It was a beautiful day in New York on Tuesday. The sky was clear, the air was calm, and the sun was out enough to keep up warm. I still needed my gloves and coat but it wasn’t uncomfortable like the previous days.

We all slept in and didn’t leave the house until about noon. First stop was another trip to Rizzo’s. I still think they beat out Grimaldi’s for their pizza. We even spoke with the owner’s son who runs the joint now and he described to us the ins and outs of their pizza, which was very informative.

Later, Jes and I took the R Train back into Manhattan and stopped at Fifth Ave. Jes had to check out the giant Apple Store and then we walked across the stree to Central Park. On our way to the Central Park Zoo, we stopped at The Strand Bookstore, which is right on the sidewalk. I got a nifty moleskine that was New York-specific with maps galore and a bunch of pages with tabs to keep track of all the places I’ve visited. I’ve been using a little notebook this whole time and this will be perfect for all the stuff I jotted down.

The Central Park Zoo is located on the lower east side of Central Park. The admission was $8 and it was totally worth it. It was a little weird to be hanging out with sea lions and monkeys in the middle of the city but it was cool at the same time. The zoo was clean and had a variety of animals. The rainforest exhibit was really interesting with a bunch of birds and other animals I hadn’t seen before.

After the zoo, we wandered Central Park. Jes bought a book to read so he found set-up camp on a bench while I went around taking photos. Over by the pond, I met a little Chinese girl who was probably about 2 years old. She had such a good time chasing the pigeons and watching/pointing to the ducks in the pond. She followed me around and would point and grunt each time she wanted to know what something was. She didn’t say much but tried her best to say “duck” and “pigeon”, which came out more like “guck!” and “jija”, respectively. Meanwhile, her grandfather (I think) was seated on the bench behind us making sure I wasn’t going to walk away with her. Haha.

Jason met up with us around 6:00 and we walked down Fifth Ave to grab a snack and pick up Jia from work. We tried the kabobs from the street cart and it was yummy. Imagine cuts of beef on a skewer grilled over a fire and drowned in a sweet hot sauce. They give it to you on a hot dog bun for easy eating while you walk. It was pretty tasty.

Dinner was at Sushi Samba in Gramercy Park. It was our last night in New York so it ended with an expensive/fancy meal. It’s a Brazilian/Japanese fusion place that served yellowtail ceviche and langosteen soup. The food was good but way overpriced, as expected. It’s a trendy place to go after work for drinks and some eel and mango rolls. Definitely not your cheap New York eats fare or setting.

Here are the photos from Tuesday.