When my cousin decided to get married, I was happy for him, but less happy about having to travel to the US for the wedding. Especially when we are constantly bombarded with news from Trump’s America. I honestly for years was hoping America would sort itself out before I had to go, but apparently not. Some positives to look forward to were seeing my cousin and his in-laws, the wedding, visiting my other cousins I haven’t seen in a while and adding another country to my bubble tea collection. But the main thing was visiting Mamdani’s New York. I like the New York Mayor’s energy as a politician, so I was excited to visit his city.

Ok, we arrived in Raleigh first, then stayed a few days for the wedding; all that time went into wedding preparations. I did explore a bit of it, but it’s really unwalkable and hot, and I am just not used to that. From Raleigh, as soon as the wedding ended, we flew to New York where, one of my cousins picked us up, and we stayed with him in New Jersey. My first impression as we drove through New York was that I didn’t find it unfamiliar. Like, to me, it just felt like I had always seen these skylines, these bridges, the Hudson River, and the Atlantic Ocean. Quite odd considering I have never been before.

Times Square

A family friend said you could skip Times Square, but I told him, “When will I ever get advertised to that intensely?” He said I was a capitalist dream, unfortunately, for capitalism I didn’t really buy anything in New York. Our first stop was Times Square. Times Square is one of the world’s busiest intersections and was named after the New York Times when they moved their headquarters over there. But what we really want to see outside of New Year’s is all the billboards. And boy did it deliver, there were billboards everywhere, and they changed every minute. There are at least two movies I never knew about that I am going to watch now. We even saw the controversial Sydney Sweeney sports gambling ad. It was Latino Heritage Month, and there were some ads related to it. There was also a concert, but I wasn’t really interested.

Later in the week, on our last night in the New York/New Jersey area, we drove into Times Square to see it at night, and wow! I would truly hate to live there. Because of the billboards’ light, it felt like broad daylight, and there were the same number of people as in the afternoon. We were able to see the location of New Year’s Eve ball. There were some hijinks, and we all kept getting lost, but overall, it was a fun adventure into town. If you could only go once, I think at night really captures the big boldness of it all.

St Patrick’s Cathedral

After Times Square, we took some pictures outside St. Patrick’s Cathedral. After going to Europe, cathedrals really have to try to impress me. St Patrick’s Cathedral is also the seat of the Archbishop of New York and a Parish Church. The Cathedral was created in 1858 and is in the Neo-Gothic style. It is pretty, but to truly appreciate it, we would need to go inside, and we were doing the Cliff Notes version of the New York tour.

Statue of Liberty

After seeing St. Patrick’s Cathedral, we took a ferry to Staten Island. The ferry to Staten Island is free! Yes, free, and you can see the Statue of Liberty on the way. Which is what we did: we took the ferry to Staten Island and saw the Statue of Liberty twice! On the way to and from Staten Island. The Statue of Liberty, a gift from the French, commemorating the national abolition of slavery following the American Civil War, so it was fitting that I saw it while reading the book James by Percival Everett. The Statue of Liberty is really hard to get to, and they don’t really let you roam it like you could before, so I think this is the best way to see it. Considering the lady is blue, it’s so interesting that you can see her so clearly against the ocean backdrop. It is really illuminating.

Chinatown

From the Statue of Liberty, we then drove down to Chinatown, a neighbourhood in Lower Manhattan or the Lower East Side. Where we were, there were a lot of exotic fruit stalls, like they sold Indian Guava that my mum brought. In this area, there are a lot of souvenir shops, and based on my experience, you should buy all your souvenirs and gifts here. It is at least $5-$10 USD cheaper than in other areas with many souvenir shops (like Times Square, Wall Street, and Central Park). One thing I found really odd is how little the people working at the souvenir shop seem to care; in every other country I have been to, they will be fighting with each other to convince you to come to their store and would readily show you everything. But here no one seemed to care. Like, there should be a middle ground between pushy salesmen and no care at all, and this isn’t even exclusive to shops in Chinatown, but to all of them in the city.

Little Italy

Across the road from Chinatown is Little Italy, another neighbourhood in Lower Manhattan or the Lower East Side. Here, there were so many pizzerias and Italian restaurants, including some that looked like tourist traps and tried to get you to come in. At least they are enthusiastic like the Italian ones in Italy. From two different places, we had pizza by the slice, so I got to try New York style pizza. To me, New York style pizza was really similar to the pizza I had in Naples, which makes sense because a lot of the Italian American community have roots in Southern Italy. The pizza was good and was a nice way to end the day.

American Dream Mall

The next day, we went to the American Dream Mall. I know it is in New Jersey, and I am not saying it’s in New York. Now that we have sorted that out, let’s continue. American Dream Mall is the second-largest mall in the US and among the top 50 largest malls in the world. It is next to MetLife Stadium and has over 400 stores, as well as a theme park, water park, and indoor ski runs. Truly wild. I remember, as we were leaving, my mum’s friend saying we had barely scratched the surface of this mall, and I was so confused because we had roamed like 3-4 floors. But reading up on it later, she was so right. We went into some of the shops like Uniqlo (I don’t have a job yet, so it’s no use to me yet), Ulta Beauty (after the wedding, it doesn’t feel like I need makeup, it’s sad), and Gong Cha. Naturally, I got my bubble tea fix: one of the limited-edition flavours they have over there, not the ones I would normally get at home. It was pleasant as malls tend to be.

