2018 Winter adventure day in NYC

On the final day of 2018, I took my cousins on a full day adventure in NYC. Below is a recap for future reference. I was surprised we managed to fit so much into one day!

stop0: jersey city

We started our day by taking a leisure stroll to Jersey City waterfront. The sun was out so we managed to enjoy the view of lower Manhattan skyline and the ferries. After some sightseeing, we took the Path train from Exchange Place to World Trade Center. Don't forget to load up on subway cards (can be used for both PATH train and NY subway trains).  Info on path: https://www.panynj.gov/path/maps-schedules.html and subway https://new.mta.info/

stop1: downtown

We walked through Brookfield winter garden to see the LED lights. It was relaxing and fun! C. wanted to see the Ground Zero memorial fountains so we skipped the inside of the Oculus hub. At Fulton Center C. introduced me to a bubble tea chain called Gong Cha. I've never been a huge fan of bubble tea but decided to try white pearl (it's interesting). After the fountains we walked to City hall and took some pics of the entrance to Brooklyn Bridge. Surprisingly busy on a cold day.

stop2: chinatown

We took a MTA bus from City hall to Chinatown. This was a request by cousins as I don't typically walk around Chinatown unless I'm meeting friends for food. We didn't get any food and it was getting close to lunch time so made our way to St. Marks for lunch.

stop 3: lunch

Given it's lunch time, St. Marks was kind of dead. No yakitori place was open. Some of the other places I had in mind didn't work out given they didn't have non-gluten options. We ended up getting lunch specials at a place (forgot the name) which was okay. Hopefully in the future we can try
okonomiyaki at Otarfuku and/or udon west.

Stop 4: midtown

We took the subway to Grand Central to browse Kinokuniya bookstore. Sadly didn't have time for NYC library or exhibition, but we were sort of in a hurry to head to karaoke before it got too late.

Stop 5: karaoke

Karaoke duet near 35th st, opens at 2pm https://www.karaokeduet.com/
We made it to karaoke and managed to sing for an hour before heading home to NJ on the 33rd St Path train.

Post NYC

After our multi-stop NYC tour we relaxed with some anime.
My pick: Tsurune (show about archery club, very well animated and very relaxing for a sports genre)
D's pick: Zombieland Saga (zombie idol show with a very wacky cast)

New Year's eve dinner can be pretty packed depending on the place and time. It was raining pretty hard and still relatively early, so we took my aunt/uncle and cousins to a local beer garden called Zepplin Hall.

It's always fun having visitors who want to explore NYC so I look forward to our future adventures too.