Tourist in New York

Living in New York and enjoying the city as a tourist cannot be more different. While working in New York, the traffic, subway delays, crowded sidewalks all serve to heighten your frustations and stress levels. But as a tourist, you roll with the punches, feeling the energy of the city and all that it has to offer. After living in New York for 2+ years, with family visiting, I finally got a week off in October and an excuse to do the tourist activities:

• Took the ferry from Lower Manhattan to Staten Island. This is FREE and enroute you see the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island and the Manhattan skyline. No need to stay around Staten Island surburbia - get off and run round the ferry terminal within 5 mins to get your return ferry to Manhattan!
• Walk up South Street, passing by Wall Street to South Street Seaport. Marvel at the busy worker bees in their monkey suits! You can also view the Stock Exchange for free but this didn't seem to excite my companions very much (ahem). South Street Seaport has a food court (cheap food) with the most amazing view of the Brooklyn bridge.
• Eat your way around the globe - I like the pizzas at Lombardi's, Buddha Bodai vegetarian dim sum and L'ecole - the restaurant staffed by culinary students serving gourmet 5 course dinners for $35.
• Hang out with the showbiz autograph hunters in Times Square - we got caught up with one group and waited patiently for one to show up and it was....Kirsten Dunst. Oh. We even failed miserably to get an autograph or a photo - our elbow-pushing skills were evidently not strong enough.

Goodbye New York. I will miss some aspects of you but definitely NOT the hit-and-miss subway, the high city taxes, and those huge potholes in the road...onward and upwards!