survived.nyc.2012.day.two.

Have you ever seen the movie, Night at the Museum? Well, if you’ve seen it and you’ve wondered where that museum is and what it really has to offer, this is one post you’d like!

A few days before leaving for our first vacation together since 2010, Aji and I sat down and made ourselves a list of the things we wanted to see and do. After a lot of quibbles, we finally finished our NYC 2012 Itinerary. It proved really useful because we only had 4 nights and 5 days and coming prepared was nice because we knew exactly where we were going and what we wanted to do at any given time. We didn’t want to waste precious New York City time that we scarcely had.

This was our original NYC day 2 itinerary:

10am-12nn American Museum of Natural History

1230pm-230pm The Metropolitan Museum

3pm-5pm The Guggenheim

7pm Broadway show (Wicked)

Since we got home (to our hotel) around 230am the night before, we really didn’t get to wake up early for our day 2 in NYC. We were up by 9am, but we had to get ready then went down the hotel to get our complimentary continental buffet breakfast.

There were 3 different types of cereal. There was a huge container of butter waffle batter (soooooo good!!!) that you can make. There were different types of bread, fruits and fruit yogurt. They had coffee, tea, milk and fruit juices for drinks. We didn’t really expect much from the free breakfast so maybe that’s why we were pleasantly surprised by all that they had.

We didn’t finish eating til about 11am, then we headed back to our room to freshen up before leaving, so we were running really late. To top it all off, by the time we got to the subway station (after a 10-15 minute brisk walk), we found out that the train was delayed. Apparently, the train usually comes every 6-8 minutes, but lucky for us, we had to wait a good 40 minutes due to some unforeseen train mechanical problems. We got to the American Museum of Natural History at around noon. By that time, the museum was packed with school children on field trips! The line-up was so long to get in, but this is where our luck finally turned for the better. We had the New York City Pass which allowed us to skip all the line-ups and we got to see a show about the stars and how they are made and how they die at the Planetarium (yes, the same one where Ross and Rachel did the deed for the first time on Friends!).

Then we went to see the African Jungle Animals:

By the time we finished walking through the museum and looking at the various exhibits, it was already past 1pm. We were way behind schedule. So we decided, we should just postpone 1 museum visit to our 3rd day. We chose to stay in the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) until about 2pm and then we went to The Guggenheim. We saved the Met for our 3rd day.

Here are some more photos from the AMNH:

(Doesn’t the owl look like Hedwig from Harry Potter? Just thought I’d mention that. )

Here are some of your favorite Jurassic Park Animals!

Just for laughs, we thought we’d take a photo of Aji under the sign, Asian Peoples. lol. Anyways, we were going to skip this section, but there were pretty interesting gem stones such as the jade (upper right) and the stibnite (lower right). (Doesn’t that stibnite mineral formation look like that place where Superman lives in the movie? Just thought I’d throw that in there somewhere)

We didn’t realize it was 2pm already with still so much to see at the AMNH. Unfortunately, we decided to go and check out the Guggenheim, before we headed to Broadway to see an evening show.

The Guggenheim was an epic let down. First of all, Aji thought they would be featuring works of the late Frank Lloyd Wright, since the Guggenheim is probably one his most recognized work. Second of all, just like at the other museums, we thought we could take photos without using camera flash.

So here are the only 2 photos we were allowed to take:

To make matters worse, they didn’t have any featured works of the late Frank Lloyd Wright. So  we left the museum after just but 30 minutes of trying to find anything interesting.

We were starved around 230pm. Since we were already in the neighborhood, I asked Aji if we could go to Serendipity for late lunch/early dinner. He caved.

Here are photos from Serendipity:

Of course, as usual, the dessert came before our entire meal. Why they do this all the time, I don’t know. Maybe it’s to appease people because the meals ALWAYS take forever to come. I never complain though, I love their frozen hot chocolate as an appie!

(Belle, if you’re reading this, yes this is the same meal we saw on the table next to us, the last time we were there and had a failed pasta experience!!)

Of course there’s that “customary” serendipity after meal photo

We headed downtown to Broadway for our 8pm broadway show. We got there pretty early so there was time to explore Times Square and Broadway.

Here are some Times Square and Broadway photos:

(Well, someone was tired…)

A tidbit of information, the left bottom photo shows One Times Square Building, where the annual New Year’s Eve ball drop is held.

Some before the show photos:

If you haven’t seen the broadway musical, Wicked, I encourage you to do so. I’ve always wanted to see this one, because of the rave reviews it’s gotten. I didn’t expect it to be a great musical, but it was! I’d say it’s pretty close to the Phantom of the Opera. Even Aji liked it and said watching movies will never be the same again! It’s such a different experience seeing actors live with a live band/orchestra too!

Well folks, that concludes our day 2 in NYC! Hope you had a blast browsing through the photos!

Stay tuned for our day 3 in NYC!

Have a great weekend!

P.S. Belle, NYC was not the same without you!! ;-(