〈2025-01-10〉New York Trip🗽：Day 5

Today was truly the last day. I had planned it to be a day of relaxing and doing the things I had left to do, with very little planned. I stayed at the hostel until the very last minute before checking out. While waiting for my turn of the bathroom, I had a little chat with a Korean girl who was staying the bed below me. I heard she was staying until the end of this week. If it wasn't my last day, I would have liked to have lunch with her. The hostel where I stayed for four days is called Nap York Central Park. It is clean and the dormitory rooms are well-equipped and as comfortable as Japanese dormitories. But for some reasons, it was very cold. Especially morning. The staff member who explained the hostel to me on the first day could speak a little Japanese and I could speak a little English, so it was a mysterious situation where he asked questions in broken Japanese and I answered in broken English haha.

After checking out, I first went to Hershey's to buy a minimum of souvenirs. I bought 4 sets of chocolates and gummies for $20. I really wanted to buy cookies from Levain Bakery, but there was no space in my backpack😿 I guess I can buy Hershey's in Canada too... I don't have a choice... I also really wanted to buy a New York keychain for myself, but I couldn't find anything affordable, so I gave up. I should have bought a keychain from a stall on the way to Wall Street, because they were $1 each and had cute designs.

I said goodbye to the Christmas tree I had passed many times during this trip and went to a famous old toy shop called FAO Schwarz. It was an ingenious and interesting shop, for example shoppers were throwing boomerangs and selling stuffed animals and slime like pretended play.

I then went to Grand Central Terminal. On the way, I spotted an Art Van Lines(アート引越センター) truck. The Grand Central Terminal looked like a hotel from the outside, and the interior was also amazing, with constellations painted on the ceiling. The ticket center was beautiful and looked like something out of a movie. It was cute that local schoolchildren? were walking in a line after their teacher.

Next, I went to the Marie Belle shop. I realised after I got there that it was a small branch attached to the hotel, and they didn't sell what I wanted. But the shop and all the products were so lovely.

After that, I walked for about 30 minutes to get to Russ & Daughters. At this point, my legs were killing me, as my total number of steps over the five days had reached about 100,000 steps... I saw several times over the trip, why does ‘Super Dry’ have ‘極度乾燥(しなさい)’ in Japanese? (I just found out this shop is a clothing shop!! Seriously?! I thought it was a laundromat lol)

I got to russ & daughters just before my feet stopped moving. There was no one in line and ordering went smoothly. I had an everything bagel made with cream cheese and smoked salmon and all the toppings recommended by the shopper. (I couldn't listen some of it, so I guess it was more expensive than I thought🤔) 

When I visited Vessel just to take a photo, a couple with a child in a pushchair tried to ask someone for a picture but were ignored, so I took it for them. I hope I got a good shot.

I had planned to walk the High Line all the way to the end, but I was going to miss my flight. So I just wandered around the front of it and ate a bagel on a bench. It was probably bigger than a hamburger, and the cheese, salmon, onions and tomatoes were a match made in heaven. The smoked salmon was a bit salty though. Also, I can understand the price from the contents, especially it's in New York. However $20 for one bagel is still expensive.

After asking a few questions to the ticket center staff at Penn Station and having a small conversations with the waiting room staff, my English lesson in the US was almost finished! And, airport security checks are much stricter than when going from Canada to the US. I learned that it's a tough country to get in and out of. On the return flight with Porter Airlines, I fell asleep before I got my snack, but the cabin attendant noticed when I woke up and brought me a drink and a snack. Thank you! I confused figuring out how to re-enter the country, but I made it safely to my home in Toronto! I'll be working part-time tomorrow and the day after, so I'll go to bed early! It was a fun five days! See you next time! New York!

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