What really struck me was how empty the mall was! Like, Westfield Newmarket at 9am is busier than this mall at 1pm! I keep hearing about how malls are dying in America, and I don’t think it’s just because of the convenience of Amazon, AliExpress, and Shein. Other countries also have those, and their malls aren’t dying. My theory is they don’t know how to do malls right. The American Dream is a mall you must go to specifically, whereas in other countries, malls are conveniently located. So, you have kids who go to the mall between school and home, and office workers can pop into the mall after work and before getting home. Or having a mall next to an airport. That’s what makes malls tick and lively, not when going to the mall is the event in and of itself. But yeah, we spent two to three hours here before going to have dinner with my cousins in Jersey City.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art (or Met) was one of my bucket list items. I remember telling my cousin, “I am going to need to have two days to get through the Met.” The Met is the third largest museum in the world and has a collection of over 1.5 million pieces. I don’t know how many are actually on view because the collections seemed sparse. We went on our last day in New York, so we had to view everything quickly, so I didn’t get to engage much with the art or the history of the pieces. I noticed that a lot of the European artwork was very familiar to the pieces we had seen in other museums, and we could easily spot which countries’ artwork we hadn’t explored further: the French and British. I was quite interested in the American artwork, but, again, I was disappointed that I didn’t have much time to go through it, and I think I was just so overwhelmed by everything happening around me that I wasn’t in the right headspace to explore the Met. Having said that, I liked this painting.

Central Park

Outside the Met, we went to Central Park, an urban park between the Upper East Side and the Upper West Side. It was big and nice to walk through, good to have greenery in a city as big as NYC. The park was started in 1857 and completed in 1876, and it was first proposed in the 1840s. There are a lot of activities here, like you can go on a carriage ride, ride bicycles along the trails, and enjoy so many food trucks and places to enjoy the sun and have a picnic. Or to have boat rides. We just walked through it on our way to 5th avenue. It is a park at the end of the day.

The 9/11 Memorial

On our way back to Jersey, we thought we would go to Wall Street and look at the souvenir shops there. In the area, there were also the 9/11 memorials. Personally, I don’t remember 9/11, even though it was a busy night at my household. This year marks the 25th anniversary, so we thought we should pay our respects while we were in the area. The memorial consists of two pools with artificial waterfalls, and the names of all the victims are etched on the sides where the original buildings stood. It felt heavy just standing there, so we were not in a state to go into the museum. 9/11, I think, by subsequent generations has been memeified and joked about a lot, and I think being here, you really do remember that these were real people who had real families and lived real lives.

Wall Street

Close to the 9/11 Memorial is Wall Street! Wall Street is a street in the financial district of Manhattan and has become a catch-all term for all the financial stuff that goes on in the US. Like the financial markets, the New York Stock Exchange and the American Financial Services industry. From my research, I just learned they used to sell enslaved people here, how awful! We truly live in a horrible world.

Anyway, we were able to see the Charging Bull of Wall Street. The Charging Bull was created by Italian artist Arturo Di Modica after the 1987 Black Monday stock market crash. He then illegally placed it outside the New York Stock Exchange building in 1989, and it was later removed and placed at Bowling Green, where it’s still located. I guess that’s one way to streamline getting more artwork in the city, cutting the red tape to an extreme.

We saw the Charging Bull and took a photo. I wanted to see the little girl, but I didn’t see her around, so we continued. Browsed some souvenir shops, but that was the end of our time over there.

Summary

From Wall Street, we went back to Jersey City, then did some shopping in the area before packing our bags and flying out of JFK. Saturday felt like a rush, but considering the next stop was Auckland, we had enough time to chill.

According to current population estimates, New York has over 8.5 million people, which is about 1.5 times the population of New Zealand. So, when everyone asked me if I found it really busy and crowded, and I said no, they were shocked. I actually found New York quiet. Like, sure, there are people, but compared to the number of people who were out and about in, like, Rome, London, or Paris last year during May-June, the city was empty. When I pointed it out, everyone said it is the tourist off-season, like I need to come in summer or winter. I, who found the current heat overwhelming (not as bad as Raleigh or Dallas, though), and who doesn’t like being cold, didn’t like the news. But when you are the only one doing touristy things, and there’s no crowd around doing the same stuff, it does feel a bit weird. My sister said, at least we weren’t getting yelled at by locals.

Two things that surprised me about New York are the traffic, which is like Mumbai traffic, and the drivers are just as aggressive. This existed around 2am as we were going from New York to Jersey City as well. Another thing was how the city reeked of cannabis, as it smelled like cannabis everywhere. For comparison’s sake, Amsterdam smelled less like weed, and that city is known for attracting smokers. It’s insane.

What else surprised me was how much Spanish is used there; in supermarkets, prices are listed in both English and Spanish. Yet people don’t get confused, like we apparently would if there were Te Reo Māori everywhere. You hear it everywhere, it made me feel like if I ever moved to the States, I would need to learn Spanish. Honestly, other then time zone changes and the intense weather, it didn’t feel like moving there would be that big of an adjustment. Which is a take because I used to think everyone who lives there is crazy, and now I don’t. But the food, especially dairy products, sucks over there. So many Gujarati people I met over there are vegetarians, and honestly, if I lived there, I too would become a vegetarian because the chicken is as bland as tofu.

So back to New York, I really need to go back like I barely scratched the surface of what the city has to offer, I didn’t see the Empire State building, I didn’t other than the pizza slice and a bagel try any of the food. Or even explore the Met Museum properly; there are other museums we didn’t go to. I didn’t see a Broadway show. But look, I knew that the New York agenda was not going to be up to me. It also didn’t help that everyone caught something at the wedding. I, however, have just invited myself to my NY and Jersey City cousins’ house, so they’d better watch out if I want to go see a Mariah Carey Christmas show. So, suffice it to say, you haven’t seen the last of me, New York!