So How Did We Do On My "No Paper Maps" Policy?

We (mostly I) set out with a goal of not using any paper based maps of New York City (streets, subway, etc.), either in a fan-fold, book, poster, etc., form during our trip. We did succeed for the most part with this goal. We relied on web sites, Google Maps, Windows Live, the GPS in the my phone, and by asking people. The only exception we made was in the Museum of Natural History, where we used a "map" of the floor plan of the place. 4 flippin' floors of exhibits. With Michael the only one that had any sense of direction, Andrew and I needed help. Does that use constitute a failure of our mandate? I don't think so, but I leave that up to you to decide.

So, with today's technology, you can navigate, on foot, around an unfamiliar city without looking totally like a tourist with a map in your face the whole time. We may have looked like geeks, following our phone like a Star Trek tricorder, but we made it for 4 days being jacked into the interwebs the whole time.

Here's a map of all the locations we visited

Google Maps is amazing. You can create your own points-of-interest map. I've done that with our trip. Plotted all the places we visited while we were in NYC. If you click on the little blue place markers, it will show what that place is. I'll eventually link all the places to posts here on the blog, so you can see the pictures and read the story of what we did at that place.


View Larger Map

Day 3 - Coney Island!

Day 3 - Buying a "Rolex" in Chinatown...

Here's a little video chronicling our adventure of buying a "Rolex" in Chinatown. It was well worth the price of admission...

Day 2 - Look who we met!

Day 2 - Inside the Apple Store!

Day 1 - We had so much fun!

Today, we landed around 10am and we boarded a van to take us to the hotel. This van driver was bent on freaking all of us out with his driving slillz...but we got there semi-safe and sound. Our hotel is nice. It's old but recently renovated. Kind of retro-chic. We immediately went to Times Square to take in the sights and sounds (and smells). We went by Planet Hollywood and looked around then walked around and took lots of pictured (see other blog entry for pics). We went to the Virgin Megastore and a giant Toys-R-Us that had a ferris wheel on it! We went back to the hotel and rested and then we to eat at Planet Hollywood for dinner. Then off to Spamalot! It was great! Very funny. After Spamalot we went to the Empire State Building. The line was very long, even at 11:30 at night. It tooks us about 2 hours to finally get to the 86th floor observatory. We took lots of pictures up there. That was it for Day 1. We crashed at the hotel after that.

Day 1 - Michael's left over dinner...

We ate at Planet Hollywood tonight before Spamalot! Food was OK, except Michael's "pizza". Here's what's left of it. Yuck!

Day 1 - The view from our room...

Day 1 - Times Square!

We got to the hotel, and our room wasn't ready, so we stashed our bags and hit the pavement. We walked down to Time Square. About 10 blocks away. <soapbox>One word about NYC blocks: the north-south blocks are short, and the east-west blocks are LONG! Very long. About 4 times longer than a north-south block. So, if you can walk only north-south, do it. Take a taxi east-west.</soapbox>

So here are some pictures of the sites we saw waiting for our room to get ready:

An honest to goodness Canadian Mounted Police. What was he doing in New York City? Must have taken a wrong turn.

Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum. We hope to visit there tomorrow.

He's just glad to be here, isn't he?

That is a big Joker!  Not Heath Ledger's Joker, which was better than Jack Nicholson's Joker, which was better than Cesar Romero's Joker, which was.....

Our hotel. The New Yorker. Great art-deco hotel. Well worth the price. As you can see it was near the subway, and it was near 35th St., and just down 34th St. from the Empire State Building.

A giant painted billboard on the side of a building. My boys from Mythbusters.

In front of MTV's TRL studios.

The real Death Star model (from Return of the Jedi) and a couple of X-wings and TIE Fighters (not to scale.) 

Tired already?!?!? We just got here. We had been up since 4am, but your guys are teenagers. You have unlimited energy, almost super-human. Here I am, a 45 year old gray-haired fat guy, and I out lasted them. Old Guys Rule!

 
As you can see, we saw quite a bit, and we just got here! There is so much to see and do!