Part of a small reason why I chose Philadelphia as the destination for my study abroad, was because of its proximity to other major cities on the east coast like New York City and Washington D.C.. NYC being just an hour and 30 minutes train ride away from Philly makes it so convenient to keep visiting at times during the semester to meet friends from Hong Kong and explore the city even more.
There’s so much to do in NYC that I was not able to complete the entire city in my previous visits. My first day started with taking an early morning train from 30th Street Station. After reaching NYC, we went straight to Chelsea Market for some food hopping. We tried one of the best tacos I have ever had at Los Tacos No.1 to Butter Chicken at the Indian stall and finally ended our meal with milkshakes.
After this, we took a short walk to Little Island for the views and then went on the High Line and walked all the way up to the Vessel at Hudson Yards. The High Line was a really great walk and felt like we were sort of away from the city but were inside of it at the same time. It’s a great place to come for some peace and calm if the city gets too overwhelming at times.
From Hudson Yards we took the subway to Washington Square Park. This was no ordinary park for me, I was really amazed by all sorts of things going around in the park. One corner you have a huge group of people playing chess to an entire jazz band and just a lot more things going on that I can’t even name everything. We were just sitting there and chilling till the sunset. We ended the night at Bryant Park Winter Village where we got some dinner.
The next day a friend from Rutgers University came to NYC from New Brunswick to spend the day with me and my friend from Hong Kong. It was another long day as we started with brunch at a Greek restaurant in Midtown East and then took the East River Ferry along the river to Wall Street. The views on this ferry were insane. I had never seen New York from this side of the river and the views of the Manhattan Skyline were amazing especially because of the sunset. The ferry ride ended at a small Christmas Market where we got some hot chocolate and said bye to our friend from Rutgers.
The night ended with my friend and I heading up to Columbia University at Morningside Heights where we joined some more friends for dinner and they took us to a big Columbia social event where a lot of students were there.
This NYC trip was definitely long as my trip did not end here! The next day I joined another exchange student from Drexel and a couple of other friends for an NBA game. This was primarily the whole reason why this NYC trip happened as we booked the NBA tickets a while back for the Brooklyn Nets vs the Philadelphia 76ers and thought to make a weekend trip out of it. This has been on my bucket list to watch a game for a really long time and I was not disappointed especially because the 76ers won! But I did wish I had seen a home 76ers game in Philly, otherwise, it was still a really amazing experience!
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