowded. Forget walking, there was no place to even stand. We were literally on our tip toes being pushed over. This is where ‘S’ started to panic as it was too crowded for her, and from her height she felt like she was being crushed. I personally felt like we were on a pilgrimage in India. The minute we found some space we hurried over to take some pictures. I don’t think I have ever seen the Rockefeller area so crowded. I tried to take ‘S’ closer to see the ice skating rink, but had to give up and move away. By then ‘S’ was also begging us to leave.

 

All in all it was a great day. The fact that the weather was great made our trip worthwhile.