Spoonful of Sugar: The Big Apple Day 1

السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته and good day!

Where is the place so good, they have to name it twice. That's right. It's the high rise..it's New York, New York!

I had the pleasure of visiting Manhattan, New York earlier this month. I came here for a conference at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. While I'm there, of course I have to spare some time to visit the place I've been dreaming to go to.

My bestie sent me off at the airport that morning. She was quite worried since I was going by myself. Yes, to the big city all on my own. Another adventure to embark.

I took the American Airline (it was quite a wonderful journey) to JFK. There was a little mishap since I bought a BA ticket. It turns out, a few of BA flights are provided by AA.

Took a cab (the iconic yellow cab). The rate from JFK to Manhattan is a flat rate of $52, but if you add up the tax and the tip (it's a must to give out tip in the States), it'll be around $82.50 in total. I booked to stay for one night at the Grand Hyatt.

It's an expensive hotel, but it is convenient since the Grand Central Station is next to it. There's a bit of story about this hotel. I'll show you a video about it later on.

On my first night here, I've already had a plan of going to a Yankees game. Yankees is one of New York's baseball team, one of the famous one, I guess. There's also the Mets, and Brooklyn's team.

The Grand Central Station during peak hour. It is situated beside the Grand Hyatt Hotel. See the walkthrough here.

I was lucky that the day I arrived, there was a game because after that, there were no more games held at the Yankees stadium after the 2nd of May.

To go to the Yankees Stadium, I only need to take one Subway from the Grand Central Station (the M train) that takes about 15 minutes to arrive.

The New York subway system is kind of like London Underground tube. They are messy and complicated.

As I was going that afternoon, I can see a lot of Yankees and Blue Jays fans going to the Stadium, so I can just follow those who are wearing caps or jerseys,

Mind you, I was the only hijabis there. But thankfully, everybody welcomed me so warmly. They were very nice and friendly.

Everyone that I encountered will wish a great game or enjoy the game.

The stadium was huge. There weren't a long queue, but there were already quite a number of people inside the stadium. There were many vendors selling food, drinks, snacks and merchandises.

There are time limits to when you can go down near the front row seats; meaning that if 2 hours before the game, you can go until the front row, 1 hour before the game, only to where I was standing, 30 minutes before the game, only at the grand stand, which is where I was seating at.

This is the view from my seat.